F E M O C R A C Y F E M O C R A C Y How Educators Can Teach Democratic Ideals and Feminism Chris Edwards ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by Chris Edwards All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Edwards, Chris, 1977– author. Title: Femocracy : how educators can teach democratic ideals and feminism / Chris Edwards. Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “Feminism is world history’s most significant historical force and should be presented in classrooms as the central narrative in world history from the Protestant Reformation to the present. Democratic ideals created both the American Congress and the feminist movement, but which is more important? This and more is discussed in Femocracy: How Educators Can Teach Democratic Ideals and Feminism”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021008879 (print) | LCCN 2021008880 (ebook) | ISBN 9781475860863 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781475860870 (paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781475860887 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Women’s studies—United States. | Feminism—United States—History. | Democracy—Study and teaching—United States. | Feminism and education—United States. Classification: LCC HQ1181.U5 E39 2021 (print) | LCC HQ1181.U5 (ebook) | DDC 305.4209—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008879 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008880 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. For my wife, Beth. The family is lucky you are the one in charge. CONTENTS Introduction ix 1 Antecedents to Femocracy 1 2 English History and the English Stage 15 3 The Enlightenment 29 4 Revolution and the Vindication 45 5 Anti-slavery and the Declaration of Sentiments 65 6 Between the Suffragettes and Birth Control 87 7 Higher Education and the Pill 103 8 From The Feminine Mystique to Oprah 121 9 Femocracy in the West: 2011 to the Future 135 Conclusion 153 References 157 vii INTRODUCTION Traditional narratives of history operate like a Mercator map of the world by creating order through distortion. Mercator maps distort the actual size of landmasses so that a round surface can be represented on a flat surface in a way that makes everything fit on the right latitude and longitude. The Mercator map does not claim to be proportionally accurate, but people unacquainted with cartography might eyeball the map and think that Greenland is roughly the size of Africa. Computer cartography has allowed for the creation of some interest- ing new maps that reflect proportionality better so that one can see that countries that appear modest on the Mercator map loom rather large in real space. Countries that appear to sprawl across the Mercator take up less impressive spaces in proportional maps. World history lacks a means of measuring the significance of events and so sometimes an event of no great long-term importance gets stretched, by acclamation, to fit the established lines while events that should take up more significant space get shrunk. The point of this book is that democratic ideals created feminism and that feminism as a historical topic has been distorted into a constricted little island when it should take up most of the map. Since the audience for this book will be primarily made up of educators and academics, some guidelines for how to teach this new synthesis will be included. ix