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Carolingan
During the Carolingan Renaissance (about 800 A.D.), women were as well educated as men. Although men held all formal power, some wealthy women had considerable influence. For example, often, while the lord of the manor was away at court protecting the family interests, serving the king, or fighting in a war, his wife had complete charge of the manor. She would be expected to report to her husband when he returned, but often that was a mere formality. As was the case for men, poor women had little control over their ghastly lives1.
Medieval
In the middle ages, convents were centers of learning for women just as monasteries were centers of learning for men. For centuries, being a nun was the only vocation open to a woman other than being a wife and any woman who wanted an intellectual life was forced to enter religious orders. In lieu of a dowry paid to a bridegroom or an inheritance, a wealthy man might found a convent for his daughter, mother, sister, niece, or godchild to run, just as a wealthy man might set up a son or daughter in business today. Men even freed themselves of troublesome wives by founding convents for them. Again, wealth, rather than sex, could be more of determining factor in the amount of power a woman was given. Often men benefited from this arrangement. If a convent acquired an especially good reputation, the king or other high-placed nobleman might choose to send his daughters there to study, extending the abbess's and her family's influence.
Renaissance and Early Modern Period
With the Renaissance and the invention of the movable type printing press, men entered into debates on "the woman question" with gusto. Although a few works which were supportive of women were written before the 15th century, Christine de Pizan is generally credited with beginning the discussion of the woman question in earnest in 1405 with publication of her book Book of the City of Ladies . For the next hundred years, the voices writing in support of women were primarily men's voices: women were much to frightened to speak in their own defense. From that time until our own, we have an unbroken record of writing by men in support of women's rights.
And what a record it is. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of works were written championing women. At times, a printer would print a misogynistic work, then hire someone to write a rebuttal - as a way to stimulate business. Often, these books were lists of women of accomplishment from antiquity to their present time, mixing stories of real and legendary women. Other works were more ambitious - making solid arguments in support of women's goals, men explaining to other men why giving women education, for example, would benefit men. A very few men achieved a true feminist consciousness and wrote about why women qua women should be granted rights because it was the intelligent, moral thing to do.
Discussion of the women question followed the path of the Renaissance. Two of the earliest pro-women writers on the women question were Italian list makers: Rhodiginua Lodovico Coelius (b.1450 - d.1520) and Angelo Politiano (b. 1454 - d.1494). As was common for the age, their works would be copied and plagiarized for centuries.
In Declamations of the Nobility and Excellence of Women (1529), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim argues for the superiority of women2. According to Rabil, "His influence throughout the sixteenth century was enormous and continued into the following century, and his text was plagiarized all over Europe." He uses "paradox to overturn the misogynistic interpretations of the female body in Greek medicine, the Bible, Roman and canon law, theology and moral philosophy, and politics. His citations of famous women - drawn from classical Greek and Roman as well as Jewish and Christian antiquity - were employed to reinforce it's arguments rather than merely catalogue famous ( and in some respects anomalous) women" 3. As an example, in discussing the creation story in Genesis, a section of the Bible known for its notorious, misogynistic interpretations, Agrippa writes, "Woman was created as much superior to man as the name she has received is superior to his. For Adam means earth, but Eve is translated as life. And as far as life is to be ranked above earth, so far is woman to be ranked above man.4" Agrippa continues with his feminist interpretation of the creation story for another 5 pages.
In Book of the Courtier (1528) Baldasare Castiglione discusses the proper behavior of a man who wants to have a successful career at court. As the age of chivalry was giving way to the modern era, new rules on proper behavior were being developed. This book remained popular for centuries. Written as a conversation among several noblemen and noblewomen who were trying to describe the perfect courtier, in chapter 3 the topic turns to the proper behavior of a woman at court. What an astounding chapter it is. Castiglione advocated education for women, so that she could be a gracious hostess by keeping a conversation going with astute questions and comments when men ran out of things to say. He addressed the apparent physical inferiority of women by noting that strong men are generally not more respected than educated men, that men's mental accomplishments are more highly prized than their physical strength. So why should women be denigrated because of their apparent physical weaknesses. He also condemned the double standard of morality for men and women as well as the power that men had over women. Like almost all champions of women, Castiglione also addressed the theory of original sin. Castiglione noted that the benefits mankind reaped by Mary more than compensated for what mankind lost through Eve. Castiglione notes that it is much easier for woman than men to remain chaste.
Four centuries before Freud, Castiglione discussed what Freud would term "penis envy". Castiglione has Magnifico Giuliano say, "The poor creatures do not wish to become men in order to make themselves more perfect but to gain their freedom and shake off the tyranny that men have imposed on them by their one-sided authority.5 "
Perhaps in an attempt to drum up business, Edward Grosynhill, an early Englishman pamphleteer wrote on both sides of the issue: his poem, The Schoolhouse of Women (1541) denigrates women while his poem The Praise of all Women, called Mulierum Paean (1542) offers women lofty praise6 .
