Maternal feminism
Maternal feminism is the belief of many early feminists that women as mothers and caregivers had an important but distinctive role to play in society and in politics.
Trollope thought that financially secure women should go beyond providing moral education to their children, and should express in public their maternal values, social concerns and caring outlook.
[3] To some early feminists, such as the novelist Fanny Fern (1811–72) and the temperance leader Letitia Youmans (1827–96), maternal feminism was simply a strategy through which women could achieve their goal of equal rights.
[4] In the United States, women became active in social reform in the early 1830s, but were constrained by traditional concepts of maternal feminism.
When the Female Moral Reform Society (FMRS) was founded in 1834 there was considerable criticism of the fact that respectable women were discussing prostitution.
[6] Maternal feminism reached its peak at a time when the British Empire was still expanding fast, but new ideas about women's suffrage, temperance, pacifism and socialism were in the air.
"[7] The growth of maternal feminism at the expense of the new woman in Britain and her colonies may have been due in part to the rapid expansion of the British empire after 1870.
"[8] To ensure an adequate supply of people of English descent, women were flooded with propaganda that urged them to become "mothers of the race" by having more children, a superior purpose that was embraced by many feminists.
[14] In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were strong ties between maternal feminism and the suffrage and temperance movements, both of which aimed to improve the conditions of women and children at home and at work.
Many of the maternalist reformers and organizations like the Elizabeth Fry Society and the Salvation Army did not identify themselves as feminist, and pursued strategies and objectives that were different from those of feminists.[18][which?]
[23] Ellen Key (1849–1926) of Sweden thought motherhood was women's "highest cultural task", and considered that mothers should not work away from home.
[24] In Germany there was fierce debate among feminists about how to handle prostitution, seen as the source of venereal diseases and thus a major health problem.
Pappritz proposed moral education of young people and encouragement of abstinence outside marriage, while Stocker thought that giving women more sexual freedom would eliminate the demand for prostitution.
[27] In 1893 Lady Aberdeen (1857–1939), head of the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC), said mothering was the "grand woman's mission".
NCWC delegates pledged to "conserve the highest good of the family and state" but to remain "aloof from issues pertaining to women's rights.
Women of the elite such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) of America and Marguerite Durand (1864–1936) of France felt that with their better education and broader experience they had a natural duty to lead.
[29] Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942), best known as author of Anne of Green Gables (1908), presented maternal feminist views in her books published in the period around World War I (1914-18).
would see this as a reductive and biologically determinist view of gender,[citation needed] but at the time the concept did represent an advance towards giving women a greater and more meaningful role.
This was the culmination of a struggle led by judge Emily Murphy of Edmonton and four other prominent western women: Henrietta Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby.
[36] The "Famous Five" were all advocates of maternal feminism, believing that women's distinctive biology suited them for a role in public life.
The attempt to reconcile the domestic and maternal ideal with the push for equality handicapped the early feminist movement and limited the gains it made.
[39] Another criticism is that the exhortion to women to "mother the race" had racial undertones directed at new immigrants at the lowest level of the social hierarchy.
[39] There has been violent argument over whether maternal feminism in Germany led to Nazi-era coercive policies related to the family and reproduction.
"[44] In the United States Sarah Ruddick argued in the 1980s for the existence of "maternal thinking" and Carol Gilligan wrote of women's "standard of relationship, an ethic of nurturance, responsibility, and care".
