单项选择题
| Students of United States history,
seeking to identify the circumstances that encouraged the emergence of feminist
movements, have thoroughly investigated the mid-nineteenth-century American
economic and social conditions that affected the status of women. These
historians, however, have analyzed less fully the development of specifically
feminist ideas and activities during the same period. Furthermore, the
ideological origins of feminism in the United States have been obscured because,
even when historians did take into account those feminist ideas and activities
occurring within the United States, they failed to recognize that feminism was
then a truly international movement actually centered in Europe. American
feminist activists who have been described as "solitary" and "individual
theorists" were in reality connected to a movement — utopian socialism — which
was already popularizing feminist ideas in Europe during the two decades that
culminated in the first women’s rights conference held at Seneca Falls, New
York, in 180o8. Thus, a complete understanding of the origins and development of
nineteenth-century feminism in the United States requires that the geographical
focus be widened to include Europe and that the detailed study already made of
social conditions be expanded to include the ideological development of
feminism. The earliest and most popular of the utopian socialists were the Saint-Simonians. The specifically feminist part of Saint-Simonianism has, however, been less studied than the group’s contribution to early socialism. This is regrettable on two counts. By 1832 feminism was the central concern of Saint- Simonianism and entirely absorbed its adherents’ energy. Hence, by ignoring its feminism, European historians have misunderstood Saint- Simonianism. Moreover, since many feminist ideas can be traced to Saint- Simonianism, European historians’ appreciation of later feminism in France and the United States remained limited. Saint-Simon’s followers, many of whom were women, based their feminism on an interpretation of his project to reorganize the globe by replacing brute force with the rule of spiritual powers. The new world order would be ruled together by a male, to represent reflection, and a female, to represent sentiment. This complementarity reflects the fact that, while the Saint-Simonians did not reject the belief that there were innate differences between men and women, they nevertheless foresaw an equally important social and political role for both sexes in their Utopia. Only a few Saint-Simonians opposed a definition of sexual equality based on gender distinction. This minority believed that individuals of both sexes were born similar in capacity and character, and they ascribed male-female differences to socialization and education. The envisioned result of both currents of thought, however, was that women would enter public life in the new age and that sexual equality would reward men as well as women with an improved way of life. |