Showing papers on "Emancipation published in 1975"

Women's Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Abstract: There is a great deal of confusion about the history of women's work outside the home and about the origin and meaning of women's traditional place within the home. Most interpretations of either of these questions depend on assumptions about the other. Usually, women at home in any time period are assumed to be non-productive, the antithesis of women at work. In addition, most general works on women and the family assume that the history of women's employment, like the history of women's legal and political rights, can be understood as a gradual evolution from a traditional place at home to a modern position in the world of work. Some historians cite changes in employment opportunities created by industrialization as the precursors of legal emancipation. Others stress political rights as the source of improved economic status. In both cases, legal-political and economic ‘emancipation’ usually are linked to changes in cultural values. Thus William Goode, whose World Revolution and Family Patterns makes temporal and geographic comparisons of family patterns, remarks on what he calls ‘the statistically unusual status of western women today, that is their high participation in work outside of the home’.

The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany

Abstract: The Gay Rights Movement in the Weimar Republic. Goals and intentions-Michael Neureiter 2021-03-16 Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Cultural Studies GLBT / LGBT, grade: 1,0, Eastern Illinois University, language: English, abstract: This paper examines the course of the homosexual liberation movement in Weimar Germany (1919-1932). The study is guided by the following research question: what were the goals of the gay rights movement in the Weimar Republic? In order to answer this question, the main actors who belonged to this movement will be identified. This brief description of the homosexual emancipation movement in Weimar Germany is followed by an examination of its four main goals, which includes the context in which they were pursued, the means which were employed to achieve them and how successful the movement was in its efforts. A concluding section then summarizes the main findings of this study and connects them with the broader theoretical context of this topic. It is commonly viewed that the struggle for gay rights is a rather recent phenomenon. According to this view, the Stonewall riots of 1969 mark a turning point in the advocacy of equality and tolerance for homosexuals as well as the birth of the gay rights movement. While it is important to stress the significance of Stonewall for the LGBT community, it would be wrong to perceive of the gay rights movement as an entirely contemporary phenomenon. In fact, the struggle for equality and tolerance for gays and lesbians has been going on for quite some time now, more than 150 years to be precisely. Thus, it is important to historicize the course of the early homosexual liberation movement, not only to give credit to the pioneers in the fight for the advancement of sexual minorities but also to better understand the origins and therefore the tactics and obstacles of today ́s gay rights movement and social movements in general. Germany is of special importance to the history of the homosexual emancipation movement: it is both the birthplace of the gay rights movement and the country in which the most gruesome atrocities against homosexuals were committed. Over the last two or three decades, the Nazi crimes against sexual minorities have been examined by an increasing body of literature. The course of the gay rights movement and homosexuals in Germany before the Third Reich has also received quite some coverage in scholarly literature, but by far not as much as the Hitler years.

The Radicalism of the Woman Suffrage Movement: Notes toward the Reconstruction of Nineteenth-Century Feminism

Abstract: The major theoretical contribution of contemporary feminism has been the identification of the family as a central institution of women's oppression.1 On the basis of this understanding we are seeing the beginnings of a revisionist history of American feminism which challenges the significance that has traditionally been attributed to the woman suffrage movement. Aileen Kraditor and William O'Neill have suggested that the woman suffrage movement did not lead to female emancipation because it accepted women's traditional position within the home.2 While attacking this "whatwent-wrong" approach, Daniel Scott Smith has contended that suffragism should yield its claim to the central place in the history of nineteenth-century feminism to a phenomenon he calls "domestic feminism."4 Similarly, in her study of the female moral reform movement of the 1830s, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg argues that "it can hardly be assumed that the demand for votes for women was more radical than" the moral reform movement's attack on the sexual double standard.4 These revisionist efforts are commendable in that they expand our sense of nineteenth-century feminism to include a much larger and more diverse group of women's activities than merely suffrage. On the other hand, I think they do an historical disservice to the woman suffrage movement. Nineteenth-century feminists and antifeminists alike perceived the demand for the vote as the most radical element in women's protest against their oppression and we are obligated to honor the perceptions of the historical actors in question. When considering nineteenth-century feminism, not as an intellectual tradition but as a social movement, as a politics that motivated people to action, twentieth-century historians are in no position to redefine what was its most radical aspect. What we can do is analyze the position of nineteenth-century women and the nature of suffragism in order to understand why the demand for the vote was the most radical program for women's emancipation possible in the nineteenth century. I would like to suggest an interpretation of nineteenth-century suffragism that reconciles the perceived radicalism of the woman suffrage movement with the historical centrality of the family to women's condition. My hypothesis is that the significance of the woman suffrage movement rested precisely on the fact that it bypassed women's oppression within the family, or private sphere, and demanded instead her admission to citizenship, and through it admission to the public arena. By focusing

