Preliminary Programme

Wed 11 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 12 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.00 - 18.30

Fri 13 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 14 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

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Wednesday 11 April 2012 8.30 - 10.30
Y-1 WOM01 Brothers of the Sisterhood? Men and Masculinities in 19th and 20th Century Feminisms
Wolfson Medical Building: Seminar room 2
Networks: Women and Gender , Politics, Citizenship, and Nations Chair: Elisabeth Elgán
Organizers: - Discussant: Gunnel Karlsson
Katherine Hubler : “Shall men’s strengths therefore be doomed to idleness?” Feminist and Pro-feminist Masculinities in the First Wave of German Feminism
As German feminism began to crystallize into organized, political movements in the mid and late nineteenth century, men’s role in these organizations was unclear. During the so-called first-wave of German feminism, feminist and pro-feminist men experimented with a number of modes of support. My paper examines how three ... (Show more)
As German feminism began to crystallize into organized, political movements in the mid and late nineteenth century, men’s role in these organizations was unclear. During the so-called first-wave of German feminism, feminist and pro-feminist men experimented with a number of modes of support. My paper examines how three men – Karl Heinzen (1809-1880), Phillip Anton Korn (1816-1886), and Hellmuth von Gerlach (1866-1935) – engaged with the German women’s movement, focusing particularly on the ways each reconciled his masculinity with his feminist commitment and conceptualized very different roles for men furthering feminist aims. As a political refugee from the 1848 revolutions who emigrated to the United States, Heinzen published articles in the 1850s about the wrongs perpetrated against his German sisters under female pen-names, foregoing his masculinity in order to speak with a woman’s moral authority. For his part, Korn, also a former 1848 revolutionary, helped orchestrate the first German women’s congress in 1865 and the founding of the first German-wide women’s association, yet his domineering attitude and grandiose plans alienated his female cohorts and ultimately led to his exclusion from the women’s movement. As an ally of the well-established Wilhelmine women’s movement, liberal democratic politician Hellmuth von Gerlach proceeded with deliberate care to strike a balance between trading on his masculine privileges to bring visibility to women’s causes and avoiding undermining the feminine nature of the German women’s movement. This research contributes to a broader, more diverse portrait of feminist men and male allies of feminism, one which expands upon the prevalent examinations of suffragist men to include men motivated by paternalistic duty and even personal gain. My paper also highlights the uncharted paths men navigated, with varying degrees of success, in order to promote rights and opportunities for German women during the first wave of feminism. (Show less)

Hélène Quanquin : “With feebler voices?” Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) and Men’s Contribution to 19th-century American Feminism
In a speech delivered at the 1887 Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association, American reformer and writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson asked the following questions: “How long will women have to point out these things? How long will men with feebler voices, because less personal and less absorbingly interested, ... (Show more)
In a speech delivered at the 1887 Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association, American reformer and writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson asked the following questions: “How long will women have to point out these things? How long will men with feebler voices, because less personal and less absorbingly interested, have to aid them in pointing them out?” Not only was Higginson expressing his impatience about what he considered as the long struggle for woman suffrage, but he was also commenting on men’s legitimacy in- and contribution to the women’s rights movement. For him, men’s role was to help women obtain their rights, but theirs was not to be a central force in the movement.
Through the example of Thomas Wentworth Higginson and his prolific production on women and women’s rights between 1850 and 1900, we will question this vision of male women’s rights activism. What was men’s specific contribution to the American women’s rights movement and discourse in the 19th century? How did it evolve in the second half of the nineteenth century? We will analyze how Higginson, a writer and reformer, as well as a soldier during the Civil War, articulated his feminist ideas and his place in the women’s rights movement with the perception of his own masculine identity. (Show less)

Cristina Scheibe Wolff : The “New Man”: Discourses on Masculinity and the Feminism in Left-wing Movements of the Southern Cone in the 1970s
The proposition of a “new man” that would carry on the revolution in Latin America was spread in the trail of the Cuban Revolution by the words and deeds of Che Guevara. The new man was also a new woman, as significant amounts of women were engaged in the “new ... (Show more)
The proposition of a “new man” that would carry on the revolution in Latin America was spread in the trail of the Cuban Revolution by the words and deeds of Che Guevara. The new man was also a new woman, as significant amounts of women were engaged in the “new left-wing” movements that arose in Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay). Although “new”, the guerrilla militants, and even the militants from non-armed movements, were supposed to have masculine features that resembled traditional manhood: courage, detachment, loyalty, honor, sacrifice spirit as well as being compassionate, human, responsible and fair. At the same time, feminism and the Sexual Revolution were appearing on the social and political scene, even in these countries governed by military dictatorships. This paper aims to analyze, in a comparative approach, the discourses on feminism and masculinity in these political and armed movements that were so remarkable for this part of the world, using documents – pamphlets and other texts and images – produced at the time by the left-wing organizations and parties as well as interviews with former militants. If feminism was often eyed with suspicion and disdain by these movements they were, nevertheless, a path for women’s participation in the public and political scene, and the number and significance of political women and feminists (women and eventually men) that came out of these movements is very impressive, e.g. the current presidents of Brazil and Argentina. (Show less)



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