Reviews for Woman in the 19th Century: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism

The average rating for Woman in the 19th Century: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-03-12 00:00:00 John Platt I had to read some of Margaret Fuller's work after finishing The Lives of Margaret Fuller recently. Since I'm an ardent feminist, I decided to start with Women in the Nineteenth Century. I'll admit, it's difficult to read. Fuller was highly educated and brings in many references to classical works and current events that meant I often had to stop reading to check a reference on Wikipedia. Even with the added knowledge, her writing style is high 19th century style, with outdated words and phrases that make it hard to plow through by a modern reader. It reminded me of a section from her biography (referenced above) describing outsiders of her circle poking fun at the Transcendentalists: "They read Dante in the original Italian, Goethe in the original German, and Fuller in the original English." Style aside... The first portion of this book is all foundational, where Fuller describes ideals of women in general through the ages, and gives examples of women living outside prescribed norms and their fates. The real meat is in the last portion, where she lays aside the work of others and actually speaks to the reader. She argues that by making women the property of men, society is not only depriving women of their full potential, but also men of having equal partners. Additionally, she decries the idea that there are feminine qualities and masculine qualities, and that men are not allowed to be feminine and women are not allowed to be masculine. Particularly illustrating is her example of the girl who shows interest in carpentry tools but is told that such an endeavor is not intended for her sex. As Fuller declares, "Let there be women sea captains!" if the women are so inclined. I think the next step is to find more of Fuller's work, preferably the essays she wrote for the Dial or her journalistic endeavors, and follow her train of thought.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-14 00:00:00 Maricar Mabanta I find it amusing that this was written in the nineteenth century. It is now the twenty-first century and we still have not achieved everything Margaret Fuller wrote about in this essay. This essay is about Feminism. Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, just like everyone else, and should be treated as such.