Slavery and Emancipation in Benin, 1897–1945

Abstract: Slavery and pawning were closely related though different institutions in precolonial Benin society. In many areas of Nigeria and indeed West Africa, colonial rule signified the end of the slave trade but domestic slavery was left undisturbed for quite a long time. The earliest of the slave dealing ordinances merely contained clauses in favour of manumission. In Benin, however, for quite peculiar reasons, the British attack on slavery came with the first entry of British troops into the area. First, emancipation was used to facilitate British occupation. Later, the drive for manumission was a strong expression of the British commitment to a principle which grew out of the ad hoc adoption of measures favouring emancipation.In the attack on slavery and pawning in Benin, the native courts were heavily relied upon as well as the use of ordinances and proclamations. The abolition of slavery and pawning created a welter of problems on the social, economic and political planes.This paper examines these problems and how they were handled by the British administration in Benin. Changes in the society which were the byproducts of emancipation as well as factors which made emancipation possible are also discussed.

The Attitudes of Russian Officials in the 1880s Toward Jewish Assimilation and Emigration

Abstract: The significance of the reign of Alexander III as a turning point in the history of Russian Jewry is beyond dispute. This reign witnessed a sharp deterioration in the Jews’ economic, social, and political condition. Jewish hopes for emancipation from the prevailing discriminatory legislation were dashed. Instead of emancipation, the Jews were presented with new restrictions, on their residence rights, educational opportunities, economic and professional pursuits, and participation in the institutions of local government. Faced with starvation, many thousands of Jews chose to leave the Russian Empire. Others chose to convert to Christianity in order to throw off the yoke of persecution. Moving in the opposite direction, many Jewish intellectuals who had previously believed in the beneficial results to be achieved by assimilation began to question this assumption. Some began to turn to Zionism. Others turned to active Jewish self-defense.

Plato and the Equality of Women

Abstract: A I MONG CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S LIBERATIONISTS, Plato is beginning to emerge as something of a hero. There are laudatory references to him in more popular publications: in her book Sex al Politics, Kate Millett co mends him for the "liberal suggestions" he made concerning the educatio of women; similarly, many years previously, Theodor Gomperz said that Plato proclai s "what we generally call the emancipation of women".1 These writers all ave in mind, of course, that part of the Republic where the question is raised about whethe women should be admitted to the class of guardians, and it is on this familiar passage that I wish to concentrate my attention. I shall not be pri arily concerned with whether, or to what exte t, this sectio is typical of Plato's remarks on the status of women throughout the rest of the dialogues; for it seems to be universally agreed t at it is here, if anywhere, that his most radical views are to be found, and where he emerges most strongly as a sympathiser with the feminist cause. However, the passage co cerned presents roblems, because we find in it t o distinguishable arguments. Each a rives at the same conclusion-that some women are as naturally equipped as some en to be guardians. But whereas the first reaches this conclusion by an appeal to principles of justice, and certainly supports Plato's ra king as an advocate of the rights of women, the second seems to put Plato in quite a different light. For in it he appears to hold the view that men are superior to women, a view which, if it is his (an most commentators attribute this view to him), ould be rather embarrassing for those who regard him as a champion of the equality of the sexes. In pa ticular, it would involve Plato's argument in a major inconsistency, for it would mean his advocating for wo e a position that, on his own account, they did not justly deserve. Nevertheless, as I shall attempt to make clear, I have no desire to tarnish Plato's image in this atter. Rather, I shall seek to refurbish it, so that it may stand better in the face of c itical examination.

