The Topic Of Feminism And Womens Rights History Essay

The Topic Of Feminism And Womens Rights History EssayNellie McClung was born Nellie Letitia Mooney, in Chatsworth, Ontario, Canada on October 20th, 1873 to a Scottish Presbyterian catch and an Irish Methodist father. She was the juniorest of sextuplet children at the age of six, she would move to Manitoba with her family. She would end up spending the age of her life in western Canada. From a rattling unexampled age, McClung showed an swell awareness and interest in the issue of female equality. In her annals entitled Clearing in the West, McClung cites the story of attending a pushover in her lieutown of Winnipeg in 1882. The city had suffered from tremendous flooding and a fall through of the real estate market, and to uplift the morale of the community, a play was organized. The organizers of the picnic arranged for organized sports where on that point would be races held for the boys. The young McClung desperately valued to participate in the race and hoped that the re would as well be races held for young girls. She stated, The whole question of girls competing in races was frowned on. Skirts would fly upward and legs would show And it was non nice for little girls, or big ones either to show their legs. I wanted to know why simply I was hushed up. It was that shell curiosity and questioning of the status quo that marked McClungs life and would ultimately remove her to de firearmd female equality.As an adolescent, McClung would go on attend give lessons for a period of five years until she was fifteen. When she was sixteen she completed her teachers planning and was hired to work in the small town of Manitou which is located in the southwest of Manitoba. Throughout her career as a teacher she would use up a conscious effort to allow her female students to partake in sports alongside their male counterparts. This was an important time in her life part in Manitou she would board with the Reverend James McClung and his wife Annie. Annie played an exceedingly influential role in the life of Nellie Annie McClung was the president of the local anesthetic chapter of the Womens Christian Temperance Union and it was Annie who encouraged Nellie to participate in friendly activism. McClungs was withal turnd by her Christian faith and her love for education. It was those two influences along with the influence of Annie McClung that would ultimately lead her to associate with the Womens Christian Temperance Union.Coincidently, Annie would also begin Nellies mother in law as Nellie would marry her son Robert Wesley McClung. . Nellie was very close to Annie and in her autobiography she stated that Annie was the only woman I throw away ever seen whom I would like to digest as a mother-in-law. Nellie McClung would marry Robert Wesley McClung in 1896. By all accounts they had a very resultive and loving marriage. Robert always animationed Nellie and encouraged her to carry on in her struggle for female equality. They w ould go on to necessitate five children.In attachment to being a mother and a social activist, Nellie was also a best selling author and journalist. As a young girl, her brother Will gave her a series of novels written by the broad English author Charles daimon. They pronto became her favorite reading she admired Dickens as a writer and was also greatly impressed by the social critiques that Dickens wrote about. The influence that Dickens had on the life of McClung was clear evident in her autobiography in which she stated that she wished to do for the throng around me what Dickens had done for his people. I wanted to be a voice for the voiceless as he had been a defender of the unaccented McClung would go on write over sixteen novels, in addition to numerous short stories and poems.What she stood for and What she AccomplishedNellie McClung embraced a number of causes including but not limited to temperance and then prohibition female equality and suffrage, the involvement of women in politics, and even the ordination of women in church. Even though there are many contemporary historians who criticize first wave feminists for evoking the political theory of maternal feminism, it would not be accurate to simply label McClung as only a maternal feminist. While it is true that she often evoked womans moral superiority over men she took incompatible approaches at different times in her life, and used both maternal feminism and normal equality as arguments to advance the status of women. Also, one has to keep in mind the social environment that existed at the time period. One of the major(ip) tasks of a historian is the ability to empathize with the subject being studied. A historian has to be able to get at the mentality and the mental capacity of the people or time period being studied. During the early 19th century, a womens rights activist could not be expected to rely on the principle of universal equality of the sexes to act as about the adv ancement of women. Also, the creative thinker of maternal feminism is not unique to Canadian female activists. akin(predicate) tactics were used in America, Britain, and even in as opposed a country as Russia.One of the earliest causes that Nellie McClung embraced was that of temperance. As has already been stated, Nellie was introduced to the cause by her mother in law Annie. Annie was the president of the local chapter of the Womens Christian Temperance Union. From a young age Nellie experienced the ostracize gear ups that alcohol had on the family. She saw numerous husbands and fathers drinking out-of-door the family wages to the detriment and neglect of their wives and children. Men would often come crime syndicate in a drunken state and physically cry their spouses and/or their children. Battered women were in a state of legal helplessness as they were considered dependants of their husbands and did not possess any property rights. Nellie McClung began to champion the cause of temperance and ultimately outright prohibition.Nellies involvement with the Womens Christian Temperance Union eventually led to her involvement with the Political Equality League. One of Nellie McClungs most endearing qualities was that she possessed great foresight. She understood that prohibition was only part of the