Margaret Fuller - A Feminist Mind on Fire Essay

The first female author who focuses the political aspects of feminism is Sojourner Truth. She demonstrates how women do not have recognition to present their own voices in politics through the use of parallelism and antithesis. Truth was a former slave who advocates the rights for blacks and women. Her speech to the American Equal Rights Association on May 9, 1867, addresses her dissatisfaction toward colored men getting their rights while women were being excluded. She also argues that women are also human beings and that they should

Each day people face challenges and stressors that affect them mentally. The stressors they face may cause anxiety, depression, and a feeling of being overwhelmed, but the way they handle these emotions is what matters most. In The Beautiful Stranger, it may appear that Margaret is just pretending her husband is a stranger, but taking a deeper look it seems she is mentally unstable. Unfortunately, we do not know the details of John and Margaret’s life prior to John returning home from business, but it is safe to assume that things were not perfect. Was Margaret acting out her dreams of the perfect husband and a better marriage? Was something in Margaret’s life, causing her a mental breakdown? What was causing John’s behavior to be out of the norm? Had John truly been replaced by a new man? Shirley Jackson did an excellent job creating mystery in this story, but she also included many hints throughout it to help us build our own understanding.

Feminism has been a controversial topic since as early as the 19th century. Feminism has had a profound effect on women’s roles in society as well as their everyday life. There are countless feminists whose achievements are still recognized and remembered today. Jane Addams is a historical feminist who changed the lives for the women of her time, and is still talked about to this day. While feminism was huge in the earlier years of America, there are contemporary feminists who fight for the rights and equality of women that are still not met. In recent years, Gloria Steinem has spoken up for the equality of women and pushed for social reform. Jane Addams and Gloria Steinem are more than feminists, they are activists with many accomplishments that changed the lives for every woman of their time.

The United States of America gained a large reputation of equality and social democracy. This was much better at the time than Europe which had less opportunity and was much harder to rise in social status unlike the United States. Although, an entire section of the United States population was cut off from these great improvements and those were women. After the revolution, “republican Motherhood”, the vision of women passing on knowledge to the youth was put on hold in the United States society. The “Cult of Domesticity” had taken women back to their homes to just not do work outside of home. Many people embraced the “Cult of Domesticity” and Republican Motherhood” in order to be apart of a ideal American motherhood. Although, blacks or even lower class women were unable to achieve this because of either economic or public restraint. Educated women that were in the middle or high class had a hard time moving up social class and slaves were often separated from their families holding them away from all of that. A Reformer in (doc 4), Margaret Fuller, is trying to have social and economic equality but it is held back by the “Cult of Domesticity” and “Republican Motherhood”.

The United States Congress and its Government were designed to keep America and it’s citizens alive and satisfied. Created by men, and only men, it upheld what our founding fathers wished for our country. Congress, until around 1914, consisted of men and their opinions for the country. One would know that men have been there since day one and are still there today. But one would not commonly know is how and when a woman decided to make a change in the times and stand up for her beliefs. She was the very first woman in Congress, and stood against foreign war involvement. She held her head high against popular opinion and openly expressed the importance of women 's suffrage to the minds of those around her. This remarkable and outstanding

In her essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller discusses the state of marriage in America during the 1800‘s. She is a victim of her own knowledge, and is literally considered ugly because of her wisdom. She feels that if certain stereotypes can be broken down, women can have the respect of men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. She explains why some of the inequalities exist in marriages around her. Fuller feels that once women are accepted as equals, men and women will be able achieve a true love not yet known to the people of the world.

In the early 1800’s people always thought that the only job appropriate for a woman was being a teacher. They had this image of women for many many years until a young lady named Mary Edwards Walker came along. She challenged this idea and changed it for all the women in history after her.