Sir Thomas Elyot, another early Englishman known to have written in defense of women in his pamphlet The Defense of Good Women (1545).
Frenchmen Francois Poulain de la Barre, a disciple of Descartes, believed that each individual had to discover the truth for himself. If one person had a right to such liberties, then all, male or female, rich or poor, had the same right. The Women as Good as the Men, or the Equality of Both Sexes (1673) and a treatise on the education of women (1674) are his two great feminist works. In the latter work, Poullain critiqued common assumptions about sexual stereotypes. In his earlier work, Poullain maintained that men came to dominate women because "the burden of pregnancy disadvantaged women. Poullain theorized that pregnancy limited a woman's ability to work and made her dependent on a man for help. As more children were born to her, her need for a mate to help support them increased. The result was the evolution of the family. As the family increased in size, it forced a more elaborate system of organization on society." Poullain, then, believed that male dominance was rooted in history and tradition, not in human nature. "Social handicaps, not natural traits, prevent women and poor people from becoming leaders." At times, Poullain openly advocates the natural superiority of women, as when he notes "that women tend to be less disputatious, more open-minded, and quicker to penetrate to the heart of the matter than a man who has been taught the logic chopping and hair-splitting of the university," that women tend to do better in eloquence of speech, and that girls are "cleverer, quicker to learn, more diligent, and more self-controlled than little boys." Further "the unprejudiced observer can scarcely avoid seeing what daily life reveals about the sexes: i.e., that men have no virtues they do not share with women - and many vices that are especially their own." Poullain advocated education for women, and the right for women to use their education by entering into the professions, especially teaching, preaching, the law, and politics, fields where they could employ their special talents for language. "Poullain concluded from his survey of the failings that are commonly said to be characteristic of women that women's faults are neither very serious nor very difficult to eradicate. They are all defects of education, not ineradicable traits rooted in nature." 7
In a sharp break with the conventional style of the day and without reference to ancient or modern authorities, in his wholly secular work, Poullain himself writes in his introduction, "The second part is used to show that the proofs of woman's inferiority offered by experts are all worthless. After we have established the principle of equality by positive arguments, we will explain away the faults of which women are ordinarily accused by demonstrating that these shortcomings are imaginary or of little importance - that they derive entirely from the education that women are given or that they are really signs of a woman's considerable advantages. 8 "
Edward More, in the feminist tradition of his grandfather Sir Thomas More, wrote A Little and Brief treatise called the defense of women (1560). Sir Thomas More educated his daughters well. Indeed, he educated his daughter Margaret More Roper (1504-1544) so well that our contemporary scholars claim to have difficulty attributing works. Apparently their styles are so similar as to be at times indistinguishable. Roper went on to become a translator (from Latin and Greek into English) and woman of letters 9 .
Other early modern pro-feminist writers of note include:
Juan Rodriguez de la Camara (or Juan Rodriguez del Padron) Padron's Triunfo de las donas ( The Triumph of Women , 1438) who struck a new note by presenting arguments for the superiority of women to men.
