Women movement in History in the period 1805 to 1850

The modern history of European Women has emerged out with major importance just after the
French evolution. The power and authority of Women is the major issue associated with the
theory of the French evolution. Women played a big role through cultural conversation to bring
about the fact of women’s citizenship. So, it was a major democratic revolution well supported
by both men and women on behalf of women but with no major promise. Women's experience of
participation in politics and the set of rich and continuous texts inherited in the last decade of
18th century , circulated feminist ideas across Europe, America and certainly around the world.

The Revolution introduced legislation endowing women with legal rights unprecedented in
Europe, including the proper to have property and sign contracts in their own names. On the
streets of Paris, before the legislature, and in their own organizations, women challenged the
Revolution's designation of women as passive, i.e., nonvoting—citizens. They claimed for
themselves the perquisites of active citizenship. Encouraged by revolutionary leaders in Paris
and active participation by women in the momentous events of the Revolution promised them a
new status as social and political actors.

By 1804, consolidation of French law under the Napoleonic Code legislated women's
subordination, dismiss their civil rights as gained earlier. However the French Revolution made
the status of women a central component of democratic revolutions, by briefly changing
women's status before the law, and by allowing women to act as citizens This left a record
against which feminist activity could be measured in the early part of 19th century between 1805
& 1850.

The most interesting development in the period between 1805 & 1850 is the Utopian feminism
within three different social movements of early-nineteenth-century Europe: (a) socialism, (b)
evangelical revivals, and (c) democratic and nationalist movements. The term "utopian" was one
used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto (1848) to contrast their
own scientific, materialist understanding of socialism with earlier European movements for
social justice.

"Utopian" refers to a range of early-nineteenth-century movements working toward the radical

transformation of society. Utopian feminism marked a movement faraway from the French
Revolution's emphasis upon individual and civil rights, to imagining new sorts of social
organisation , of labor and family life, of production and reproduction.

In England and France, Utopian socialist movements connected women's oppression to

economic and political concerns. Groups of men and women followed their energetic leaders and
devoted themselves to the creation of new social orders based on cooperation, love, and peace.
In the 1820s and 1830s, groups of Saint-Simonians, Fourierists, and Owenites grew up and
developed in England, France, Egypt, and the America, with blossoming in Spain and Italy in the
1840s.

Women working within these movements speculated connections between women's sexual
subordination and the social and economic oppression of class. They drew similarities between
bourgeois marriage, prostitution, and slavery, and they implemented innovative cooperative
measures for child care and domestic labour.

There was focus upon women's difference from men and upon the social and economic
consequences of women's sexual subordination by the Utopian socialist feminists. Irish Owenists
Kelvin and Anna Doyle Wheeler addressed women's sexual repression in relationship to their
lack of political representation.

In an 1825 manifesto, entitled “Appeal of 1 Half the humanity , Women, against the Pretensions
of the opposite Half, Men and to retain them in political and thus , in Civil and Domestic
Slavery, they argued against the notion that women's interests were subsumed under their
husbands”, countering that ladies should have equality of political representation.

Thompson and Wheeler argued also for the collectivization and mechanization of labour to assist
women in child care and, ultimately, for the ending of the wage relation through the removal of
private capital.

Utopian feminism sprang from three early-nineteenth-century European social movements:

socialism, evangelical revivals, and democratic and nationalist movements. These strains of
utopian feminism arose from male radical groups, and they all appropriated language and
imagery for the sake of women's liberation. In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels introduced the term "utopian" to contrast their scientific, materialist conception
of socialism with prior European social justice movements. In this sense, "utopian" refers to a
variety of early-nineteenth-century movements aimed at radical social reform. Utopian feminism
was a shift faraway from the French Revolution's specialise in individual and civil rights, and
toward imagining new sorts of social organization , work and family life, production and
reproduction.

In England and France, utopian socialist organisations linked women's oppression to economic
and political issues. Following charismatic leaders, groups of men and women dedicated
themselves to the development of new social systems based on collaboration, love, and peace.
Saint-Simonians, Fourierists, and Owenites flourished in England, France, Egypt, and the
Americas in the 1820s and 1830s, with flowerings in Spain and Italy in the 1840s. Women
involved in these campaigns postulated links between women's sexual subordination and class
oppression on social and economic levels. They drew parallels between bourgeois marriage,
prostitution, and slavery, and they put in place innovative cooperative child care and domestic
work policies.Women's differences from males, as well as the social and economic repercussions
of women's sexual subjugation, were the focus of utopian socialist feminists.

Evangelical revivals in Europe, both Protestant and Catholic, produced other groupings of
utopian feminists. Religious dissenters formed breakaway groups during which men and ladies
developed social and political critiques of women's roles in modern society. These included the
novel Utilitarians in London, Quaker prayer meetings within the us and Britain, charity
organizations in Holland and Switzerland, and Free Protestants and German Catholics within the
German-speaking lands. Members of these groups considered new modes of social organization ,
giving women leadership roles in their communities.

Women sat on councils, edited journals, circulated petitions, and worked for course . Radical
Utilitarians in Britain went so far on argue for the inclusion of female suffrage on the Chartist
platform of demands within the 1840s. Involvement of those evangelical organizations within the
international antislavery movement imbibed great feelings with impressive and influencing
vocabulary. they might discuss domestic relationships, analogies between women's condition
which of real slaves frequently characterized their critique of women's position in society.
Feminists in subsequent organizations would claim the movement of girls on behalf of the
abolition of slavery as a crucial precursor to later feminist activity.

A final grouping of utopian feminists grew out of the democratic and nationalist movements
flourishing during the 1848 revolutions in Europe. Working and middle-class women within the
German-speaking lands, in Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, formed political clubs and
mobilized around a spread of issues, including the abolition of forced slavery and therefore the
future freedom from bondage of their nation-states.

Women also played a central role within the radical democratic Chartist movement in England.
While much of this feminist activity was stimulated by concern for the deplorable social
conditions arising out of early industrialization, its focus was upon democratic issues and
bridging social distance between women of the middle and dealing classes. However, the failure
of the 1848 revolutions to effect real, democratic change indicated the collapse of those
feminists' attempts at social and political transformation.

Along with African Americans, women of all races and ethnicities have long been discriminated
against within the us , and thus the women’s rights movement began at an equivalent time
because the movement to abolish slavery within the us . The women’s movement happened
largely as a results of the difficulties women encountered while trying to abolish slavery. The
trailblazing Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights was held in 1848, a few of years before
the war . But the abolition and African American civil rights movements largely eclipsed the
women’s movement throughout most of the nineteenth century.

Women's interpretations within the antebellum period have traditionally focused on the concept
of public and personal gender realms. The comparative method taken shows the extent to which
this legislative harshness, also because the ongoing injustices against women contained, hindered
women's capacity to exercise their rights throughout time.

Works Cited
 Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860
by Carolyn J. Lawes
Published by: The University Press of Kentucky
Imprint: The University Press of Kentucky
 https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century
 Jordan, Constance. Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca, N.Y., and London,
1990.
 Kaplan, Gisela. Contemporary Western European Feminism. New York, 1992.
 https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_CLIO1_043_0250--women-s-rights-in-civil-law-in-europe.htm