Antifeminism in America
A Reader
A Collection of Readings from the Literature of the Opponents to U.S. Feminism, 1848 to the Present
Edited with introductions by
Angela Howard
University of Houston Clear Lake
and
Sasha Rana Adatns Tarrant
Brazosport College
Published by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
2 Park Square. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RS
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
Introduction copyright 2000 Angela Howard and Sasha Rana Adarns Tarrant. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Antifeminism in America : a reader : a collection of readings trom the literature of the opponents to U.S. feminism, 1848 tu the present / edited with introductions by Angela Howard and Sasha Rana Adams Tarrant
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8153-3437-0 (alk. paper)
1. Anti-feminismUnited StatesHistory. 2. FeminismUnited StatesHistory. I. Howard, Angela. II. Tarrant, Sasha Rana Adams.
HQ142 .A69 2000
303.69dc21
00-059288
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.
Understanding the Opposition to U.S. Feminism
The purpose of this one-volume paperback edition is to make available for classroom use many of the documents that first appeared in the hard-back three-volume collection of primary sources, Antifeminism in America (Garland, 1997). The documents in this paperback inform the readers understanding and appreciation of the social and political context of opposition in which the advocates of womens rights labored from 1848 to 1996. Arranged in six parts, by historical periods, these original articles from mainstream magazines, specialized and academic journals, and books display the tone and substance of opposition to womens rights as it appeared in popular literature. The selections reflect the public campaign, fought in the popular press, of opponents to the fundamental goal of all aspects of movement for womens rights, to challenge the gender system by advocating equality for women.
Taken together, the selections in each of these sections present the recurrent themes and issues of the continuing public discourse provoked by the prospect and the reality of changes in womens role and status in the United States since the Seneca Falls Womans Rights Convention in 1848. In the contemporary popular books and magazines, nineteenth-century defenders of the gender system opposed the feminist goal of womens political and legal equality, and addressed directly to the public their concerns regarding particular nineteenth-century issues of the Womans Rights Movement. From woman suffrage and dress reform to other feminist issues relating to discerning and enforcing the proper role and status of women, the antifeminists refuted arguments for changing womens role and status whether the changes were proposed by conservative womanists who did not challenge the dominant patriarchal traditions of womens subordination or by radical feminists who demanded as simple justice the removal of all vestiges of partriachal authority over the lives of women in the U.S. The national debate over feminist issues extended into the twentieth century as opponents raised arguments against the dire consequences to the social stability provided by the patriarchal family unit as increased opportunities in womens employment and education were achieved; antifeminists also denied the propriety and practice of family planning and admonished against womens involvement in political issues and activities. In the documents of this reader, the opponents of feminism speak directly to the reader who is free to evaluate the merits of each authors arguments and the movement their arguments support.
Diversity of opinion and perspective has existed and persisted among those who oppose the assertion of womens rights. In many ways, the constellation of conservative definitions of proper womanhood varied widely in approach, intent and intensity over the past two hundred years. Their resistance and denial notwithstanding, the critics of feminism begrudginly acknowledged changes in the status of middle class women due to advances in womens rights and increased opportunity in education and employment for women. Rather than concede the validity of reforms proposed by womens rights advocates, however, these critics co-opted and re-defined the affait accompli advances to support their revisionist contention that contemporary practices were merely adaptations which uphold the propriety and sanctity of the gender system and its primary limitation for women in any century: the antifeminists have not wavered from their fundamental belief that, for women, forever and always, Biology is Destiny. Those opposed to sexual equality of women and men ultimately assert that an inescapable maternal duty grounds every womans identity in her relationships to others and especially to men: every generation of antifeminists argue that each womans purpose and usefulness to societyher inescapable filial, uxorial, maternal, professional, and civic responsibilitiescircumscribe, define, and limit her identity as an individual.
Thus there emerged, early on, a pattern of sorts in the criticism and challenge to womens rights. Some opponents merely dismissed or ridiculed the advocates for change in womens status rather than debate a specific change or specify particular flaws in the feminist position on any particular issue. Others relied on their interpretations of divine ordination, or appeals to natural law, manipulating a basic and conservative fear of familial and social disintegration among the general public. Often opponents sought to discredit the propriety of the cause of womens rights by challenging the practical necessity of any feminist-proposed change in the gender system. They utilized divisive tactics to separate women by race or ethnic group, religion, and economic class as they touted women as morally superior to men (but still unequal under the law). Frequently, these critics of feminist goals resorted to ad homonium charges against advocates of womens rights and against the movement itself of lesbianism, communism and socialism, or disgruntled spinsterhood. Opponents defined as inherently destructive of social order all effort to promote the movement of an individual woman from her domestic sphere into the public arena of political, economic, and social reform and activism. By focusing on maintaining a limited role for women, adversaries of the womens movement, both women and men, expressed their common fear of on-going social, economic, and political developments in the status of women which had been proceeding inexorably, beyond their control since the late eighteenth century.