Martin Le Franc Le Champion des dames ( The Champion of Women 1440-1442)
Bartolomeo Goggio De laudibus mulierum ( In Praise of Women , c. 1487)
Jacopo Filippo Foresti, De plurimis claris selectique mulierebus ( Concerning Many Famous and Select Women, 1497)
Symphorien Champier La nef des dames vertueuses (The Ship of Virtuous Women, 1503)
Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) The Instruction of Christian Woman trans. Rycharde Hyrde. London, 1524, 1557
Galeasso Flavio Capra's (latinized from Capella) Della eccellenza e dignita delle donne ( On the Excellence and Dignity of Women, 1525)
Attributed to Robert Vaughan but possibly by Robert Burdet, A Dialogue defensive for women against malicious detractors (1542)
John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and Trewe Subjects, agaynst the Late Blowne Blaste, Concerninge the Governmet of Women, Strasborowe [J. Daye, London, 1559] (a response to John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstruous regiment of Women [Geneva, J. Crespin, 1558] )
Nicholas Breton, The Praise of virtuous Ladies (1597)
Anthony Gibson, A Womans Woorth, defended against all the men in the world, J. Wolfe, 1599
Ercole and Torquato Tasso, Of Marriage and Wiving (1599) by debates the women question: Ercole anti-feminist, Tasso pro-feminist
I.G. , An Apology for Womankind (1605)
Lodowick Lloyd, The Choice of Jewels (1607)
William Heale, An Apology for Women (1609)
Barnaby Rich, The Excellency of good women (1613)
Daniel Tuvil, Asylum Veneris; or, A Sanctuary for Ladies (1616)
Christopher Newstead, An Apology for Women (1620)
Richard Ferrers, The Worth of Women (1622)
Abraham Darcie, The Honor of Ladies (1622)
Johann Frauenlob, Die Lobwurdige Gesellschaft de Gelehrten Weiber (1631) work derived from Coelius, Angelo Politiano and other Roman sources. His name means "women praise" and is probably a pseudonym
Thomas Heywood (b.1574 c. - d. 1641),
Gunaikeion; or, Nine Books of Various History Concerning Women (1624)
The Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts of the Most Worthy Women of the World (1640)
William Austin, Haec Homo (1637)
Charles Gerbier, Elogium Geroinum: The Praise of Worthy Women (1651)
Johannes Sauerbrei and Jacob Thomasius, De foeminarum eruditione (1671)
John Shirley, The Illustrious History of Women (1686)
Christian Franz Paullini, Das Hoch - and Wohlgelahrte Teusche Frauenzimmer ( The Highly Learned German Female ) (1706)
Johann Eberti, Eroffnetes Cabinet des gelehrten Frauen-Zimmers, 1706, a scholarly list of learned women
After her death, as a tribute to her, George Ballard took Elizabeth Elstob's notes on contemporary English women of achievement and wrote a "Who's Who" of 18th century English women entitled Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1752).
John Duncombe, an Englishman, famed for his Feminead (1754), a poem listing women of accomplishment.
Theophilius Cibber, An Account of the Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland , 4 vol.(1753)
William Alexander, Lord Stirling, (b. 1726 - d.1783) The History of Women from Earliest Antiquity, 2 vols.(1779)
Klein, Joan Larsen, ed. Daughters, Wives, and Widows: Writings by Men about Women and Marriage in England, 1500-1640, Urbana, Il: University of Illinois Press, 1992 may be an anthology of early modern pro-feminist men's writings
Birth control movement
Many early advocates of birth control (late 18th century) were spurred more by Malthus's vision of an over-populated earth than of concern for women's health, lives, or liberty. But many men also desired to improve women's and men's lives, too, but reducing their fertility without sacrificing their sexual enjoyment. Over a century later, their message would be adopted by the 20th century feminist movement as a primary concern of women. Early advocates of and writers favoring birth control and discussing methods of contraception include 10:
Jeremy Bentham, 1797
William Godwin (husband of Mary Wollstonecraft)
Jean-Baptiste Etinne de Senancour, De l'amour, 1806
James Mill, Encyclopaedia Britannica, c. 1820
Frances Place (1771 - 1854) Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population, 1822
Robert Owen
Robert Dale Owen (son of Robert Owen above), Moral Physiology: or A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question, 1830
Charles Knowlton, The Fruits of Philosophy: or The Private Companion of Young Married People
In her book, Contraception and Abortion in 19th Century America (Cornell University press, Ithaca and London, 1994), Janet Farrell Brodie thoroughly discuss dozens of men and women prominent the 19th century birth control movement.
Abolitionists
The 19th century woman's right movement, the first wave of feminism, is largely an outgrowth of the abolitionist movement. Women felt so strongly about the immorality of slavery that they were willing to endure public censure and ridicule for speaking against slavery in public. Their experiences brought large numbers of them to a feminist consciousness: they realized that women could not right the wrongs done to others in their powerless condition and that they had to fight for their own rights and freedom in order to be able to fight effectively for others. Like other Americans, many abolitionists did not favor women speaking in public, but a few influential abolitionists did support women's right to speak publicly about the evils of their day.
James Mott, husband of Lucretia Mott, chaired the 1848 Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention. Several other men also signed the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions including:
Fredrick Douglass's newspaper The North Star was the only contemporary newspaper to print the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions in their entirety.
Married Woman's Property Act
The story of Judge Herttell's attempt to pass the New York State Married Woman's Property Rights Act is told in detail in Yuri Suhl's 1990 book , Ernestine L. Rose, the life story of a unique activist of the 19th century, by Biblio Press. The following is a long extract from that book:
In 1836, Judge Herttell "introduced a bill entitled: An Act for the Protection and Preservation of the Rights and Property of Women. . . . It took twelve years of hard campaigning before the bill was finally passed in the spring of 1848. When he had introduced the resolution in 1836, all that he had hoped it would accomplish at the time was "to elicit public attention to the subject matter of it." But the public was sound asleep on the subject and only a true reformer would undertake the Herculean task of rousing it from its deep and apathetic slumber. That reformer was here. It was as though Ernestine Rose had come at precisely that time so that her arrival in New York would coincide with the introduction of Judge Herttell's Property Bill.She drew up a petition in support of the bill and set out to collect signatures on it. Who, she thought, would be more eager to sign such a petition than women who had all to gain from the passage of this bill? But it was not so. She went from house to house, knocking on doors; and when she explained the purpose of her presence, the doors slammed in her face. In five months' time she had collected many calluses on the soles of her feet, many insulting remarks and all of five signatures! The men would greet her with ridicule and say that "the women had too many rights already." And the women, whether from fear or ignorance, would echo their husbands and say, "We don't want any more rights - we have rights enough."
