Study Questions on Early Feminism
and the Suffrage Movement
Lillith
Before the First feminists (X)
- Who was the first feminist? How far back does feminism go?
- What are the earliest complaints and calls for reform from the first feminists? What do they ask for first?
Seneca Falls, RCG, 390-4
First Feminists (X)
Pollock,"Gender, Justice, and Social Control"(X)
- What was the legal situation of women in America prior to the twentieth century? What were the landmark events that helped to change that?
- Can we look at the history of feminism in term of the circles of control and in terms of types of social control? What events, court cases, and laws affected which circles of control? How have educational and legal systems controlled women?
- How does the history of laws about African Americans, Native Americans, Chinese Americans, and gays and lesbians reflect on the situation of women historically?
- What are the actual links between the movements to gain civil rights for African Americans and women?
- What is the nineteenth-century doctrine of "separate spheres," and how did it limit women's choices?
- When did American women fist call for the vote? How long did it take to get it? What activities led up to women getting the vote? How many times was the motion to amend presented to the US Congress?
Anti-Suffragists, RCG, 394-99
"The Vassar Model" (X)
Quotations about Women's Health Issues in the 19th Century (X)
- What stereotypical attitudes about women and women's difference from men are revealed and reinforced by nineteenth-century medicine? How did these ideas reflect and influence expectations about what women were capable of accomplishing? How are these ideas exemplified by attitudes towards women in the anti-suffragists papers?
- Can you think of examples of the persistence of nineteenth-century medical and social ideas about women into the present day?
- Make a list of the accusations made against suffragists by the anti-suffragists. (I count almost 20) How many of these same claims and prophecies are made against feminists now?
