This is the first installment of a multi-part series about the evolution, or devolution, of the American woman throughout the arc of American history.
Women’s Contributions To The Revolutionary War Effort
As you are probably already aware – at this stage of American history – traditional gender roles reigned supreme in America. However, women did make significant contributions to the war effort, but also showed how much privilege is afforded to women in any society.
In the lead up to the war, they had played a key role in helping boycott British goods, as they went out of their way to make many consumer products themselves such as clothing, hurting the British market for American goods. Further, they helped start organizations to bolster the Patriot cause. Understand that most sources vastly overrate this point (historical revisionism is going on here). Most women did what was needed to care for their family, but were not politically active on any level. Also, note the fact that women have always been relevant to any war effort; it was just that American women showed signs of wanting more than their traditional roles.
Once the war started, women took on many roles related to their gender. They often worked in camps, serving not just their husbands, but other soldiers. They often cooked, cleaned and served as nurses. Some feared impoverishment in the absence of their soldier husband, so she would follow him through his deployments. Some women tried to serve as soldiers, and only a few (like Deborah Sampson) served in the military. Do note that Sampson impersonated a man in order to serve. Women did serve sometimes as spies and other noncombat roles.
The First American Feminist: Mary Wollstonecraft
The rhetoric around equality caused quite the buzz amongst the Patriots – particularly amongst blacks and women. (Black people are beyond the scope of this article, but understand racial equality and sexual equality are two different issues.) It was one woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, who laid the groundwork for American feminism.
Consider Mary Wollstonecraft’s essay “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman.” It is considered the first piece about a form of equality between men and women in America. American women got a taste of role equality in the war, as they served as more than wives and mothers. This was little more than a necessity – the idea that societies limit men’s or women’s role simply because of their sex is ridiculous. Women in rural America to this day perform all sorts of tasks on farms that urban feminists can’t understand – they don’t need false visions of empowerment that feminism seeks to promote.
Looking at Wollstonecraft’s piece, she was convinced that women’s deficiencies centered around their lack of education. She was certain that if women became companions, rather than wives, marriages would improve. She thinks the social superficiality of women would be cured by appropriate socialization. As we shall see in this series, she would be proved wrong again and again. At any rate, she also advocated for a level of equality between men and women in their socialization. Do note that she was interested in promoting the domestic sphere as just as important as the men’s sphere of politics and leadership. While the domestic sphere certainly is vital and important to any society, note that it isn’t as important as running a nation.
Wollstonecraft left an unfinished piece called “Maria: Or The Wrongs Of Woman,” which really shed light on her views of men, women and society. She weaved a tale of a woman who was totally wronged by her husband – who had her committed to an insane asylum – which is where the story takes place. She highlights allegations of gambling, whoring and bankruptcy as reasons for the implosion of their relationship.
After her death in 1797, her husband released a memoir of her unpublished writings. It was highly controversial, as she confessed to adultery and having an illegitimate child. She talked about female relationships bordering on lesbianism and recurring thoughts of suicide. She also talked, in detail, about the lead-up to her death.
Analysis Of Proto-Feminism
Despite how admired Wollstonecraft’s work may have been, her views on women are necessarily limited by biology.
Let’s consider her work “Maria.” She intimated that society should worship female sexuality – many feminists have subsequently reiterated this point. The problem is hypergamy – there is no way a cogent society can worship female sexuality without suffering grave consequences. The issue, here, is that women have a false sense of their sexuality in a patriarchy. They sense their need to be motherly, but their hypergamic impulses are repressed. In America, this repression has forced some women to regress into indulgent self-worship. Hypergamy has some use from an evolutionary perspective, as women’s desire only for the highest of quality of men greatly aided humanity. However, it is antithetical to the maintenance of a stable society.
In “Maria” the protagonist falls in love with a “disinterested” and confident man who turns out to be a bad person. Instead of understanding that not all women experience that sort of life, she ports her poor relationship onto all women, claiming that all women are victims of constant and brutal oppression. She cultivates a relationship with a nurse at the mental institution and that nurse relays a similar story of a poor life. She sees economic and sexual independence as the keys to free women from the problems in their life. What she doesn’t consider is that the reason women pick men like that is because they are attractive to women. As we have seen with the Sexual Revolution, women are still picking all manners of jerks and douchebags to have sex and fall in love with. Unable to come to grips with the biological dimensions of their sexuality, they just blame patriarchy.
One other main point of “Maria” is that she pushes marriage as an oppressive construct that enslaves women. What is most amusing – and sad – is that she doesn’t identify men as being oppressed in these relationships like women. She notes that men have limited roles, but she really doesn’t talk about emotional or sexual limitations on these men. What she emphasizes is the lack of autonomy for women. She emphasizes women need well-paid work so they don’t have to lean on men fiscally.
