The thing I remember reading in my college class and talking to everybody in my ward about was Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792. Here are some of her excellent thoughts:
" do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves."
"Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and romaing round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."
Ever since those college classes, I have thought a lot about feminism and womanhood and motherhood. These things are so interesting to me...which isn't that surprising since I'm a female, a woman, and a mother. Recently there were several important commemorations of feminism and women's rights. February 15th was Susan B. Anthony's birthday. It is an official holiday, but only in Florida and Wisconsin. Utah women do not have as great a debt towards Ms. Anthony because they had the vote long before she came along. Did you know that Utah women could vote way back in 1870? The vote was taken away by Congress in 1887 when they were trying to get Utah to stop polygamy. Does that make any sense? Anyway, when Utah became a state in 1895, women's voting rights were written into the state constitution.
Even though we're Utahns, I still wanted to celebrate. For Susan B. Anthony Day, Annie and I made awesome suffrage sashes.
I considered teaching her about Sister Anthony, but didn't get much farther than checking out this book from the library. Annie's a bit dubious.
Sister Anthony was one cool lady. She said this:
"The women of this nation in 1876 have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776."
I'm reading 1776 by David McCullough right now, and I totally agree with this statement. Reading early feminists/suffragettes always makes me say Amen, Sister!! Fight for freedom! Woohoo!
The other recent commemoration was the Women's Suffrage Parade that happened on March 3, 1913. This year was the hundred year anniversary. Cool, right? Don't you wish you could have been there wearing this?
This lady's name was Hedwig Reicher and this was the parade's grand finale tableau. Hedwig (not the Harry Potter owl) is representing Columbia. According to wikipedia (I've done some rigorous research here) Columbia "is a historical and poetic name used for the United States of America and is also the name of its female personification." I did not know that. So this tableau totally rocks--she's embodying the female half of the nation. The 19th amendment prohibiting any United States citizen being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex came seven years after the parade in 1920.
So you can see that my feminist heroes are a bit dated. There are lots of things about modern feminism that I just can't get into, so I haven't really immersed myself in that world. But there is one Mormon feminist whose work I've been reading in the last year. Her name is Valerie Hudson Cassler. She is awesome. I read her co-written book called Women in Eternity, Women in Zion. It addressed the topics of Eve and polygamy and the New Testament scriptures about women not talking in church and answered a lot of questions that I think many Mormon women have.
I also read an article by her called "'Some Things That Should Not Have Been Forgotten Were Lost': The Pro-Feminist, Pro-Democracy, Pro-Peace Case for State Privileging of Companionate Heterosexual Monogamous Marriage." That's a loaded title, but it was a fantastic article. She talked about different marriage and family set-ups throughout history and in different cultures. Then she talked about why the set-up of marriage with one man and one woman who treat each other with mutual respect is essential to male/female equality and peace in the world. She also made the point that every child comes from one male and one female. What a revolutionary idea? Just kidding. Her point was that every child has a "mixed heritage." Living in a home with both a man and a woman helps children to get a sense of that mixed heritage and learn how to treat the opposite sex with respect. She said "to make explicit the mixed heritage of female mother and male father is a humane act. To celebrate our mixed heritage is a human act. To hide or obscure that mixed heritage, or to accentuate only half of that heritage, are inhuman acts." I don't know if this will make any sense without reading the whole article, so you should read it yourself. It basically blew my mind.
In conclusion, hooray for women's suffrage, hooray for good feminism, and hooray for the gospel of Jesus Christ that, more than anything else on earth, truly teaches the equality of men and women.
Oh, and hooray for this scene from Mary Poppins.