The Famous Five, or Valiant Five, was not only made up of five strong, independent women, but five role models. It started with Emily Murphy, a bright woman from Cookstown, Ontario, who was determined to make a difference for women all over Canada. She enlisted four other activists, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Henrietta Edwards, and Irene Parlby, who would help her on her journey to get women legally recognised as “persons” in Canada. Although the five made history together, they each have very unique backstories and each of these women have helped to make a significant difference in the lives of women for many years to come. Emily Murphy was a women’s rights activist and a feminist.

Since the beginnings of American society, the life of a woman has fluctuated wildly. Between the American Revolution and the Civil War women still never fully had the same rights as men (not even close). But, after the American Revolution, Republican Motherhood-an ideal that put women solely in the position as mothers with the task of teaching and guiding children to instill in them the virtues of a good citizen- became very popular among middle/high class white women. Lower class and minority women weren’t able to embrace Republican Womanhood because of their roles in society. African American women were mostly slaves and lower class women of all races couldn’t provide a domestic lifestyle for their families because of their financial situations.

In the same year, Sarah had to answer the burning questions from ministers addressing why she stepping out of the woman’s proper place. To answer the questions Sarah created a paper titled, “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women”; “Woman, in all ages and countries, has been the scoff and the jest of her lordly master. If she attempted, like him, to approve her, she was ridiculed as pedantic, and driven from the temple of science and literature by coarse attacks and vulgar sarcasm,” (Grimké and Parker 66). This paper was the beginning of Sarah’s role in women’s rights; she would not get to see women rights grow as it did because Sarah passed way in 1873. Some people say that her letter and more paved the way for more women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, to help end slavery and start the women rights movement.

The women’s rights movement was a huge turning point for women because they had succeeded in the altering of their status as a group and changing their lives of countless men and women. Gender, Ideology, and Historical Change: Explaining the Women’s Movement was a great chapter because it explained and analyzed the change and causes of the women’s movement. Elaine Tyler May’s essay, Cold War Ideology and the Rise of Feminism and Women’s Liberation and Sixties Radicalism by Alice Echols both gave important but different opinions and ideas about the women’s movement. Also, the primary sources reflect a number of economic, cultural, political, and demographic influences on the women’s movement. This chapter

The women’s movement began in the nineteenth century when groups of women began to speak out against the feeling of separation, inequality, and limits that seemed to be placed on women because of their sex (Debois 18). By combining two aspects of the past, ante-bellum reform politics and the anti-slavery movement, women were able to gain knowledge of leadership on how to deal with the Women’s Right Movement and with this knowledge led the way to transform women’s social standing (Dubois 23). Similarly, the movement that made the largest impact on American societies of the 1960’s and 1970’s was the Civil Right Movement, which in turn affected the women’s movement (Freeman 513). According to

In Kate Chopin’s novel, “The Awakening”, Edna finds herself in a society where women were socially confined to be mothers and wives. This novel embodies the struggle of women in the society for independence along with the presence of women struggling to live up to the demands that their strict culture has placed upon them. A part of Edna wants to meet the standards of mother and wife that society has set, however her biggest desire is to be a woman free from the oppression of a society that is male dominant. Readers will find that the foundation of “The Awakening” the feminist perspective because of the passion that Edna has for gaining her own identity, and independence,

Margaret Cavendish truly had faith in the female spirit, and she felt that women were never given the credit they deserved.  Cavendish wholeheartedly believed that women could comprehend philosophy and politics as well as men, and that they should be allowed to study these subjects freely.  In addition, she called for the independence of women from masculine restrictions.  Because of this, feminism abounded in her thoughts and works.  In The Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish shows that women are capable of ruling a world effectively when power is given to them.  She also shows that women are capable of excelling in a created world within their minds, free of limitations set by men.

"People who are liberal thinkers have been enslaved by these poseurs, these racketeers, people who are pretending to be liberal but who are in fact just naïve politically. I have been congratulated by women...who are so sick of being bullied by these sanctimonious puritans who call themselves feminists." --Camille Paglia