Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- one The gender politics of ‘bluestocking philosophy’
- two Gender and the politics of the public sphere
- three ‘Uncompromising politics’: Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay
- four Women writers: setting the terms of the debate
- five The role of social movements leading to the emergence of women public intellectuals
- six Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (1)
- seven Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (2)
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
five - The role of social movements leading to the emergence of women public intellectuals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- one The gender politics of ‘bluestocking philosophy’
- two Gender and the politics of the public sphere
- three ‘Uncompromising politics’: Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay
- four Women writers: setting the terms of the debate
- five The role of social movements leading to the emergence of women public intellectuals
- six Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (1)
- seven Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (2)
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
The fin de siècle figure of the ‘New Woman’ may have been a journalistic construction, but contemporary commentators immediately recognised her in the women graduates from the new redbrick universities and women's colleges. An article in the students’ magazine of Owens College, Manchester (where women were admitted from 1888) described her: ‘She smokes. She rides a bicycle – not in skirts. She demands a vote. She belongs to a club. She would like a latch key – if she had not already got one. She holds drawing room meetings and draws crowds to public halls to discuss her place in the world.’ (Cowman, 2010: 63)
Introduction
The idea of women public intellectuals is not a new concept and women have occupied positions in the public sphere historically. However, one of the clearest patterns of development that has led to the emergence of women public intellectuals has been the role of social movements that have propelled women's voices more fully into the public sphere. They have also articulated the role of women public intellectuals more fully. The bluestockings who have been discussed in earlier chapters were not a social movement per se – they were more a collection of learned, aristocratic individuals, despite their significant contribution to women's scholarship. Even the more radical writers and thinkers who were outside the bluestocking circles, Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay, did not really advocate directly for all women as independent thinkers and as worthy of the franchise. Social movements such as the suffrage movement and later feminist and civil rights movements were important in accelerating a more diverse and broad-based range of women into roles as public intellectuals. This chapter reviews the significance of social movements in accelerating women into the public sphere as public intellectuals.
The pre-social movement phase
In her analysis of women in British politics, Cowman (2010) argues that the emphasis of historians such as Amanda Vickery (2001) and others has given historical weight to suffrage as being the ‘heroic voice’ in the history of women's politics. However, as Cowman (2010: 2) indicates, this tends to imply that there is no history of women and politics prior to suffrage. Cowman goes on to show that this is an incorrect assessment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Women, Politics and the Public Sphere , pp. 67 - 78Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2019