Challenging Patriarchy


1
Challenging Patriarchy

• The Abolition of Slavery and the Emergence of the
  Womens Rights Movement

2
U.S. Declaration of Independence

• We hold these Truths to be self-evident that
  all Men are created equal that they are endowed
  by their CREATOR with certain unalienable
  Rights that among these are Life Liberty and
  the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these
  Rights Governments are instituted among Men
  deriving their just Powers from the Consent of
  the Governed that whenever any Form of
  Government becomes destructive of these Ends it
  is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
  it and to institute new Government laying its
  Foundation on such Principles and organizing its
  Powers in such Form as to them shall seem most
  likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

3
Meanwhile

• Perhaps a third of the U.S. labor force was
  unfree e.g. slaves or indentured servants.
• Political participation to property owners
  about 10 of the population.
• Womens lives were defined by the institution of
  coverture the legal rules that defined
  relationships between husbands and wives.

4
Race Based Slavery

• Inherited status requiring labor to a master for
  life
• No property rights
• No political rights
• No civil rights freedom of speech expression
  movement assembly
• Banned from bearing arms
• Subject to the masters discipline

5
Blackstone on Coverture (1765)

• By marriage the husband and wife are one person
  in law that is the very being or legal
  existence of the woman is suspended during the
  marriage or at least is incorporated and
  consolidated into that of the husband under
  whose wing protection and cover she performs
  every thing and is therefore called in our
  law-French a feme-covert foemina viro co-operta
  is said to be covert-baron or under the
  protection and influence of her husband her
  baron or lord and her condition during her
  marriage is called her coverture.

6
Blackstone on Coverture cont.

• The husband is bound to provide his wife with
  necessaries by law as much as himself and if
  she contracts debts for them he is obliged to
  pay them but for anything besides necessaries he
  is not chargeable

7
Blackstone cont.

• The husband also by the old law might give his
  wife moderate correction. For as he is to answer
  for her misbehaviour the law thought it
  reasonable to intrust him with this power of
  restraining her by domestic chastisement in the
  same moderation that a man is allowed to correct
  his apprentices or children for whom the master
  or parent is also liable in some cases to answer.
  .Yet the lower rank of people who were always
  fond of the old common law still claim and exert
  their ancient privilege and the courts of law
  will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of
  her liberty in the case of any gross
  misbehaviour.

8
U.S. Declaration of Independence

• We hold these Truths to be self-evident that
  all Men are created equal that they are endowed
  by their CREATOR with certain unalienable
  Rights that among these are Life Liberty and
  the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these
  Rights Governments are instituted among Men
  deriving their just Powers from the Consent of
  the Governed that whenever any Form of
  Government becomes destructive of these Ends it
  is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
  it and to institute new Government laying its
  Foundation on such Principles and organizing its
  Powers in such Form as to them shall seem most
  likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

9
Implications for Slaves and Women

• Slavery was incompatible with liberty.
• Coverture was incompatible with liberty.
• And
• whenever any Form of Government becomes
  destructive of these Ends it is the Right of the
  People to alter or to abolish it and to
  institute new Government laying its Foundation
  on such Principles and organizing its Powers in
  such Form as to them shall seem most likely to
  effect their Safety and Happiness.

10
Abolishing Slavery during the Revolutionary Era

• 1787 Constitution banned the slave trade in
  1808
• 1787 Northwest Ordinance banned slavery from
  Old Northwest what became OH IN IL MI WI
• Northern states began gradual emancipation
  between 1777 and 1804 VT NH ME MA CT NY
  NJ PA.

11
Abolition stalled

• 1820 Southern slave states mounted a new
  defense of slavery based on racism.
• Cotton economy gave race based slave labor system
  new economic life
• 1820-1860 Political conflict over abolition
• 1861-1865 Civil War

12
Wartime Amendments to the Constitution and
Slavery Abolition

• 13th Amendment abolished slavery
• 14th Amendment guaranteed birthright
  citizenship due process of law equal protection
  of the law
• 15th Amendment voting could not be denied
  because of race color or previous condition of
  servitude.