Marx, Freud, and the critique of everyday life : toward a permanent cultural revolution

Abstract: The theory and practice of revolutionary social transformation, Bruce Brown argues, cannot rest content with the exclusive emphasis of traditional Marxism on world-historic processes and the struggle of the working classes for their collective emancipation. This means to discover how capitalist rule becomes internalized in individuals who suffer not only from economic and political oppression, but also from forms of specifically psychological oppression that any revolutionary worthy of the name must address. Toward this end of reconciling the personal and the political, the author surveys not only the lessons learned in the New Left during the 1960s, but also the contributions of critical Marxists who have sought to reconstitute Marxism as a critique of everyday life through a critical assimilation of Freudianism into the broader structure of historical materialism.

The Role of Missionaries in the Emancipation of Slaves in Zanzibar

Abstract: A note at the end of one of the documents in the "Pemba Papers" at the Library of the Society of Friends in London reads: "1000 or more actually recorded as having been freed through the direct assistance of the mission, many more others indirectly."1 The document is a "Register of Slaves Claiming freedom at Banani, 1898-1909," reverently labelled "That Holy Book." The number in the note refers to the slaves freed with the direct assistance of the Society of Friends (Quakers). The mission was the Friends Industrial Mission in Pemba, one of the two islands that made up the British protectorate of Zanzibar. The register is of more than passing interest. After leafing through its seemingly dull pages, one might conclude that it is just one more illustration of the traditional Quaker stand against slavery. The curious thing, however, is that the stand represented by the register was taken against a government under the control of a nation which had, during the greater part of the nineteenth century, expended much effort and resources to end the sea-borne slave trade. As late as July 1890, Britain had subscribed to the General Act of the Brussels Conference on the African Slave Trade, a document that has been interpreted by some scholars as the Magna Carta of African freedom, since it was supposedly designed to wipe out the stain of slavery in Africa and to bring to that continent the benefits of "peace" and "civilization."2 One would have expected the nation that assumed the burden of ending the European slave trade, a country that had exercised "moral suasion" in East and West Africa until the 1880's,3 would have been

Road to freedom : writings and addresses

Abstract: A thorough analysis of the background and contradictions of Russian Jewish nationalism serves to introduce Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation. A selection of his addresses and letters on emancipation, women's rights, and nationalism is also given.

William Lloyd Garrison and the “Pro-Slavery Priesthood”: The Changing Beliefs of An Evangelical Reformer, 1830–1840

Abstract: uring the antebellum period of American history, a group of reformers known as the Garrisonian abolitionists sought to effect a moral revolution in the minds and lives of the nation's citizenry. In their campaign to eradicate the national sin of slavery, as they termed it, the Garrisonians censured the actions of all those who would not bear unqualified testimony against the evils of the southern labor system. By so doing, they not only alienated a large segment of the nation's clergy, but also challenged the moral leadership of that influential body as a whole. One of the major participants in the antislavery struggle, Bostonian editor William Lloyd Garrison was so greatly influenced by his involvement in the crusade against slavery that his religious beliefs changed significantly over the decades. The indifference and hostility with which a majority of the nation's "orthodox" churchmen met his pleas for immediate and unconditional emancipation caused Garrison to become estranged from the clergy and convinced him that he should turn to more liberal religionists for aid and religious instruction. Separated from his eminently orthodox Baptist roots, he found it increasingly easy to reject those elements of his evangelical heritage which seemed to do little for man and nothing for the suffering slave. Certainly it is to be lamented that a true appreciation of the religious evolution through which men like Garrison have passed is all too often made impossible by the tendency of twentieth-century historians, writing for a largely secular audience, either to neglect wholly or to treat in a cursory manner the problem of religious change. Although undoubtedly aware that the beliefs which an individual treasures as a child or as a young adult are not necessarily those to which he adheres in adulthood or in old age, scholars often attempt to deal with personal religious faith in a rather haphazard and unproductive manner. By citing only certain major events in the development of a historical figure's religious character