Though she was not given to moods of defeat, Ernestine had to admit that the women's reaction to the Property Bill was "indeed discouraging, for the most hopeless condition is that when a patient loses all sensation of pain and suffering." But she did not consider her efforts a total loss because, "by depicting their condition to themselves," she said, "by holding before them the mirror of facts, it had the wholesome effect of an irritant, and roused to some extent, at least, their dormant energies.
She sent off the petition with the five signatures to Albany and then set out on a new round of house-to-house canvassing for more signatures to be sent to next year's legislative session, and to the one after that.
For Ernestine Rose, the adventure called America had begun.
Introducing a bill was a relatively simple matter: securing its passage was quite another story. Judge Herttell did not underestimate the resistance with which the legislators would meet his proposed measure. And so when he rose in the Assembly to argue in behalf of his bill he had before him a well-documented address that filled an eighty-page pamphlet.
The main weight of his argument rested on the premise that "The common law of England, by which the property of married women is taken from them and given to their respective husbands, is not and never was constitutional law in this state." He took as his authority for this statement the state constitution itself and quoted: ". . . all such parts of the 'common law' and such of the said acts and parts thereof as are repugnant to the Constitution are hereby abrogated." Did anyone doubt, asked Mr. Herttell, that this 'common law' as applied to the rights of married women was repugnant to the constitution?
Again he returned to the state constitution: ". . . no member of this state shall be disenfranchised or deprived of any of the rights and privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers." Was a female a member of this state or was she not, inquired Mr. Herttell? Let the honorable lawmakers answer that question. And as for the law of the land, he added, let the constitution speak for itself: ". . . no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or PROPERTY without due process of law. . ." Would the gentleman of the Assembly say that a married woman was not a person? Judging from what some men were doing these days, one would indeed be hard put to say what a woman was.
Men, he said, are doing "the retailing of tape, taste [sic], pins and needles; and men-milliners and men-midwives are by no means rare characters."
But there were those who contended that if such a bill were passed it might give rise to marital conflict, shatter marital bliss. Such anxieties, Mr. Herttell assured them, were entirely groundless. He reminded his skeptical listeners that in the state of Louisiana married women enjoyed the same property rights that the law granted to men and unmarried women. Had anyone heard that because of this fact the institution of marriage was crumbling in the state of Louisiana?
Or take the Quakers. Here was a sect that refused to recognize the validity of the "common law," simply disregarded it. For years married Quaker women continued to own and manage their property as they saw fit. Yet, "in no community of mankind has there been more domestic peace, harmony and happiness or less of family contention, disorder, demoralization and misery, than in that of the Society of Friends.
The legislators listened politely, but Mr. Herttell might as well have addressed himself to vacant chairs. If they were at all moved by their colleague's eloquent plea the record fails to reflect it. But the official Journal of the Assembly does tell a revealing story. It is the story of how the first bill to secure property rights for married women of New York State began its long hopeless journey on the parliamentary treadmill, going from committee to committee. And when its originator succeeded in steering it out into the open and holding it there long enough to force a showdown, the Nays invariable outnumbered the Ayes and the parliamentary hocus-pocus began all over again. It is a story of strangulation by committee.
During the sessions of 1838 and '39 Mr. Herttell was absent from the Legislature and so there was no one to disturb the serenity of the Assembly with that nuisance of a property bill for married women. But in 1840 Mr. Herttell was back again in Albany and on January 13, one week after the Assembly had convened, he served notice that he would "bring in a bill to restore to married women their rights of property, as guaranteed by the Constitution of this State." Three days later he did introduce his third property bill entitled "An Act of the More Effectual Protection of the Right of Property of Married Women, to Enable them to Devise their Estate". It was also Mr. Herttell's last term in the Assembly. When he went home to New York his bill was still pigeon-holed in committee.
In the meantime Ernestine Rose was still knocking on doors and with each year the door-slammings grew fewer, the number of petitions larger and the signatures more numerous. Prejudice against the bill was still widespread and stubborn but it no longer dominated the field. Many women became aware of the promise that this bill held out for them and some translated that awareness into concrete and active support for the measure.
