Feminist history in the United Kingdom
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Feminist history in the United Kingdom covers part of the Feminism movement in the UK from 1800 to the present day.
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[edit] 19th Century
The advent of the reformist age during the 19th century meant that those invisible minorities or marginalised majorities were to find a catalyst and a microcosm in such new tendencies of reform. Robert Owen, while asking for "social reorganisation", was laying down the bases of a new reformational background. One of those movements that took advantage of such new spirit was the feminist movement. Activists such as Emmeline Pankhurst were trying to show that British women needed more than a domestic servility. The stereotype of the Victorian gentle lady became unacceptable and even intolerable. The first organised movement for British women's suffrage was the Langham Place Circle of the 1850s, lead by Barbara Bodichon (neé Leigh-Smith) and Bessie Rayner Parkes. They also campaigned for improved female rights in the law, employment, education and marriage.
[edit] 20th century
World War I helped to advance the feminist cause, as women were much needed by the UK heavy industry at the time, and those working women became accustomed to their new-found economic independence.
[edit] Further reading
- Melanie Phillips; The Ascent of Woman — A History of the Suffragette Movement and the ideas behind it, Time Warner Book Group London, 2003. ISBN 0-349-11660-1.
- Martin Pugh, Women and the women's movement in Britain, 1914–1999, Basingstoke [u.a.]: * St. Martin's Press [u.a.], 2000.
- Barbara Caine, Victorian Feminists , Oxford University Press 1992
- Barbara Bodichon founder of the women's right movement in England.
[edit] See also
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