problem. McClung potently believed that women needed the right to vote. She felt that without the right to vote, women lacked the political clout necessity to influence politicians to enact legislation that would remedy the problems of both alcohol abuse and spousal abuse. It was because of this that Nellie expanded her social activism to include not just prohibition, but also womens suffrage. McClung go awayed to two different groups that both worked for womens suffrage, they included the Canadian Womens instancy Club and the Political Equity League.Her most prominent opponent was the prime(a) Rodmond Roblin of Manitoba who, like most men in his day, f elt that women did not belong in the public sphere. He even went so far as to use the rhetoric of maternal feminists against them sayingDoes the franchise for women make the home break in?My wife is bitterly opposed to woman suffrage. I have respect for my wife more than that, I love her I am not ashamed to say so. Will anyone say that she would be better as a wife and mother because she could go and talk on the streets about local or dominion politics? I disagree. The mother that is worthy of the name and of the good affection of a good man has a hundredfold more influence in moulding and geological formation public opinion round her dinner table than she would have in the marketplace.Nellie McClung and her fellow suffragettes did not lose hope. On January 27, 1914, they approached the Manitoba legislature to present their case. They were quickly rebuked by atomic number 61 Roblin, His speech was so illogical and nonsensical that Nellie was rattling delighted. She continued to campaign for the womans vote. She staged a play and a do by parliament called the Womens parliament in which she showed just how illogical the position of the Premier was. She had the audience in stitches with her use of humor and sarcasm. To Nellies delight, Premier Roblin was removed from daub because of an unrelated political scandal and was replaced by a Premier who was more than more admitive of womens rights. Like many politicians, once in seat the new Premier T.C Norris changed his position and said he could only bring in the female vote, if the suffragettes were able to demonstrate that there was sufficient support for their position. Nellie McClung responded by presenting a petition with over 40,000 signatures of her takeoff rockets. On January 27, 1916 the Bill for corroboration of Women was passed and women in Manitoba were granted the right to both vote, and run for office. Nellie was also victorious in her campaign for prohibition as prohibition would come into effect in the province of Alberta on July 1, 1916 as a result of a non-binding referendum or plebiscite.Another important accomplishment for McClung was the famous Persons case. When Nellie was born in 1873 she was not a person under Canadian law. That meant that a woman possessed few legal rights and even fewer property rights. In early 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada control that the word person in section 24 of the British North America Act did not include women. Nellie McClung along with four other women who came to be known as the Famous Five petitioned the government to expand the legal definition of Persons. They appealed to the orphic Council of London to overturn the ruling of the Supreme Court. On October 18, 1929 the Privy Council ruled in favor of the women and expanded the definition of Persons to include women. That allowed women to serve as members of the Senate of Canada. In 1921, Nellie McClung would go on to run for election as a member of the Liberal Party o f Alberta. She was successful in her bid, but the Liberals were foiled by the United Farmers of Alberta Party. McClung would end up serving in the legislative Assembly for a period of five years.One aspect of Nellies social activism that is often overlooked was her support for eugenics and a broader sterilization program. Nellie was an ardent supporter of eugenics which literally means well-born. Eugenicists believed that they could improve society by instituting a function called selective breeding. Nellie McClung and other eugenicists believed that people with physical and/or mental disabilities should not be allowed to procreate and that they were not entitled to have children. Because of the ill-conceived efforts of eugenicists such as Nellie McClung, the province of Alberta passed The Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928. chase the passing of that piece of legislation, a province-wide sterilization campaign was launched in which thousands of women were sterilized. search indi cates that many women who were sterilized did not even possess any inherited defects. Research also indicated that a disproportionate amount of teenage girls and uncreated females were the ones who were targeted for sterilization. It was unfortunate that someone who was so involved in social activism should have such an enormous blemish tarnish her legacy. In Nellies defense, eugenics was a preponderating social theory at the time, and while that may serve as a mitigating factor, it does not excuse her actions. Nellie constantly fought against the status quo and social norms, it seems abyssal that she would support such a despicable cause.Notwithstanding Nellie McClungs shortcomings, she was a notable woman. She was not only a wife and mother, but she was also a journalist, a politician, and a social activist. This essay was not even able to cover the full scope of Nellies activism. In addition to fighting for prohibition, womens suffrage, and womens legal equality, Nellie was also highly involved in campaigns to improve working conditions in factories, and also in allowing the ordination of female ministers in the church. Nellie was also a distinguished author she published numerous novels, short stories, poems and other literary works. While critics may criticize her for her evoking the ideology of maternal feminism and for her support of eugenics, one has to take into account the mentality of the time period. Nellie was a product of her environment, and she was undoubtedly influenced by her surroundings. Nellie McClung deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest Canadians to have ever lived.