Layla Quinones
SSH104.7761
January 8, 2008
Professor T. Coogan
Midterm Take-Home Portion
1. Feminism and Antifeminism
The American and French Revolutions had a lasting impact on various aspects of the
western world; one of which was the influence on the women’s suffrage movement. The French
and American Revolutions advocated the principals initially identified by John Locke: the
natural rights of man and a sovereign nation. These principals influenced many feminists in the
sense that they strongly declared that natural rights and the right to have a voice in government
were applicable to all, which would include women as well as men. Feminists emphasized the
fundamental goals of both Revolutions which were political liberty, equality, sovereignty and the
government’s responsibility to protect the natural rights of humans and they asserted that these
goals applied to women as well. Ultimately, the Revolutions asserted the reevaluation of an
unjust government and the creation of a just government. The feminists were influenced by this
and formulated the women’s suffrage movement as an organized way to gather and reevaluate
the injustices done to women in society in hope of reforming the laws that did not recognize
women. In addition, the notion that society shapes people was greatly emphasized by the
feminists in order to denounce the arguments of antifeminists and to assert the need to reform
society in order to condition women to become productive, intelligent and equal to men.
There were many feminist writers that advocated for women’s rights and supported the
women’s rights movement. Specifically Mary Wolstonecraft, influenced by the “Declaration of
the Rights of Man”, the “Declaration of Independence” and Olympe de Gouges’ “Declaration of
the Rights of Women”, asserted for the application of natural rights and equal rights for women.
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In her A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Walstonecraft asserts that in order to create
educated, reasonable, and productive women in society, the government needed to give
educational opportunities to women. These educational opportunities would therefore allow them
to be qualified enough to take part in various professions, be able to own land, and vote.
Ultimately, Walstonecraft asserted that women needed liberty just as much as the men needed
liberty in order to further the progression of society and, because women were conditioned to act
inferior by society, it was the laws that were preventing them from succeeding to their full
potential.
John Stuart Mill was also among the feminist advocates who were directly influenced by
the ideals of the French and American Revolutions. Stuart emphasized the need for liberty of all
adults and belived that it was in the best interest of the people and the country as a whole if
people had the right to express their opinions and be heard in society. One quote that I deem
extremely important in this case was when Mill asserted in his essay On Liberty, “If all mankind
minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person
than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” (160). With this, Stuart
also asserted that every individual should have the right to exercise their liberty freely so long as
they respect the rights of others, in order to become rational, moral and civilized. Although many
of his peers did not apply these laws to women, Mill gave no difference to women in these rights
and asserted that they applied to everyone. In his The Subjection of Women, Mill asserted that the
male dominant society that claimed to be free and sovereign, in fact, were abusing their power
over women and suppressing them intensely. In essence, this violated the fundamentals of a free
society and in turn, delayed the development of society.
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Emmeline Pankhurst was also among the very influential feminists of the 19th and 20th
centuries who advocated for women’s rights. She organized The Women’s Social and Political
Union (WSPU) in order to gather women to protest and petition unfair treatment and
inequalities. She was also influenced by the French and American Revolutions in the sense that
she asserted the need of violence in order to exhibit the extreme necessity for the reform of laws
to apply to women. She believed as women awaited patiently and peacefully protesting their
cause, they are just validating their inferior position in life and the government would not make
haste to meet their demands. She concluded that by exhibiting the extreme such as violence,
rioting, arson, destruction etc., the government would actually see the need for reform and
therefore, conform to the feminists’ demands. Ultimately, Pankhurst was extremely influential
for subsequent feminists and asserted her ideas openly that women were the same as men and
should be treated so. Her efforts and those of the WSPU immensely aided the women’s rights
agenda for obtaining voting rights for women.
Hubertine Auclert, the leading French voice for women’s rights in the 19th and 20th
centuries, exposed the laws in France to be the source of female “enslavement”. She asserted that
it was extremely ironic for a country who advocated for liberty and equality, to exclude women
from these rights and leave half of the population extremely oppressed. She also identified the
leading force of this enslavement to be the fact that women could not vote and she emphasized
that if women were given the right to vote, they would in fact aid in the development and
evolution of society. She, along with many feminists, denounced the view that women were
inferior to men and advocated that if women were to be functional members of society with an
education, job and voting rights, that the view of women would drastically change; allowing
women to be equal to men.
