Women's rights

This week in class we discussed the beginning of the Women's Rights movement, and placed it in the organization of the Relief Society in 1842 in Nauvoo, rather than the traditionally accepted beginning at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Although looking back from 2010, 1848 seems far away, why has it taken women in Western society so long to rally and organize for a concentrated effort for their rights? I certainly don't have all the answers, but it seems that often woman's very position in society has kept her from organizing.

In Western culture, women have long been entrenched in their position as homemakers: servile to men, charged with caring for children and housekeeping, perhaps occupied by more 'menial tasks.' This comes back curiously to the reason why Thomas Jefferson was able to have such a solid self-education and through that help philosophize-up the new American government: he had slaves to do his work for him, and thus was able to free his mind up to think about weightier matters. Women, on the other hand, have long been kept occupied with more menial cares, and further were often (until only very recently) denied the academic opportunities presented to men. Without an education, and without the time to devote to the grander ideas of philosophy, women were probably prevented from even considering their servile position in the same way as men.

Second, the attitudes inherent in Western society had long kept women from seeing their position as that needed to be changed. Our individual attitudes are so fundamentally shaped by our culture. A woman born into a culture where women are perceived as servile, weaker, and with a specific, limiting, matronly role to fill is probably not going to consider rallying for her 'rights' without some outside stimulus - she won't consider herself as being heir to those same 'rights' granted to men. For example, the women at Nauvoo who received their endowments and were sealed to their husbands in the temple received an outside, divine stimulus. They were with outside help able to see their divine role (rather than a cultural one) and see their place as equals with men. In our textbook reading, the author often tries to emphasize that black slaves had an inherent drive for freedom and liberty, and while this may be true for the bond-free conflict, attitudes toward gender roles have are probably different in this respect: societally and culturally based, rather than inherent. The women of Nauvoo, with their divine perspective on gender roles, rather than a cultural perspective, were able to organize for their rights. Although many today see Mormon women as still servile to their husbands as stay-at-home moms, Mormons perhaps have a greater vision of gender equality than do many men and women alike, because they have a divinely inspired pattern for such equality in the temple.

Third, in some situations women were probably kept very isolated from each other, which would prevent them from 'commiserating' (forgive the negative connotation). For example, our textbook talks about how plantation mistresses in the South often complained of isolation. They lived far from one another, separated by acres and acres and acres of land. Perhaps this is another reason why it seems that many social and political movements start in urban areas and spread outward. You've got to have people together, discussing and letting ideas ferment, in order to instigate and inspire change. There can be no rallying - for Women's Rights or for Civil Rights or any rights at all - with out groups of people. One voice, as it turns out, often doesn't do much.

Beyond these reasons, the simple fact that women lacked, to this point, several basic rights and weren't considered full citizens once they were married, but rather minors, they would have been prevented from assembling. Protection of the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press would've been limited in their extension to women. Some women may have also been themselves opposed to an upset of the traditional gender roles implied in the Seneca Falls Convention. Perhaps that's what's so neat about the Nauvoo Relief Soeciety - it plays to women's strengths as caring, organized, and efficient.