Women’s Unit

1. Women’s Unit “If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human possibilities” - Margaret Mead

2. Women fighting to be heard • In the late 19th century and early 20th century, women were fighting for a voice in politics and literature. • American women could not vote • They had almost no political or legal power • They could not own property

3. Women had few opportunities • Education and career opportunities were limited (teachers, nurses, secretaries, and maids…and only if you did not have children) • Little or no financial independence – you had to give your paycheck to your father or husband • In most marriages, the husband made all the important decisions

4. The Right to Vote

5. The Suffrage Movement • Susan B. Anthony leads movement in 1870s • Four states gave women the right to vote by 1900 • Suffragists held marches, protest rallies, and hunger strikes for their cause • All women did not have the right to vote in the U.S. until 1920

6. Feminist Literature • Female authors wanted to show women were strong and intelligent – a radical view at this time. • More women were going to college despite the belief at the time that intelligence would destroy a woman’s beauty. • “Domestic” topics – home, children, female friendship, religion, abolition, suffrage, and love. • Early feminist writers – Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Sojourner Truth, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

7. Reaction to Women Writing “America is now wholly given over to a d—d mob of scribblingwomen, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash-and should be ashamed of myself if I did.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Difficulties for Women Writers • Conflict over their desire to write and their role as mother/wife • Work dismissed as “unimportant” • Writing style criticized as too sentimental and “didactic” (preachy) • Domestic topics not seen as “universal”

9. “I could work as much and eat as much as a man…and ain’t I a woman?” Freed from slavery when New York abolished slavery in 1827. Began to lecture to spread God’s message Spoke for abolitionist and suffragette movements Famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech was given unprepared at a women’s rights convention in 1851. Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)

10. Emily Dickinson • First major American woman poet • Completely unknown in her lifetime; poems were found by her sister after her death • Chose to live in seclusion • Poetry famous for unusual imagery, slant rhyme, odd punctuation • Wrote about love, death, hope, success, nature

11. Charlotte Perkins Gilman • “It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it.”

12. The “Rest Cure” • After the birth of her daughter, Gilman suffered from postpartum depression which affects 10% of women who give birth • Gilman was given the recommended treatment at that time, “the rest cure” – sleep, avoid intellectual activity, avoid excitement, do nothing creative • This cure almost destroyed her

13. A Prolific Career • Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” to challenge the “rest cure” • Also wrote novels, stories, essays and self-published a magazine • All her work focused on women’s suffrage, economic independence, and friendship between women

14. Important Quotations “And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.” “There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver.” "A house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband.”

15. Kate Chopin • Prolific writer – two novels, over a hundred short stories, many poems and reviews. • Began writing after the death of her husband; she had 6 children to support. • Lived in New Orleans and wrote popular stories about Creoles, Cajuns, African-Americans • Very successful as a writer of “local color” stories; published in some of the best publications of the time • Master of irony – surprise twist at the end of the story

16. Until….The Awakening • Published in 1899 • The story’s topic, adultery, and the heroine’s actions were viewed as scandalous. • Heroine viewed as a bad mother, a fallen woman, a selfish human being • Because the story questioned traditional views of women and their role, it ended Chopin’s career • Her work was ignored until the resurgence of feminism in the 1970s