ABSTRACT
After considering the development of the schools, it is time to examine the objectives of those who founded them. In one sense the founders of the women's movement were revolutionaries because they were fighting to secure new opportunities for women, and that has been the generally accepted historical interpretation of the movement. Since the late 1970s many women scholars have urged that this view exaggerates the extent of the changes that took place (Burstyn 1977:11–19). Their general argument runs like this. Though the traditional roles of women were modified by the changes, they were not abandoned. Women continued to live their lives in a family structure that was still dominated by men. Men were the leaders of opinion, the breadwinners of the upper- or middle-class family, and women had to work within the narrow limits laid down by these social and sexual relationships. Women, once they had become better educated, certainly found it easier to earn a living and in some cases to follow a professional career. Yet, as a general rule, they were trained, not to function as independent persons, but to become intelligent wives and mothers, more equal companions for their husbands and sons, better equipped to engage in social or voluntary work outside the home. On this line of argument the changes look much less like a revolution, much more like a reform within structures that remained largely unchanged and that still left women in a distinctly inferior position.
