It is the belief in the equity of the sexes in cultural, economic, and political matters. Although it originated primarily in the West, feminism is now found worldwide and is represented by various organizations dedicated to advancing women’s rights and interests.
Throughout most Western history, women were restricted to the home, while males were allowed to participate in public life. Women have been forbidden to own property, study, or participate in public life in medieval Europe. By the 19th century, ladies in France did still required to cover their heads in public, and a husband could still sell his wife in areas of Germany.
Yet being late as the early twentieth century, women in Europe and most of the United States (although many territories and states gave women’s suffrage decades before the federal government) could not vote or occupy an elected office. Women were barred from conducting business without a male representative, whether it was a father, brother, spouse, legal agent, or even a son. Without the approval of their husbands, married women could not exert control over their children.
Furthermore, women had little or no access to education and were banned from entering most occupations. Such limitations on women still exist in some regions of the world today. There is no indication of early organized opposition to such limited status.
When consul Marcus Porcius Cato fought attempts to abolish rules restricting women’s use of luxury commodities in the third century BCE, Roman women packed the Capitoline Hill and blocked every entrance to the Forum.
“What will they not try now that they are victorious?” Cato sobbed. “They will have become your superiors as soon as they begin to be your equals.” That insurrection, on the other hand, was unusual. Just a few voices spoke out against women’s lower status for most of recorded history, foreshadowing future debates. Christine de Pisan, the first feminist philosopher, challenged conventional attitudes about women in late 14th and early 15th-century France with a bold demand for female education.
Disclaimer: The following Press Release comes to you under a network of a strategic syndication partnership with PR Newswire. Prittle Prattle News takes no editorial responsibility for the same.