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Although the feminists had a very reasonable goal to obtain equal rights for women, there
were many anti-feminists who denounced the whole notion of women’s rights and advocated for
the perseverance of traditional ideals. Specifically, Edmund and Jules Goncourt were two famous
French writers who asserted that women were inferior to men and for them to come out of their
“rank” and try to equalize themselves with men was against their nature. What they ultimately
contested was that women were to be subordinate and inferior to men because they biologically,
physically and mentally were not the same as men.
Sir Almroth Wright was also a predominate English writer who advocated antifeminist
ideas. He contended that if women were to rise up from their inferiority and become equal to
men, the entire state would be in a state of disaster. According to him, this was because the
military power of the state would become weak, as well as the influence and foreign view of the
state which in turn would have the state in danger of attack. In the case of an attack, Wright
asserted that because women would hinder the performance of men, the military would weaken
and succumb to foreign invasion. Ultimately, Wright and the Goncourt brothers asserted that
women were naturally, biologically, mentally, spiritually, and traditionally inferior to men and if
society were to function successfully, it would have to keep women at that state forever.
2. Anti-Semitism
Hourston Stewart Chamberlain was an extremely influential racist thinker during the 19th
and 20th centuries. He believed that the decedents of Aryans, who exhibited the physical features
of blond hair, blue eyes, long faces and fair skin, were the most superior race of all mankind. He
also contended that Germans possessed the strongest strains of Aryan blood which accounted for
their inner spiritual depth that allowed them to be the true shapers of high civilization. With this
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he claimed that the Jewish people, due to their impure biology, were destroying German culture,
tradition, and ultimately degrading Germans for the selfish reasons of the Jews. In essence,
Chamberlin asserted that there were scientific, moral, spiritual, and intellectual differences
between Germans and Jews that justified the inferiority of Jews to the Germans and, this
supported the extermination of the Jews.
Due to his views about Jews and their biological inferiority to Germans, many Germans
embraced Chamberlain’s Volkish views and eventually formulated the Nazi party in Germany.
Specifically, Alfred Rosenberg, a leading theorist during Hitler’s Nazi movement, commended
and was influenced by Chamberlains writings and used them to justify the “ethnic cleansing” of
Jewish people. Volkish thought contributed by Chamberlain and many other anti-Semitic
thinkers, allowed for the eventual undermining of the Weimar Republic after World War One
and the uprising of the Nazi party. Hitler and the Nazi party were determined to transform
Volkish thought into a political reality. In addition, it was Chamberlain’s assertion that Jews
were corrupting and degrading Germans that fueled the massacre of millions of Jews by Hitler
and the Nazi party.
Traditionally, anti-Semitic fears can be traced down in history for thousands of years.
The original anti-Semitic views came from Christianity which asserted that Jews, who denied
Christ, were impure and deserved to be prosecuted for trying to take over the world. However,
unlike the Volkish anti-Semitics, the Christians who persecuted, massacred, and condemned the
Jews emphasized that they could be saved by conversion to Christianity. Influenced by
Chamberlain, German and French anti-Semitics believed that Jewish was not a religion, rather it
was a race that could be differentiated biologically from all other races.
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The Pan-Germanic League was directly influenced by the anti-Semitic theories and
propositions presented by Chamberlain. They asserted the theory of Social Darwinism and
advocated the need for German expansion on the grounds that they were the superior race. They
exhibited racist ideas that contributed to their assertions that Germans should dominate all of
Europe in order to spread the purity of German beliefs, culture and thinking. They also justified
German imperialism with the assertion that the German race was superior and therefore, had
every right to dominate the world, putting all inferior races to serve them. These assertions in
regards to the German people and showed that they were the only ones fit to obtain freedom,
liberty, and natural rights because they were superior. Ultimately, they wanted to preserve
German culture and tradition by exterminating or controlling all inferior races, allowing
Germans to be in their rightful place: above all others.
Hermann Ahlwardt was also a leading anti-Semitic writer who advocated the
extermination of Jews. He identified that Jews were the opposite of Germans in every way and
therefore, they were the most impure and corrupt race. He claimed that in order to protect the
Germans and their culture, the Jews must be exterminated before they could further hinder the
progress and development of the superior Germans. He also contended that for these reasons,
the Jews should be prohibited from immigrating to Germany because they would overpopulate,
control business, corrupt the government, corrupt the Germans and propose a serious threat to the
German race. He contended that Jews were selfish, conniving, lazy parasites, cheaters, and they
did not believe in labor culture or German values therefore; they would overpopulate and try to
dominate the country with their Jewish ways.
