International Women’s Rights

Context, Creation, Communication

Mary WollstonecraftVindication of the Rights of

Women -1792

Women are described:

• "gentle domestic brutes."

• "Educated in slavish dependence and enervated by luxury and sloth…"

What images does this present of women?

Industrial Revolution

What challenges and changes does industrialization bring to women?

US- Jacksonian Democracy

• Increases right to vote to all white males

• How might this have affected women?

France- Revolutions of 1830 & 1848

• Many women participated in revolutionary groups and political activities

• Newly established republics then denied women the right to vote or to participate in any political group

• Many women responded radically- what might that mean?

Jeanne Deroin and Pauline Roland

• Activists, journalist, teachers

• Active in Revolution of 1848

• Arrested for attending a socialist meeting

• Communicated while in prison with women in the US and England in order to strengthen international communication and connections in the women’s movement

“It is in this confidence that, from the depths of the jail which still imprisons our bodies without reaching our hearts, we cry to

you- Faith, Love, Hope; and send to you our sisterly salutations”

- Deroin and Roland

Universal Causes• Participation in other reform movements such as

abolition, temperance, socialism, worker’s rights and religious reforms

• Eventually, women’s participation in these reforms limit their success; women are asked to limit their activities to secondary roles

• This creates the desire for universal women’s rights as well as unifies women from different reform movements and backgrounds.

International Connections

• New technologies such as railroads, telegraphs, steamships

• One cent stamp!

• Not only created stronger connections between women but made travel easier as well.