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Feminist Men

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Brown Eyes:
<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/5905968-d56.jpg" border="0" />

Laurence Housman (1834-1959)

The author, illustrator and dramatist Laurence Housman, was the brother of poet A. E. Housman, and was a well-known British militant working for women's suffrage.  He  helped found the Men's League for Woman's Suffrage in England in 1907. Like its sister organization, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the Men's League engaged in protest strategies that included civil disobedience, destruction of property and hunger strikes. Housman not only took part in some pretty radical protest strategies, he wrote pamphlet and gave speeches.  One of his many suffrage pamphlets, for example, was titled Sex-War and Woman's Suffrage from 1912. In it Housman suggests that the suffrage movement highlighted a wide range of social and legal injustices caused by institutionalized sexism.

karen1129:
Hey, thanks for this thread.

This is all very interesting.

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: atz75 on November 23, 2008, 11:46:23 pm ---I don't know....  I don't know who Linda Eastman is... (**blushes**).  Do tell! :)
--- End quote ---

Well, Linda Eastman is better known by her married name, Linda McCartney. But in googling, I can't find any evidence that they're related. Linda was related to the Eastman of Eastman-Kodak, the photography company.

Brown Eyes:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/5906334-65c.jpg" border="0" />
Diego Martelli, painted by Edgar Degas c. 1879-1880

Diego Martelli (1839-1896) is someone I learned a bit about when I was writing my dissertation (which was about Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt), so that's where I'm getting my info for this post.  Martelli was an Italian writer who often wrote art criticism and was a very early advocate of Impressionism (by Degas knew him, etc.). 

So here's a case of someone interested primarily in a women's issue other than suffrage.

Martelli was a very radical supporter of a broad range of women's rights (property rights, divorce rights, etc.) in Europe and attended lots of important conferences on women's rights particularly in France and Italy in the late 19th century.  He also wrote treatises on the topic of women's rights.  One of the causes he was very passionate about was the issue of institutionalized prostitution in France (it was legal and regulated in really horrible, demeaning ways).  In 1880 he presented a paper at a conference in Genoa about the problem of prostitution particularly as it pertains to women's rights.  Here's a little bit of his paper that he simply titled "Prostitution", that I quoted in my dissertation. It includes some over-the-top language, which in some ways is very typical of 19th century critics and polemicists.

"It seems to me rather... that this is the final step in the subjugation of the female, and... is the last link in a chain of infamies to which woman has been subjected by the bestiality of man... And it is... a state not peculiar to those unfortunate women who sell their mistreated and exhausted flesh for a few pennies in the brothel, but rather, it is the normal condition of the entire sex..."

Brown Eyes:

--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 24, 2008, 12:37:30 am ---Well, Linda Eastman is better known by her married name, Linda McCartney. But in googling, I can't find any evidence that they're related. Linda was related to the Eastman of Eastman-Kodak, the photography company.


--- End quote ---

Ah! OK, gotcha.  I have a cool book of Linda's photography somewhere (I think stored at my parents' house at this point).

So, this could lead us out of the 19th century/ early-20th century and into a more modern age... thinking of the Beatles and the 60s, etc.  Can we consider Paul a feminist?  John more so (maybe)?  When we think of all the progressive thinking going on in the 1960s, who were the men who seemed most supportive and interested in women's rights in any category (musicians, writers, politicians, etc.)?

Can Bob Dylan be considered a supporter of feminism?

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