ABSTRACT
[Published in 1843, this letter to the editor of the New Moral World is representative of the ambiguous response to the “woman question” within the Owenite movement. Though the anonymous male author did not deny the reality of women’s oppression, he cast doubt on the possibility, and relevance even, of female agency, arguing that their emancipation would follow naturally from the general improvement of mankind under a co-operative regime. Throughout the late 1820s and 1830s, many all-female institutions emerged among British socialist circles. In 1833, the Practical Moral Union of the Women of Great Britain and Ireland tried to unite women of all classes in the fight for female suffrage. In the eyes of many, including Owen, such separatist institutions were merely a distraction from the true aims of co-operation, which commanded a union of interests, for all classes of all nations (Taylor 1983, 82).]
