Western Civilization - History Of European Society

524Chapter 26

1872 less than 25 percent of the total female popula-
tion of France worked for wages. In 1906 nearly 40 per-
cent of the total female population (54 percent of
women age twenty to sixty and 60 percent of women in
their early twenties) worked for wages. Furthermore,
the work women did was changing. The largest em-
ployers remained agriculture, the textile industry, and
domestic service, but governments were opening white-
collar positions (typically in postal and telephone ser-
vices), the age of the department store was creating
sales positions, the needs of businesses were opening
secretarial and clerical jobs, and compulsory education
laws were providing teaching jobs.
Women’s employment varied across Europe—Rus-
sian law closed the civil service to women whereas a
Swedish law of 1864 opened all employment to
women—but the impact was similar. Educated and en-
ergetic women in increasing numbers (although still a
minority of women) demanded equality with men.
Conservatives, and some men who thought themselves
radicals, resisted equality as staunchly as they resisted
the demands of workers. Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical let-
ter Rerum Novarumwas clear on the subject of working
women: “Women are not suited for certain occupations;
a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is
that which is best adopted at once to preserve her mod-
esty and promote the good bringing up of children and
the well-being of the family.”
The women’s rights movement was relatively small
in the 1870s, but militants articulated comprehensive
programs. The leading French militant of the 1870s,
Hubertine Auclert, summarized such a program for her
organization, Droit des femmes(Women’s Rights): “The ul-
timate objective of Droits des femmesis: The perfect equal-
ity of the two sexes before the law and in morality” (see
document 26.4). Feminists (a term that Auclert pio-
neered in the 1880s) debated priorities, but compre-
hensive programs soon resembled Auclert’s: full
political rights, open education and careers, equal civil
rights, and equal pay.
Leagues with such programs existed in most of
western and northern Europe by the end of the 1870s,
though pioneering feminists favored a strategy of start-
ing with limited programs and postponing the issue of
women’s suffrage. Louise Otto-Peters, the founder of
the German women’s rights movement, focused on civil
rights. The generation of German feminists that fol-
lowed her, such as Anita Augsburg and the General
Federation of German Women’s Associations, also be-
gan with limited demands. Not until the early twentieth
century did women’s rights advocates in most countries
begin to seek political rights. Augsburg reached this

position in 1898 but did not create her suffrage league

(the German Union for Women’s Suffrage) until 1902.

A similar situation existed in Italy, where Maria Moz-

zoni fought for civil and economic rights but avoided

suffragism. In France, the suffrage campaigns of Auclert

during the 1880s attracted only a handful of followers.

The women’s rights majority there, led by Léon Richer

DOCUMENT 26.4

Hubertine Auclert: The Equality

of the Sexes, 1877

Hubertine Auclert (1848–1914) was a daughter of prosper-

ous farmers, who inherited enough money to devote her life to a

political cause. She founded the women’s suffrage campaign in

France and organized demonstrations on behalf of women’s

rights. During the 1880s she edited the leading newspaper of

militant feminism in France, La Citoyenne.Frustrated by

the rate of progress, she considered violent protest in the early

twentieth century but kept faith in democratic programs like

the following.

The ultimate objective of Droit des femmesis: The

perfect equality of the two sexes before the law

and in morality.

PROGRAM: Droit des femmeswill seek, from the

beginning and by all means in its power:

1. The accession of women, married or not,
   to full civil and political rights, on the same
   legal conditions as apply to men.


2. The reestablishment of divorce.


3. A single morality for men and for women;
   whatever is condemned for one cannot be
   excusable for the other.


4. The right for women to develop their intel-
   ligence through education, with no other
   limitation than their ability and their de-
   sire.


5. The right to knowledge being acquired,
   the free accession of women to all profes-
   sions and careers for which they are quali-
   fied at the same level as applies to men
   (and after the same examination).


6. The rigorous application, without distinc-
   tion by sex, of the economic formula:
   Equal Pay for Equal Work.
   Hause, Steven C. Hubertine Auclert: The French Suffragette.
   New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.