The Cultural Politics of Pop: Reception and Critique of US Pop Art in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract: In the mid 1960s, when the student movement broadened its criticism of the university system to include attacks on West German society, politics and institutions in general, a wave of pop enthusiasm swept the Federal Republic. The notion of pop that attracted people almost magically not only referred to the new art by Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann and others; it also stood for beat and rock music, poster art, the flower child cult and the drug scene-indeed for any manifestation of "subculture" and "underground." In short, pop became the synonym for the new life style of the younger generation, a life style which rebelled against authority and sought liberation from the norms of existing society. As an "emancipation euphoria" spread, mainly among high school and university students, pop in its broadest sense became amalgamated with the public and political activities of the anti-authoritarian New Left.

Introduction to "What Is Socialization?"

Abstract: Korsch's "What Is Socialization?" was originally published in Hannover in May, 1919. Composed in brief paragraphs of an almost didactic character, it defines socialization as the "new regulation of production with the goal of replacing private capitalist economy with a socialist communal economy. Its first phase consists of the socialization of the means of production and the resulting emancipation of labor. Its second phase consists of the socialization of labor." In a Marxist sense, the emphasis is placed on production "as the essence of social relations." Hence, production cannot be dealt with privately, as the capitalist would want, but must be seen as a "public affair of the producing and consuming whole." Having rapidly focused on the concepts of the means of production, capital and wage labor, Korsch arrives at the two "different paths" toward socializing the means of production. One abolishes private power over the means of production for the benefit of the public; the other regulates and limits ownership by means of public laws, with specific public organizations participating in management. The latter is thus concerned with placing production "under the control of the collectivity" without moving on to expropriation. This is Bernstein's solution. Korsch rejects it, because it is inadequate in terms of the ultimate goal. According to him, it does not differ substantially from other forms of pseudo-socialization such as the joint stock company, the subdivision of large holdings into smaller ones, profit-sharing, and even "industrial democracy," limited to mere representation without any decision-making powers. All of these measures deal with "social politics" but not with "socialization." In fact, doing away with the private capitalist is only a precondition for socialization, since production still remains under the control of a restricted group of producers. This new type of "particular" ownership must be regulated so that it will not simply displace "private" property. Thus we are at the center of the conflict between producers' and consumers' interests, between "particular" and "universal" interests. The danger of a new type of producer capitalism (production cooperatives) cannot be overcome by opposing forms of a consumer capitalism (state capitalism, consumers' associations). "The goal of

Social revolution and woman's emancipation: China during the great leap forward

Abstract: The problem of the relationship between social change and the role of women in society is of relatively recent emphasis. Where the problem has been analyzed in the past, serious ambiguities remain....

The emancipation of economics from morality: Mandeville's Fable of the Bees

Abstract: The following essay is part of a study in intellectual history bearing on one aspect of the configuration of ideas and values characteristic of modern civilisation or, as the author calls it, "modern ideology" *. This system of ideas and values has the category of "the economic" as one of its major categories, one of its basic dimensions or reference coordinates. Yet the economic category has not always been there, and it is possible to isolate some of the stages or changes by which it became what it is. A new category, if it is to attain a separate existence, must in particular be emancipated from the old categories which had hitherto dominated the ideological field and prevented its independent assertion. It must get disentangled or, as Karl Polanyi would have said, dis-embedded from the configuration that still ignored it.In this case, emancipation was necessary in two directions, in relation to politics on the one hand, to morality on the other. Locke's Two Treatises of Govemment contains a choice exp...

On the emancipation of mental patients.