Branching off the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Christians was Edouard Drumont, a
French journalist who wrote a book on anti-Semitism called Jewish France. In his book he
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contended that the Jews were ethnographically, physiologically and psychologically opposite to
Germans. He adopted the Medieval Christian myth that Jews murdered Christian children for
ritual purposes and used it to transmit his theory that the Jews were contributing in a conspiracy
to dominate the world. In his book he asserted that the Jews had always exploited many nations
through possession of professions in economic oriented fields so that they could eventually
dominate the economy. He also stated that Jews had tried to dominate other fields such as art,
science, literature etc., in order to spread their Jewish believes and feelings, corrupting the nation
with the eventual goal to control the world. This myth of Jews being cruel savages and
conspirators also led to the eventual thought that Jews should be exiled or exterminated. In
addition, he also advocated nationalistic views that degraded Jews and blamed them for any
social and political ills that were occurring in France.
Durmont’s Jewish France, where he contended that Jews had murdered Christian
children for ritual purposes, influenced the conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus and raised
money for Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry’s, Dreyfus’ alleged framer, memorial fund. Captain
Alfred Dreyfus was Jewish and was accused of selling French secrets to Germany and he was
convicted on faked evidence for high treason. Many nationalists, clergy, army members, royalists
and conservatives (The Right) believed that Dreyfus was a potential weakness to the army and
the nation and therefore, insisted on his guilt. However, I believe that this was a direct attack on
Jewish people due to the substantial amount of evidence found of his being innocent. The fact
that Henry framed him and The Right being determined to find Dreyfus guilty was evidence of a
anti-Semitic attack to eventually get France screaming “Death to the Jews”. In addition, Dreyfus
being sentenced to life imprisonment on “Devil’s Island” in South America then ten years of
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detention before his release, shows the dominance of anti-Semitic sentiments thought France
which influence diplomacy and politics.
The fact that France began to become flooded with anti-Semitic sentiments led for Jewish
people such as Theodor Herzl, to declare a need for Jews to be allowed to have an independent
state. He argued that the Jews needed security in a time when anti-Semitic ideas were
propagating and gaining favor throughout the nation therefore; there was a need for Jews to
unite, to protect themselves and settle within their own state in Palestine. Herzel pointed out that
Jews had been prosecuted for thousands of years and that it was about time, since no one wanted
to accept them, that they formed their own state where they could be Jewish without troubling
anyone else. He also asserted that, given the history of the persecution of Jews, they could never
be done away with or exterminated and, that they would survive current and future persecution
until it finally stopped. Here he denounced the notion of “extermination” given by the PanGermanic League and he advocated for the solution of the “Jewish Question” by setting the Jews
free to live in their own united state. Ultimately, due to the anti-Semitism that was spreading
through Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews finally called for their own
fatherland so that they might finally live in peace.
3. Imperialism
There were many reasons that various Europeans gave for imperialism. The most popular
was the view that advocated imperialism for the spread of civilization, moral, religion, and order
to the savage “lower” races of Africa, Asia and India. Another view, primarily emphasized by
people who denounced imperialism, was that the European countries were expanding for their
own self interest to develop economically, capitalistically, and to succeed in the competition over
power with various European countries. In addition, nationalistic views also fueled imperialism
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in the sense that many European countries contended that they were of the superior race and, as a
result of Social Darwinism, must conquer the world, exterminating all inferior races for the
betterment of humanity.
Cecil Rhodes, inspired by the views of John Ruskin, was a predominant and powerful
supporter of England’s expansion into Africa and India. He founded his own British colony of
Rhodesia that was predominantly used for diamond mining and the diamond trade, giving profit
to him and his supporters. In his Confession of Faith, Rhodes expressed his strong beliefs that the
“British race” was the most superior of all human beings. He explained how it was extremely
necessary for England to expand and in order to spread its values and beliefs in order to “breed”
more Englishmen. He based his ideas of expansion on racism and stated that all other races, such
as in Africa and India, were “despicable specimens of human beings”(243) who should be
influence by the “Anglo-Saxons” in order for the Englishmen to dominate the world as they
should.
With his extreme nationalism, Rhodes contended that the English were “the finest race in
the world that the more of the world [they] inhabit the better it is for the human race” (243).
