ABSTRACT
Despite the existence of a worldwide feminist movement, the position of women worldwide has improved very slightly, since the dawn of feminism in the late eighteenth century. Th e rights of women were implicit in the recognition of the rights of ‘men’, but thinkers such as Locke did not include women in their scheme of things. Rousseau did, however (while treating his own wife very badly), and in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft ’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (see Wollstonecraft , 1967) articulated their rights explicitly (see Profi le) just as the French Revolution was asserting the rights of oppressed people everywhere. Whether women were ‘oppressed’ or not was a moot point. Most men assumed that women existed to perform domestic roles: producing and rearing children and caring for their husbands as well as doing all the household chores. Probably most women at the time would have agreed, had they ever thought themselves important enough to be consulted. Th ey had no possibility of pursuing careers, voting or participating in public life. Th eir consolation was the power they exercised through this domestic role, infl uencing their men-folk, maybe even dominating them, behind the scenes. But the legal position of women at this time was dire: they had no right to divorce (unlike their husbands); they had no right to marital property; and their husbands could beat them quite legally – even rape them should they wish. Moreover, men regularly used prostitutes while preaching fi delity for their wives and divorcing them when this failed, on their side, to be upheld. In ‘exchange’ women were praised for their femininity and sensitivity and were idealised by the notion of romantic love. An unequal relationship indeed.
