1 / 52

From “Good Women” to Gender Equity: A History of the Struggle for Women’s Rights

From “Good Women” to Gender Equity: A History of the Struggle for Women’s Rights. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman…; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature…which is described as feminine.” – Simon de Beauvoir. Definitions.

shirleyoleary
Download Presentation

From “Good Women” to Gender Equity: A History of the Struggle for Women’s Rights

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. From “Good Women” to Gender Equity: A History of the Struggle for Women’s Rights “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman…; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature…which is described as feminine.” – Simon de Beauvoir

  2. Definitions Sex: the biological differences between men and women which are universal and determined at birth. Gender: the social roles and responsibilities of men and women that are created in our families, our societies, and our cultures.

  3. Matrilineal Cultures Kinship is traced through the maternal lines. Property ownership in hands of women. Account for 15% of all cultures. • Hopi • Pueblo • Navajo • Malys (S.E. Asia) • Khasi & Nayer (India) • Tiwi (Australia) • Minangkabau (Indonesia – largest group)

  4. Egalitarian Cultures Shared power and control of material resources between sexes. • Iroquois (women had political control in tribal councils, controlled rituals) • Mbuti (Zaire) • Agta (Philippines – women are the hunters) • Yoruba/Ibo} women had own crops, men had to pay to marry, women had political power • Dahomy – women fought in armies • Arapesh (New Guinea – both sexes cooperative, sensitive • Tchambuli (New Guinea – females dominant & rational; men are submissive, emotional, nurturing)

  5. Polyandry Women have multiple husbands. Women control property and inheritance. • Kaingang (Amazon basin) • Todas (Southern India) • Chukchee (Siberia) • Large swaths of Tibet, India, Nepal

  6. “Please, my dear brothers, let your wives and sisters go to the voter registration process. Later you can control who she votes for, but please, let her go.” – Afghan President Hamid Karzai, trying to persuade traditionalist men to let women register to vote

  7. Paid Advertisement CONSERVATIVES AGAINST BUSH ANNOUNCES THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY NEW PARTY IN OVER 150 YEARS We are against the war in Iraq, illegal immigration, all abortion, same sex marriage, the out sourcing of American jobs, and believe voting rights for women has turned out to be a bad idea. If you want to find out more about us, contact us at the following: The 21st Century Conservative Party P.O. Box 65266 ~ Shoreline, WA 98155 Paid for by Conservatives Against Bush AD printed in the Salt Lake Tribune

  8. Blackstone’s Commentaries on English Law (1765): “In marriage husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband...”

  9. Requirements of the Husband A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife (Matt 28) Let every man have his own wife. (1 Cor) Husbands shall dwell with their wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto them, as unto the weaker vessel. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it (Eph 5) So ought man to love their wives as their own bodies, he that loveth his wife, loveth himself (Eph 5) Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence (1 Cor.) If a husband provide not for his own wife and children, he is worse than an infidel (1 Tim) A man shall cheer up his wife (Deut 24:5) Husbands love your wives, and be not bitter against them (Cor 3:12) Art thou bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed (Cor 1:27) Let not the husband put away his wife (1 Cor) Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth..God hateth putting away (Mat 2)

  10. Requirements of the Wife A wife’s desire shall be to her husband (Gen 3) (i.e. she shall be subject unto him) Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord (Eph 6) Let not the wife depart from her husband (1 Cor) Let the wife tender unto her husband due benevolence (1 Cor) The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband (1 Cor) She that is married careth (or should care) how she may please her husband (1 Cor) I will that women marry, bear children, guide the house (1 Tim) A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband (Prov 42). The woman which hath an husband, is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he liveth (Rom 7) Aged women should behave as becometh holiness & that they may teach the young women, to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands (Dut 2)

  11. A married woman’s legal position was as follows: • Property and possessions she owned before and that she acquired after marriage became her husband’s • Wages she earned were his. • In the event of a divorce, he had custody of their children. • She could not sign a business contract nor sue anyone nor be sued by anyone. • Her husband had to pay all her debts. • [In other words she was not recognized as an independent economic entity.] • On the other hand, if she committed a crime, she was punished for it. [morally independent]

  12. Daumier Lithograph 1844

  13. In the 1820s & 1830s “Jacksonian Democracy” and the evangelical revival known as the “Great Awakening” promoted the notion that regular Americans had the character and intelligence to participate as citizens and make the world a better place.