Paulina Wright (who later became Paulina Wright Davis) had, independently of Ernestine Rose's efforts, succeeded in collecting some signatures on a petition in western New York. She now joined forces with Ernestine. Sometime afterwards Elizabeth Cady Stanton also became interested in the Property Bill. For these three women this was the beginning of a life-long association as founders and leaders of the woman's rights movement.
Beginning with 1840 they took the campaign straight to Albany, appearing before various legislative committees to argue for the passage of the Married Woman's Property Bill. Ernestine Rose herself addressed such committees on at least five different occasions.
One day, support for the bill came from an unexpected quarter. The landed Dutch aristocracy that had settled in New York State, especially the fathers of married or marriageable daughters of that group, wanted to get on the statute books a law that would grant married women the right to retain their inheritance in their own names. Their eagerness to see the enactment of such a law did not stem from any reformatory motives on their part. They were motivated by a prudent self-interest, a desire to protect their own wealth.
The rate of dissipation was high among the young men of that class and fathers frequently saw the accumulations of a life-time which their daughters had inherited squandered by dissipated and irresponsible husbands. They wanted to make sure that their daughters and grandchildren would be the ultimate benefactors of their wealth. Under existing common law this was not possible. And so the wealthy Dutch conservatives and the radical reformers joined hands across the chasm of divergent interests, for the purpose of achieving a common goal. 11"
The Married Woman's Property Act finally passed in 1848 and Judge Thomas Herttell died about 6 months later at age 78.
In Preceding Causes Matilda Joslyn Gage acknowledges the contributions of two other men in drafting and passing this law. "In the winter of 1836, a bill was introduced into the New York Legislature by Judge Herttell, to secure married women their rights of property. This bill was drawn up under the direction of Hon. John Savage, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes of New York. "
During the 19th century, in every state men, sometimes men like Herttell and at other times men like the Dutch aristocracy, passed Married Woman's Property Acts.
Late 19th Century
The best known male feminist polemicist on behalf of women during the second half of the nineteenth century was John Stuart Mill in his The Subjugation of Women (1869). In her introduction to John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Essays on Sex Equality, Alice Rossi12 writes, "The Mills espoused very advanced and radical ideas about the status of women, marriage and divorce laws, the right of women to education and the franchise, and the injustice of denying basic human rights to the female half of humanity; but in the area of human sexuality they were very much the products of their Victorian era."
In his anthology of writings by pro-feminist male American writers, Against the Tied: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States 1776-1990, A Documentary History, Michael Kimmel and Thomas Mosmiller present the works of scores of men who have written in support of rights for women. They advocated legal equality for women, suffrage, educational opportunities in single-sex and coeducational institutions of higher education, Married Woman's Property Rights, professional opportunities, pay reform, workplace reform, divorce reform, temperance, sex rights, birth control, reproductive rights, political equality. They spoke out against violence against women, restrictions on women as women, rape, male supremacy, the double standard of morality, and limitations of women in the religious sphere. In their introduction, Kimmel and Mosmiller state that they found "over one thousand documents that indicated men's support for women's rights." Much work on the topic of men's support for the woman's movement throughout the ages and around the world is in need of scholarly research. The men mentioned in Kimmel and Mosmiller's work deserve honorable mention. With that, here is the Table of Contents to Pro-Feminist Men.13
| | |
| Thomas Paine | "An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex" (1757) |
| Benjamin Rush | Thoughts Upon Female Education (1787) |
| Charles Brockden Brown | Alcuin (1798) |
| Matthew Carey | "Rules for Husbands and Wives" (1830) |
| Robert Dale Owen | "Marriage Contract with Mary Jane Robinson" (1832) |
| Thomas Herttell | "The Right of Married Women to Hold and Control Property" (1839) |
| William E. Channing | "Emancipation" (1840) |