Therefore, it was their duty to expand in order to promote the growth of their race for the
betterment of humanity. In addition, he declared that the primitive people of Africa and India
were worthless, wasting land and wasting labor power therefore, the British must carry out their
duties to utilize these savages for the betterment of the superior race and the betterment of
humanity. Ultimately, many of Rhodes’ visions reflected the popular Social Darwinist beliefs
during the 20th century.
Joseph Chamberlain also believed that there was a duty that was possessed by the British
white man to civilize the savage Africans and bring order to their societies. According to
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Chamberlain, it was the mission and duty of the British people, the most superior race
preordained by God, to spread Christianity and civilize the barbarians of Africa and Asia. He
strongly felt that the spread of the superior values and the superior race would complete their
mission of eventually dominating the world. In addition, he also argued that Britain, as a nation,
depended on the preservation of its government and its values. He believed that in order to
preserve the “British way” and aid Britain into becoming the most superior nation in the world,
the British must expand and conquer to increase trade, acquire raw materials and achieve the
subordination of all inferior races. In essence, he asserted that it was the “White Man’s Burden”
to Christianize and civilize the savages of these countries in order for them to be orderly and
functional in a modern world. This civilizing and Christianizing, he believed, would make the
barbarians happier, civilized and more productive.
One person who advocated for the Social Darwinist theory of expansion was Karl
Pearson, a British professor of mathematics. The Social Darwinist theory adopted Charles
Darwin’s theory of evolution and his assertion of the “survival of the fittest”. Pearson explained
that the “white man” was the most superior race whereas, the Asians, red (Indian) people and the
black people, since they had no forms of civilized (modern) government or ways of life, were
inferior to the whites (British). In essence, those who had the most technology, science,
expansion of their nation, economy and people were the most “fittest,” powerful and most
deserving to survive in an ever changing world. In his opinion, this would include with keeping
up with the modern times and developing and spreading the superiority of the white man.
Pearson advocated for the complete extermination of all inferior people. He contended
that the only healthy alternative of the survival of the superior race would be to “completely
drive out the inferior race” (247). He used America as an example of this when the colonialists
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expanded from Britain and took over the nation and the Indian people. He declared that the
Indians did not contribute anything to the work and thought of the world therefore; they should
be replaced with a race that would work towards the betterment of humanity and contribute to
the “common stock of civilized man” (247). In addition, he asserted that the expansion of the
white man’s race was necessary for its survival. He identified that in the world, as well as
between nations, people were constantly fighting for survival as per the natural resources they
acquired. The purpose of expansion was not only to spread the superior race and its values but, to
inhabit the world so that the “superior” race may populate different areas while acquiring all the
natural resources; hence the inferior races would have to compete with them for natural resources
as well. Social Darwinism, which promoted survival of the fittest nation, was designed as a
means to justify dominating the world and exterminating all inferior races.
In my opinion, I feel that the imperialism of European countries was extremely unfair to
those helpless people who were thought to be inferior to them. According to The Casement
Report, many Africans were exploited, massacred, humiliated, starved, mutilated, hunted, killed,
degraded, and ill treated by British government officials and their officers. It also glorified the
dangers that the Africans faced when they were going into the deep forest to gather large bundles
of rubber. However, the negative aspects of imperialism did not stop with the inferior races,
many of the superior (British, German, American and French) races suffered as a result of being
isolated in a strange environment. According to Richard Meinertzhagen, the colonial service in
Africa degraded moral and reasonable men. He contended that, due to the harsh climate,
mingling with the African savages, seeing so much distress, terror, disorder, savagery and the
culture clash between Africans and Europeans, Englishmen would become lesser and degraded.
He claimed that the white soldiers exhibited savage behavior, due to various circumstances. He
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recalls that soldiers who were away from their families and customs for long periods of time
were depressed, anxious, stressed, lonesome, irrational and ultimately left to adapt savagery. He
himself yearned to go back home at the end of his 5 year service. He changed his attitude from
wanting to carry out his duty in colonizing Africa, to a hopeless attitude which found it of no use
to try and civilize the Africans. In addition, he also identified that many uneducated whites were
being recruited in the civil service and therefore, many horrible things were being done to the
Africans by these officers.
In conclusion, I agree with people like John Atkinson Hobson, who believed that the
assertion European countries made to expand in order to spread civilization, skills, religion, order
etc, was false and, that there was an underlying economic factor involved in imperialism. In fact,
I believe that European countries were essentially competing for power and superiority. Due to
growing nationalistic ideas, every nation wanted to be a superpower and therefore had to prove
themselves by conquering lands and profiting to develop their nation and its technology.