Her inability to understand the economic independence will only provide economic independence is telling. It will do nothing to cure hypergamy, in fact, it makes it worse. Men in romance novels have gotten more dominant, taller, handsomer and rich since the Sexual Revolution. Her so-called “solutions” are really pouring fuel on the fire of female unhappiness. Women like her are betting their entire life on the slimmest of hopes – finding and keeping a stable & sexy male. That rarely happens because those men are rare.
However, in the end, consider the work American women did during the Revolutionary War. A handful of women kvetched to serve as soldiers, but as we have seen with modern women in the military, they simply want the accolades and honor, not any of the violent and fatal downsides. Also, understand how Mary Wollstonecraft’s own incredible personal disillusionment lead her to lay the groundwork for feminism. That is why American feminism is so psychologically sick – it’s roots are in a psychologically ill and suicidal female infatuated with her own hypergamy.
war is predominantly a socialist / government affair….
no surprise then that the real feminism grew in the communist era and was actively pushed by communist groups in the US.
getting women into the work force cheapens male labor and provides more boots for the army.
men in the army are basically slaves that must obey.
women in the work force have children reared by the state machine.
evil genius.
An interesting note that I saw in a Ken Burns documentary about prohibition:
Before prohibition, women were not allowed in bars and pubs. These were a man’s environment.
Then, when prohibition hit, bringing women into a bar as your date became known as a very ‘sheik’ thing to do…
Fast-forward to the bars and clubs of the 21st century…where the liberated women goes to hook up with whomever she pleases.
We’ve come a long way! It makes one wonder where else we will go from here…
Or perhaps we regressed?
Where we are is important though. Our society and that of the West is too stupid to realize that we are at a spiritual, intellectual, and ideological crossroads.
The wrong path is severely wrong. The right path requires alot of work to get right again. Like electricity, human beings take the least path of resistance. Our greatest strength, may become our greatest weakness. Because we are too stupid to see the sign that says paradise was shoddily painted over, and in actually is the road to hell.
Yet down the road we go with reckless abandon. Forgive me if I don’t go with anyone. The right path may be hard, but the end is certainly worth it.
Good point – you should use “chic” though, not “sheik”
Great article. Wollenstonecraft was shunned and ignored in her time as a loonbat, and rightfully so.
She was the first of their kind, their ideological pioneer, and the only thing women and feminists got better at was lying to the public about their matronage’s work’s benefit to society. Essentially, they managed to become better (or worse) people then Wollstonecraft ever was; just as dumb though. So their feminine pioneer was their intellectual best, but you can’t tell in that for what the modern woman lacks in pre-industrial intelligence, she makes up for with hubris and deceit. Nice!
It amazes me that the feminist revision of history to suit their interests is ripe for a back fire. They capitalized on other people’s indifference to their fellow man’s pain; and thought it would always care about them.
I hate sexism, women are stupid.
The real crux of their future problems though may hinge on that they became too efficient in their skill of manipulation, lying, and betrayal but never actually considered that she said women should become engineers and scientists, and farmers, and etc. Instead, the agrarian IT programmer of early dogmatic feminist thought unwittingly sowed the seeds of their collective demise. To where the whole male portion of the species may inculcate a culture of hatred towards women like we have never seen before.
Good luck with that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video
A REAL MAN ! WOW !!!
Potentially a real dead man. He was not joking when he said that the CIA and NSA were not someone to trifle with on a whim.
They make people disappear I’m assuming.
I bet, given enough time they could kill superman if he existed. If you have a weakness, they will find it. So will the Russian Mafia, and other secret services around the world.
I see he is brave, and also consigned to his fate which will most likely be a “tragic accident” in Hong Kong. Or maybe, just maybe, there is a culture of decent guys left in that community of spooks who agree with him? although, I doubt they could stop his death.
Unfortunate times we find ourselves in.
Oh, well done, sir! For awhile on my own blog, I’ve been discussing how second wave feminism was a movement ignited by a small group of mentally ill women who were abused or neglected as children, most of whom were also not blessed with physical beauty. I hadn’t gone back and looked at the roots of first wave feminism, beyond noting that many of the suffragettes fit that same bill of being unattractive and mentally unstable. Thank you for this essay; it fills in some gaps for me and clearly shows that feminists are and have always been thus.
A quote that always sticks with me from Frank O’Connor:
No man is as anti-feminist as a really feminine woman.
Of course, men can be just as anti-feminist as women, but only feminine women can be anti-feminist, and a woman choosing to be feminine (or a man choosing to be unabashedly masculine) in today’s culture is an act imbued with socio-political dissent.
I find this article to either be poorly researched, or wrongly titled.
Wollstonecraft had little to do with the American feminism we are all familiar with. She lived and died in England in the 1700s, and wrote a couple of books. While regarded as one of the founders of British feminism, she did not advance the issues that second wave feminism focused on.
American feminism is second-wave feminism. It was started in the 1960s by a bunch of ugly, angry, communist and marxist jewish women who despised Christians, Capitalism, traditional America, and white men.