| Wendell Phillips and George Bradburn | Speeches at the World Anti-Slavery Convention (1840) |
| Jonathan Neal | "Rights of Women" (1843) |
| Martin Robinson Delaney | "Young Women" (1844) |
| Rev. Samuel J. May | "The Rights and Condition of Women" (1846) |
| | |
| Thomas Wentworth Higginson | "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?" (1859) |
| Fredrick A. P. Barnard | "Should American Colleges Be Open to Women as Well as to Men ?" (1882) |
| George W. Curtis | "The Higher Education of Women" (1890) |
| | |
| Matthew Vassar | "To the Board of Trustees" (1864) |
| Rev. L. Clark Seelye | "The Need for a Collegiate Education for Women" (1874) |
| Henry Fowle Durant | "The Spirit of the College" (1877) |
| Horace Mann | "Dedication of Antioch College and Inaugural Address" (1854) |
| | |
| James B. Angell | "Shall the American Colleges Be Open to Both Sexes?" (1871) |
| Editorial, the Amherst Student | "The Other Side - A Reply" (1871) |
| John. M. Van Vleck | "Letter to the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University" (1900) |
| John Dewey | "Is Co-education Injurious to Girls?" (1911) |
| | |
| Robert Dale Owen | "The Property Rights of Widows" (1851) |
| William I. Bowditch | "How Long Shall We Rob and Enslave Women?" (1885) |
| George Herbert Mead | "A Letter to His Daughter-in-Law" (1920) |
| | |
| Horace Greeley | "Woman and World" (1852) |
| Horace Greeley | "Letter to Paulina W. Davis" (1852) |
| William H. Sylvis | "A Union's Position" (1872) |
| Carrol D. Wright | "The Industrial Emancipation of Women" (1893) |
| James Oppenheim and Caroline Kohlsaat | "Bread and Roses" (1912) |
| George Creel | "The 'Protected Sex' in Industry" (1915) |
| Joe Hill | "The Rebel Girl" (1915) |
| Industrial Workers of the World | "What About the Woman Who Works?" (1925) |
| Byron McG. West | "You Can't Do This to Women" (1930) |
| Woody Guthrie | "Union Maid" (1947) |
| | |
| Jospeh S. Longshore, M.D. | "A Valedictory Address at the First Commencement of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania" (1851) |
| Rev. Luther Lee | "Women's Rights to Preach the Gospel" (1853) |
| Melvil Dewey | "Librarianship as a Profession for College-Bred Women" (1886) |
| James Cardinal Gibbons | "On the Opening of the Johns Hopkins Medical School to Women" (1891) |
| William T. Harris | "Why Many Women Should Study Law" (1901) |
| | |
| Fredrick Douglass | "The Rights of Women" (1848) |
| William Lloyd Garrison | "Intelligent Wickedness" (1853) |
| Theodore Parker | "A Sermon on the Public Function of Women" (1853) |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson | "Woman" (1855) |
| P. P. Fowler and John W. Hutchinson | "Kansas Suffrage Song" (1867) |
| Parker Pillsbury | "The Mortality of Nations" (1867) |
| George W. Julian | "The Slavery Yet to Be Abolished" (1874) |
| | |
| Gov. John W. Hoyt | "Woman Suffrage in Wyoming" (1882) |
| Daniel P. Livermore | "Woman Suffrage Defended" (1885) |
| Rev. Charles Clark Harrah | "Jesus Christ - The Emancipator of Women" (1888) |
| James Freeman Clarke | "Woman Suffrage" (1889) |
| Finley Peter Dunne | "Mr. Dooley on Woman's Suffrage" (1909) |
| J. A. Wayland | "Bully for the Women" (1911) |
| Edward J. Ward | "Women Should Mind Their Own Business" (1912) |
| Gen. E. Estabrook | "The Taxation Tyranny" (1912) |
| David Lloyd Garrison | "Suffrage and ?S" (1913) |
| Arthur Neil Rhodes | Women's Suffrage and Intemperance (1914) |
| Samuel Fraser | "What Are You Going to Do November Second?" (1914) |
| Samuel McChord Crothers | Meditations on Votes for Women (1914) |
| William Benedict | Letter to the New York Times (1915) |
| Eugene Debs | "Woman - Comrade and Equal" (n.d.) |
| Hon. Robert H. Terrel | "Our Debt to Suffragists" (c. 1915) |
| W. E. B. DuBois | "Votes for Women" (1917) |
| A. Phillips Randolph | "Woman Suffrage and the Negro" (1917) |
| A. Caswell Ellis | " Why Men Need Equal Suffrage for Women" (1918) |
| William Pickens | "The Kind of Democracy the Negro Race Expects" (1918) |
| Frank McCullough | "Some Questions for Woman Suffragists, from a Mere Man" (1919) |
| | |
| Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise | "Statement on suffrage" (1907) |
| Editorial, the New York Times | "The Heroic Men" (1912) |
| James Lee Laidlaw | "Statement at National American Woman Suffrage Convention" (1912) |
| Charles A. Beard | "The Common Man and the Franchise" (1912) |
| Max Eastman | "Who's Afraid? Confession of a Suffrage Orator" (1915) |
| Omar Elvin Garwood | "Fifteen Reasons Why I Am in Favor of Universal Suffrage" (c. 1915) |
| Wilmer Atkinson | "Nuts to Crack" (1916) |
| Lincoln Steffens | "Woman Suffrage Would Increase Corruption" (1917) |
| | |
| Henry A. Wallace | "Statement on the Equal Rights Amendment" (1944) |
