Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Les Droits des Femmes (Women's Rights)

Women's rights in France began in 1948, when the government of the 2nd republic established three rights essential to an efficent democracy: suffrage, employment, education. As in the original French Revolution, women demanded an integral role in the new democracy. The leaders of this push for rights had led previous feminist movements, and focused more on suffrage than other important desires, such as marital reform and better employment oppportunities. This did not mean that marital reform was completely abandoned, however: a radical sect called the Vesuvians advocated equal leadership in families, gave women the right to annul their marriages, and actually wanted to strip women that did not have their own opinions of their rights.
Supporters of feminism argued that as women raised children, they played a critical role in strengthening the republic, and thus needed more rights.

Source of Information: www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/rz/womrgt.htm

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Women's Rights in Nazi Germany

Even though fascism promotes equality for all, Hitler propagated the idea that the equality of women to men was a scheme developed by Jewish professors and philosophers. As Hitler was against Judaism, he obviously could not accept an idea supported by those he was trying to destroy.
When he was running for political power in 1932, Hitler spread this idea, claiming that if elected, he would take jobs from 800,000 women in 4 years, supposedly so there would be more jobs for men with families. But would it not have also made sense for Hitler to let those men's wives keep their jobs?
When he finally obtained power, Hitler took even more drastic measures, firing doctors, lawyers. and women in similar professions who were married. Hitler even banned women from the "great reward" of jury duty, because he saw women as purely emotional, incapable of rational thought.
To infuse his anti-feminist beliefs into all of Germany's infrastructure, Hitler awarded leadership of the newly created Nazi Women's league to Getrud Scholtz-Klink, a competent orator who spoke about the superiority of men over women, lending her voice to the swarm of propaganda unleashed upon the German public. Hitler rewarded Scholtz-Klink's services by also making her leader of the German Girl's League. The next stepping-stone for German girls after Hitler Youth, the League essentially brainwashed teenage girls into believing Hitler's ideals.
Naturally, when Hitler's policies caused many women to join more liberal political organizations, he set up concentration camps for women alone, showing that he would not even let his own fellow Germans have their own opinions, further securing the world's opinion of Hitler as a dictator.

Source of Information: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERwomen.htm

Thursday, February 8, 2007



Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) gives a comprehensive review of the state of ... all » human rights issues for women around the world. Series: "Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series" [Public Affairs]

Thursday, February 1, 2007

I found some cool info

I was surfing Wikipedia this afternoon, and I found some neat stuff about the Seneca Falls Convention.
Much like Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Man," the Convention, instead of creating a whole new template of rights, adapted existing material; Wollstonecraft changed Edmund Burke's reflections on the French Revolution, which benefited the male sex, to a document that proved women needed just as many rights as men.
The Seneca Falls Convention started in the 1840's, at a time when America had shifted from Jefferson's vision of a nation of independent agrarians to a cluster of capitalists. Various evils, like alcoholism, slavery, demonic treatment of the mentally ill, and the legal disadvantages of women caused both men and women to join reform groups, which sought to eliminate these curses upon society. The Convention originated from one of these reform groups.

Source of Information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_convention

I found some cool info

I was surfing Wikipedia this afternoon, and I found some neat stuff about the Seneca Falls Convention.
Much like Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Man," the Convention, instead of creating a whole new tempalte of rights, adapted existing material; Wollstonecraft changed Edmund Burke's reflections on the French Revolution, which benefited the male sex, to a document that proved women needed just as many rights as men.
The Seneca Falls Convention started in the 1840's, at a time when America had shifted from Jefferson's vision of a nation of independent agrarians to a cluster of capitalists. Various detriments, like alcoholism, slavery, demonic treatment of the mentally ill, and the legal disadvantages of women caused both men and womento join reform groups, which sought to eliminate these curses upon society. The Convention originated from one of these reform groups.