Abstract: According to the allegations, mental hospitalization is enslavement for sociopolitical reasons under the guise of treating illness. The alleged purpose of the mental hospital is to isolate the deviant from the rest of society and to enforce docility through neglect or the use of sedation, shock therapy or lobotomy. The hospital is described as a place where patients are tortured, assaulted, mutilated, and drugged into submission. If indeed they are not beaten or drugged, the very nature of institutional confinement is said to dehumanize, depersonalize, and desex.

Ibsen's Nora: The promise and the trap

Abstract: The late nineteenth century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen both guides and haunts the struggle for the emancipation of women. His play “A Doll's House” remains after nearly one hundred years a m...

On Labor and Free Love: Two Unpublished Speeches of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Abstract: Surprising as it might seem, Elizabeth Cady Stanton remains a relatively shadowy figure in the history of American feminism. Much more the individualist and intellectual than her political comrade, Susan B. Anthony, she did not leave a trail of dedicated proteges behind her to record her contributions in honorific biographies.1 Yet her impact on American suffragism was enormous. For the movement's first halfcentury, Stanton was its chief ideologue and theoretician. In the annals of nineteenth-century feminism, only the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman equaled the genius and originality of Stanton's political thought. In her efforts to understand the nature and origins of women's oppression, Stanton consistently reached beyond the accepted beliefs of her contemporaries to investigate daring, often heretical ideas. As a follower of William Lloyd Garrison, she had learned, while still a young woman, to subject all "superstition" to the test of "reason and free thought."2 This iconoclasm, along with her unswerving dedication to the emancipation of women, was the hallmark of her forty years of political leadership. From the 1850s, when she argued for liberalized divorce to the pietistic women of the temperance movement, to the 1890s, when the

Structural pluralism and the Portuguese in nineteenth century British Guiana: a study in historical geography

Abstract: The central questions of this research on the historica1 geography of 19th century British Guiana are "how" and "why" an immigrant group from Madeira (the Po~tuguese) came ta dominate the post-emancipation retail trade of the colony. The "how' could and has been answered by examining the evo1ution and deve1opment of retailing both before and afterthe emancipation act of 1834. The "why" has been difficult to determine, but a recourse to plural society theory suggested where one should inquire. By asking for "whom" the creation of a plural society was so necessary; and "who" else, besides the Portuguese benefited from Portuguese control of the retail trade, one received sufficient clues and direction to know where 'to look. Evidence was uncovered which established that the Portuguese initially received help from the European elite. In contrast, the Negroes were repressed because the planter interest, wished to restrict them to state labour. Planter support of the Portuguese and substantial indentured, immigration from India enabled the elite to maintain its control of the colony by establishing and perpetuating ethnic divisions in the colony's econorny, society, and geography. The result was the creation of a st ucturally plural society.

The emancipation of russian women: a struggle for intellectual equality

Abstract: The basic characteristics of the feminist movements during the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States could be summarized under two main headings: the struggle for complete political and social equality of women with men; and the struggle for equal educational opportunities which could eventually, with the fulfillment of the first demand, lead to the complete economic independence of women from men. In Russia, with the liberalizing laws and the great hopes of the 1860's, the question of political and social freedom was considered by most Russian women not as their own problem but as a common social problem. It was in the field of education that they felt separate and inferior and where they searched for special remedies.

Les paradoxes de Linguet

Abstract: Brigitte Burmeister : Linguet's paradoxes. ; The social theories of Linguet (1736-1794) combine lucid criticism of 18th-century capitalism with pessimistic, even reactionary conclusions. In his Theory of Civil laws (1767), a critique of the Esprit des lois, Linguet begins with a description of the suffering caused by social inequality, to finish with a plan of reform which rejects any social change. Taking as a starting-point two " paradoxes " of Linguet — his apologies for slavery and for oriental despotism — the author demonstrates how these theories reveal the limitations of Enlightenment ideology by reflecting the contradictions of capitalistic society, insoluble within the framework of bourgeois emancipation. This results in the case of Linguet, not in a communistic Utopia but in an equally utopie, and yet reactionary, rejection of Enlightenment thought.