| William Z. Foster | "On Improving the Party's Work Among women" (1948) |
| | |
| Theofore D. Weld | "Man's Disparagement of Woman in All times and Climes" (1855) |
| Walt Whitman | "A Woman Waits for Me" (1856) |
| Ezra Heywood | Cupid's Yokes (1879) |
| Lester F. Ward | "Our Better halves" (1888) |
| Judge Ben Lindsey | "Animal Rights for Women" (c. 1890) |
| Praxedis Guerrero | "The Woman" (1910) |
| Eugene Hecker | A Short History of Woman's Rights (1910) |
| Ricardo Flores Magon | "To Women" (1910) |
| Arthur Meier Schlesinger | "The Role of Women in American History" (1922) |
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| Stephen Pearl Andrews | "Love, Marriage and Divorce" (1853) |
| Henry Brown Blackwell | "Letters to Lucy Stone" (1853-1854) |
| Henry Brown Blackwell and Lucy Stone | "Protest" (1855) |
| Ramon Sanchez | "Letter to His Sister" (1862) |
| B. O. Flower | "Prostitution Within the Marriage Bond" (1880?) |
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| Robert Dale Owen | Moral Physiology (1831) |
| John Humphrey Noyes | "Male Continence" (1877) |
| Lester F. Ward | "Socio-Sexual Inequalities" (1883) |
| Thorstein Veblen | "The Economic Theory of Woman's Dress" (1894) |
| William Sanger | "Statement at His Trial" (1915) |
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| Upton Sinclair | "The Double Standard - A Parable of the Ages" (1913) |
| Walter Lippmann | "A Note on the Woman's Movement" (1914) |
| George Middleton | "What Feminism Means to Me" (1914) |
| Hutchins Hapgood | "Learning and Marriage" (c. 1915) |
| Floyd Dell | "Feminism for Men" (1917) |
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| Gore Vidal | "Woman's Liberation Meets Miller-Mailer-Manson Man" (1972) |
| John Lennon | "Woman is the Nigger of the World" (1972) |
| Herbert Marcuse | "Marxism and Feminism" (1974) |
| Ed Asner | "Speech on Men supporting Women" (1987) |
| Rev. Jesse Jackson | "Ensuring the Dignity and Equality of Women" (1988) |
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| Louis Kampf and Dick Ohmann | "Men in Women's Studies" (1983) |
| Alex McDavid | "Feminism for Men 101" (1986) |
| Harry Brod | "Scholarly Studies of Men" (1990) |
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| Walter P. Reuther | "Policy Regarding Challenge to State Protective Laws" (1970) |
| Leonard Swidler | "No Penis, No Priest" (1973) |
| Bishop Paul Moore, Jr. | "Statement at the Ordination of Rev. Mary Michael Simpson" (1979) |
| Fred Small | "59 Cents" (1981) |
| Robert Reich | "Wake-Up Call" (1989) |
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| Howard Cosell | "Why I Support the ERA" (1975) |
| Alan Alda | "Alan Alda on the ERA: Why Should Men Care?" (1976) |
| Joseph H. Pleck | "Men's Power with Women, Other Men, and Society: A Men's Movement Analysis" (1977) |
| Men Allied Nationally for the Equal Rights Amendment | "Eleven Ways Men Can Benefit from the ERA" (1978) |
| Tim Wernette, Alan Acacia, and Craig Scherfenberg | "Male Pride and Anti-Sexism" (1980) |
| Robert Brannon | "Statement on the Formation of the National Organization for Changing Men" (1983) |
| Rep. Don Edwards | "Speech Reintroducing the ERA" (1989) |
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| William Jennings Bryan Henrie, D. O. | "A New Look at Abortion" (1966) |
| Isaac Asimov | "Uncertain, Coy, and Hard to Please" (1969) |
| Carl Wittman | "A Gay Manifesto" (1972) |
| Kalamu ya Salaam | "The Struggle to Smash Sexism is a Struggle to Develop Women" (1980) |
| Peter Blood, Alan Tuttle, and George Lakey | "Understanding and Fighting Sexism: A Call to Men" (1981) |
| Tim Beneke | Men on Rape (1982) |
| Abelardo Delgado | "An Open Letter to Carolina" (1982) |
| Gordon Mott | "Following a Wife's Move" (1985) |
| Men Who Care About Women's Lives | "Why We March" (1989) |
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| Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity | "Statement of Position on Sexual Abuse" (1985) |
| John Stolenberg | "The Pro-Feminist Men's Movement: New Connections, new Directions"(1988) |
| Justice Harry Blackmun | "Dissent on Webster v. Reproductive Services" (1989) |
| Sen. Joseph Biden, Jr. | "Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 'Violence Against Women Act of 1990' "(1990) |
| National Organization for Men against Sexism | "Statement of Principles" (1990) |
Fredrick Douglass remained a true friend of women until his death, publishing numerous essays between 1848 and 1880 which supported rights for women. His newspaper, The North Star, was the only contemporary paper to publish the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions of the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights convention of 1848 in its entirety.