Guess where I first read about “The Vindication Of The Right’s Of Woman?” A college class reviewing early American literature.
Yes, you are correct it was originally published in Britain. The editions republished in America were EXTREMELY influential on American feminism. You cannot have a proper discussion of early American feminism without discussing Wollstonecraft.
Further, your point about second-wave feminism is wrong. American feminism existed in the first wave. As you will see in subsequent posts, there is much to discuss about women and feminism before the 1960’s.
Fair enough. My main point is that first wave feminism is far removed from second wave, not only in span of years but in ideology.
The brand of feminism that we have grown up with here in the US, that has caused so much harm, is distinctly second wave. It is not about women’s suffrage or right to work. Those things had already been well established and most men didn’t have a problem with them.
Second wave is about cultural marxism.
Some were unattractive…and liars. It’s irritating to me that I did not keep copies of the brief flurry of news articles that circulated during the very early 90s in which Betty Friedan admitted that she lied about the prevalence of women suffering from “the problem that has no name”; i.e., clinical depression, which she dubbed the feminine mystique. But many were considered quite attractive. Gloria Steinem did a stint as a Playboy bunny, Patricia Ireland was quite a looker in her heyday, when Naomi Wolf wrote Beauty Myth we dubbed her brand, “feminism for foxes.” Some second wave feminists were scary to look at, most were self-absorbed and immature imbeciles, but there were plenty of feminist leaders who were far from “ugly.”
did you guys see this yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfC37gFPCA even if it`s fake(and it very well could be staged), i`d record it and play it to myself if i ever teeter on the precipice of getting married.
A long history of pampered white women who think the world is supposed to be about niceness and equality, lol
It’s very simple. Early feminists were the losers of women’s society. They were despised by the other women in their society because they were too ugly, neurotic, and egotistical to succeed in life, and invariably became a drag on their families.
In those days, people faced the daily specter of real, horrible starvation. Little children dying before their eyes because of famine. Unmarried women took food from the mouths of those children, so they were shunned and punished, rightfully so.
Feminists also tended to influence young, rebellious daughters, causing those daughters to become feminists also, and therefore cause even greater danger of starvation of the family.
Thus early feminists were shunned and hated for their egotistical, selfish unwillingness to find and tame one of the many “uncontrolled men” who wandered around being bums. One man, converted to a husband, became a source of food for the whole village. That man, unmarried, became an outlaw or rapist who preyed on the village.
That is the history of the human race that modern Feminism is so desperate to hide.
The Chinese say “the greatest invention of the human race is marriage”. Feminists hate marriage. Therefore, they hate humanity.
Good stuff
Good stuff
This book sounds like a half-assed argument for a world that no longer exists. Imagine how peaceful the world would be if women could just be smacked when they need it.
This book sounds like a half-assed argument for a world that no longer exists. Imagine how peaceful the world would be if women could just be smacked when they need it.
“What is most amusing – and sad – is that she doesn’t identify men as
being oppressed in these relationships like women. She notes that men
have limited roles, but she really doesn’t talk about emotional or
sexual limitations on these men. What she emphasizes is the lack of
autonomy for women.”
In other words, pace Mr. Forney, is the Eternal Solipsism of the Female Mind.
Wollstonecraft’s version of “autonomy” for women was women first attending college — aka, rising through the ranks of a hierarchical institution — and then, possibly, getting paid work afterwards, or simply being better companions to their husbands because of their “education.”
Yet all social power derives from your ability to form and maintain strong relationships and friendships and ALLIES in your struggle for social power or influence.
Meanwhile, all hierarchical organizations such as academia or the workplace seek to exert control over the social relationships of those who belong to them. Thus, in the modern workplace, you have only frenemies and no friends — and the power of your employer over you and your frenemies is such that none of them will go to bat for you or help you out should you have a dispute or problem with your employer that could result in you losing your job.
She and all modern feminists conveniently neglect to point that out even while defining power and autonomy as solely a salary enabling you to make money to buy things with.
Thus, everything modern feminism is about has nothing to do with power or autonomy or empowerment, and everything to do with industrialism and the capitalist system and consumer economy.
I’ve read a lot about women being victims of their own hypergamy. I guess legalized polygamy would be the best cure for that, right? Like, if a woman lives in a polygamous society she has a better chance of snagging a rich, attractive alpha. Granted, she’d be sharing him with other women, but I think most women would prefer even that situation to beta love or spinsterism.
If you stretch back a bit further (well, several centuries), we find that modern feminism has its roots in Muslim fantasies. Source: Sex in History, by British historian Reay Tannahill.
oh, amanda marcotte is a great womyn, but you misogynist’s are too dumb to understand…
http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/update/
the roots of feminism started most likely with the Communist Manifesto. It eventually morphed into the 60s in america with america’s so called discontented youth. This article is not good history.