13
Reconstructed South

• Economy shifted to free labor sharecropping or
  tenant farming.
• Slaveowners remained in possession of their lands
• Freed slaves took up civil and political rights
  but by and large remained in agriculture in the
  South.

14
Challenging Coverture and Calling for Womens
Emancipation

• Defining the issue Abigail Adams asked her
  husband John Adams to Remember the Ladies
  (1776)
• See also Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of
  the Rights of Women (1792)

15
Abigail Adams to John Adams

• .I desire you would Remember the Ladies and be
  more generous and favourable to them than your
  ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into
  the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would
  be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and
  attention is not paid to the Ladies we are
  determined to foment a Rebelion and will not
  hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have
  no voice or Representation.
• That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth
  so thoroughly established as to admit of no
  dispute .Why then not put it out of the power
  of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with
  cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense
  in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us
  only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then
  as Beings placed by providence under your
  protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being
  make use of that power only for our happiness.

16
John Adams responded

• As to your extraordinary Code of Laws I cannot
  but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle
  has loosened the bands of Government every where.
  That Children and Apprentices were
  disobedient--that schools and Colledges were
  grown turbulent--that Indians slighted their
  Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their
  Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation
  that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull
  than all the rest were grown discontented.--This
  is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so
  saucy I wont blot it out.
• Depend upon it We know better than to repeal our
  Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force
  you know they are little more than Theory. We
  dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We
  are obliged to go fair and softly and in
  Practice you know We are the subjects. We have
  only the Name of Masters and rather than give up
  this which would compleatly subject Us to the
  Despotism of the Peticoat.

17
Aspects of Womens Emancipation

• Property Rights to own property work
• Political Rights vote hold office serve on
  juries participate in political activity
• Reproductive Rights Birth Control
• Social Civil Rights to travel speak in
  public dress attend cultural or educational
  institutions

18
Declaration of Sentiments 1848

• We hold these truths to be self-evident that
  all men and women are created equal that they
  are endowed by their Creator with certain
  inalienable rights that among these are life
  liberty and the pursuit of happiness that to
  secure these rights governments are instituted
  deriving their just powers from the consent of
  the governed. Whenever any form of government
  becomes destructive of these ends it is the
  right of those who suffer from it to refuse
  allegiance to it and to insist upon the
  institution of a new government laying its
  foundation on such principles and organizing its
  powers in such form as to them shall seem most
  likely to effect their safety and happiness.

19
Womens Emancipation

• Changes in State Laws on the Right to own
  Property
• Married Womens Property Acts (1850s on)
• Married Womens Earnings Laws (1870s on)
• Right to Higher Education
• Womens Colleges Seven Sisters equivalent
  institutions to Ivy League
• State University Coeducational Higher Education
  (1850s - on)
• Divorce and Custody Laws changed to give women
  custody of children (late 19th century)

20
Womens Emancipation cont.

• Reproductive rights
• voluntary motherhood (ca. 1880s)
• birth control (ca 1920)
• planned parenthood (ca 1950s)
• reproductive rights (1970s)
• Right to Vote 19th Amendment to Constitution
  1920
• Right to Economic Equality in the Workplace not
  until the 1960s.

21
Limits of the Challenge to Patriarchy

• In the late 19th century a new ideology emerged
  justifying subordination and deference
  separate spheres and separate but equal.
• The new ideology was buttressed by
• scientific racism whites were the superior
  race and the races should not mix
• biological determinism a womans primary role
  is as childbearer and mother.

22
Between 1890s and 1960s for the Freed Population
and Women Limited Equality

• Separate but Equal (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896)
• segregated jobs schools public accommodations
• white primary
• grandfather clauses poll taxes

• Separate Spheres
• Separate education e.g. home economics
• Protective legislation-banning women from
  dangerous jobs
• Separate economic roles which mesh with home
  responsibilities

23
Post World War II

• A Second Reconstruction or Civil Rights
  Revolution
• Second Wave Feminism