Men were instrumental in opening higher education to women: Michael Vassar founded Vassar College for women.
Contemporary
Today, more men than ever are speaking out for equality for women. Some of these men show their pro-feminist stance by active involvement in feminist organizations, others by making traditional men's organizations female friendly, still others by working in their community, in their homes, schools, churches, and workplaces, to make life better for women.
Here are the stories of a few contemporary men who may one day become Feminist Forefathers.
A tribute from Polly Rothstein, President of Women Leaders On-Line (WLO) about Bob Fertik of WLO:
I've known and worked very closely with Bob on abortion rights since 1983.We invented ProChoice IDEA together (he coined the name), we co-wrote the original article (his idea) describing Nita Lowey's first election to Congress with our help and using our process, wrote a handbook about it together, founded the ProChoice Resource Center, and plotted political strategy together. Our ideas have been carried out and have turned Westchester into a pro-choice county and WCLA into a political powerhouse.Then there are the thousands of men who support their activist wives without complaint, who proudly attend countless political events as 'Mr. Jane Doe', who identify themselves at the husband of Mary Smith, or who, often thanklessly and tirelessly, work in their local communities to improve women's livesBut he'd rather give me credit than take his due. Bob is a visionary who takes things a step further than others would, because it wouldn't occur to them. WLO WOC was his idea, his vision, his doing, and is the result of his persistence and his and Antonia's funding.
Bob's pre-WLO newsletter, Political Woman, was absolutely brilliant in its insights and beautifully written political commentary regarding women in politics. It was held in high esteem by everyone. I've asked him to write more long pieces for WLO, but he says he has too little time. It's a pity. He sees the big picture. I can truthfully say he's brilliant. He's also the best father I have ever observed, from the day his extraordinary son Teddy was born.
I've suffered greatly when Bob has been excluded from inner circles, ignored, put down, or not trusted by powerful (but sometimes limited) women because he's a man. What a loss. The primary problem women have with government is that the alpha males feel they can disregard us, brush us off, and vote our rights away. We can attribute that directly to the pathetic and glaring lack of feminist and pro-choice leadership on the national level. As far as I can see, those with the clearest vision and the ability to articulate it best are Gloria Steinem, Faye Wattleton, and Bob Fertik.
So this Father's Day, remember the many men who have tried to make women's lives better, because they knew it was the right thing to do.
This article was written in memory of my father, Edward Cross (1924-1998), who somehow forgot to teach me that women weren't supposed to be able to or be inclined to do many things, and who always took pride in my achievements. He was a good father and a good man; I shall miss him deeply.
Footnotes
1 Dhuoda, Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for Her Son, Introduction by Carol Neel, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1991
2 Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex (1529), translated and edited with an Introduction by Albert Rabil, Jr., reprinted University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1996
3 quotes about Agrippa, Rabil p.3 - 4
4 Agrippa, p. 44
5 Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, (1528) translated and with an Introduction by George Bull, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, 1976
6 Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara F. McManus, Half Humankind, Contexts and Texts of the Controvery about Women in England, 1540-1640, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1985
7 Francois Poulain de la Barre, The Equality of the Sexes, (1673) translated with an Introduction by A. Daniel Frankforter and Paul J. Morman, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, Lampeter, and Queenston, 1989, introduction, quotes in this paragraph from p. xxxii, xxxiv, xxxv-xxxvi, xxxvii, xlii-xliii
8 Francois Poulain de la Barre, The Equality of the Sexes, (1673) translated with an Introduction by A. Daniel Frankforter and Paul J. Morman, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, Lampeter, and Queenston, 1989, p. 7
9 Joanne Shattock, The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1991, p. 368-369
Katharina M. Wilson, Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1987, p. 449-465
10 Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists by John T. Noonan, Jr., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1966
11 Yuri Suhl, Ernestine L. Rose, Biblio Press, New York, 1990 pp. 54-60
12 Alice Rossi (ed.), John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Essays on Sex Equality, University of Chicago, Chigago and London, 1970 p. 50
13 Michael Kimmel and Thomas Mosmiller, Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States 1776-1990, A Documentary History, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992
sunshine@pinn.net
Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
last updated June 6, 1998