  14. Lucretia Mott World’s Anti-Slavery Convention 1840

  15. Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony (after 1851) Seneca Falls

  16. Married Women’s Property Acts, New York1860:The real and personal property of any female [now married and] who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rests issues and profits thereof shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female... [and the same would now be true of any property she received during the marriage]

  17. “…the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination of one sex to the other – is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and…it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. – John Stuart Mill (1861)

  18. Victoria Woodhull (1838 –1927) First female stockbroker First woman to open a bank on Wall Street First woman to run for President, 1872

  19. “no woman that was not willing to be dragged through every kennel, and slopped into every dirty pail of water, like an old mop, would ever consent to run as a candidate. Why it's an ordeal that kills a man. And what sort of a brazen tramp of a woman would it be that could stand it, and come out of it without being killed? Would it be any kind of a woman that we should want to see at the head of our government?” -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

  20. Thomas Nast Victoria Woodhull as Mrs. Satan “Get thee behind me, (Mrs.) Satan! I'd rather travel the hardest path of matrimony than follow your footsteps.”

  21. 1869: Wyoming grants the right to vote to women (in 1890 when their application for statehood was questioned the legislature declared “we will remain out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without the women”). 1870: Utah grants right to vote to women 1893: Colorado 1896: Idaho Only states to grant the suffrage in the 19th century [Era of Progressives: Washington, 1910; California, 1911; Oregon, 1912; Kansas, 1912; Arizona, 1912]

  22. Nineteenth Amendment, 1920 Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

  23. Countries Granting Women Voting Rights by Decade 1940sAlbania Argentina Bangladesh Belgium Bulgaria Burma Cameroon Chile China Costa Rica Dominican Rep Ecuador France Guatemala Hungary Indonesia Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Korea, North Korea, South Laos Liberia Malta Mexico Niger Panama Romania Senegal Singapore Syria Trinidad & Tobago Venezuela Vietnam ex-Yugoslavia Before 1910 Finland New Zealand 1910sAustria Denmark Germany Iceland Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland ex-USSR 1920sex-Czechoslovakia Lebanon Mongolia Sweden United Kingdom United States 1930s Brazil Cuba Pakistan Philippines Spain Sri Lanka Thailand Turkey Uruguay 1950s Barbados Benin Bolivia Colombia Cote d’Ivoire Egypt Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Greece Guinea Guyana Haiti Honduras India Madagascar Malaysia Mali Mauritania Mauritius Nepal Nicaragua Peru Sierra Leone Somalia Sudan Tanzania Togo Tunesia 1960s Afghanistan Algeria Australia Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Canada Chad Congo Cyprus El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Gambia Iran Kenya Lesotho Libya Malawi Morocco Nigeria Paraguay Rwanda Swaziland Uganda Zaire Zambia 1970sAngola Fiji Jordan Mozambique Papau New Guinea Portugal Switzerland Yemen 1980s Central African Republic Iraq Nambia Zimbabwe 1990s Cambodia South Africa

  24. As of 2004, women had a legal right to vote everywhere in the world except in 6 countries in the Middle East: • Bahrain • Kuwait • Oman • Qatar • Saudi Arabia • and the United Arab Emirates • as well as in Brunei, a small oil-rich monarchy in Southeast Asia.

  25. During the “Year of the Woman”, 1992, the number of women in the U.S. Senate tripled to… 5 and the 29 female representatives inthe House became 48.

  26. In the 2007 Congress there are 71 women in the House of Representatives and 16 in the Senate, out of a total of 535 elected representatives (16%).

  27. In 2007 just 23.5% of statewide elected officials were women. There were 9 women governors, representing only 18% of the 50 total. (2/3 of all these are Democrats)

  28. The legislatures of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are all more than 33% women, and nearly every other democracy in Europe has a higher percentage of women political office holders than the U.S.

  29. During the 20th century, more than 40 women served as presidents or prime ministers of their countries. And even 76% of Americans now say they are prepared to elect a woman as president.

  30. By 1995, as a result of United Nations efforts, • 139 countries ratified Elimination of all forms of discrimination • 105 ratified Equal Political Rights • 44 ratified Equal Marriage Rights • 127 ratified Equal Pay for Equal Value • 126 ratified Equality in Employment

  31. Only 16% of corporate officers worldwide are women • Only 15% of corporate board members are women • Of the top 500 companies, only 10 CEOs are women • There are no female senior managers in 38% of companies worldwide

  32. Just 69% of U.S. companies have women in senior management positions and just 23% of all senior management positions in the country are held by women (down 6%)– doesn’t even make us in the top 10. • By comparison 97% of Philippine companies have women in senior management positions and 50% of all such positions are held by women.

  33. Is women’s role and identity determined by nature or society? Where does natural femininity end and societal construction of femininity begin? The body and desire: are these sources for shame or happiness? Are they natural or constructed? Good or bad?

  34. Ajax carries the body of Achilles

  35. Menelaus Carrying Patroclus Roman copy of a Greek original (lost)

  36. Brad Pitt as Achilles in the movie Troy (2004)

More Related