Women leaving domesticity were branded masculine by those resisting change
Evidence
Lucy Wilmot Smith spoke less circumspectly. In strong feminist language, she insisted upon new expectations of women. Smith revealed her outspoken belief in the need for women to adopt attitudes identified as male in outlook: “Even in our own America, in this last quarter of the Nineteenth Century ablaze with the electric light of intelligence, if she [woman] leaves the paths made straight and level by centuries of steady tramp of her sex, she is denominated strongminded or masculine by those who forget that ‘new occasions make new duties.’” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 661
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: For many housewives feminism threatened identity more than it promised opportunity — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 149; Backlash effects make women curb agency and depend on men for status — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 775; Exploiting femininity to the extreme can paradoxically grant women near-masculine independence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1684 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Women’s emancipation increased male hostility rather than reducing it.
#corroborates(0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 298 - For many housewives feminism threatened identity more than it promised opportunity
#qualifies(0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 149 - Backlash effects make women curb agency and depend on men for status
#expands(0.75) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 775 - Exploiting femininity to the extreme can paradoxically grant women near-masculine independence
#exemplifies(0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1684 - Goth women’s power comes from staging the refusal to be what male desire wants
#complicates(0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1036 - Colonial feminization of subject men aimed at effeminizing and disempowering them
#qualifies(0.72) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 150