Emerson Before The Woman's Rights Convention

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Nowadays, Ralph Waldo Emerson is best known for his philosophical essays on various subjects and books on the nature of the self; as the inventor of the transcendental movement in America; as the most progressive thinker of his time. At the same time, many of the new critics increasingly accuse him of being extremely patriarchal in his works. However, the lecture “Woman,” delivered by Emerson before the Woman’s Rights Convention in 1855 presents the significant shift in his views about women and womanhood. I would like to trace the development of his thought on the women question and argue for the idea that Emerson was able to move beyond the patriarchal boundaries of his time. Almost 20 years past from the moment when Emerson first published his major work Nature. Undoubtedly, the first edition of the book was addressed to the cultivation of self-reliance of man as the individual and the manhood in general. But as the life pass, Emerson started to expand his views on women in general and woman in particular. In his lecture “Woman” Emerson argues for the equal rights of women in some political aspects, for the allowance of the women to work if they want to, and against the objectification of women …show more content…

Emerson got to this point? In his article Emerson and the Woman Question: The Evolution of His Thought, Len Gougeon suggests that the experience in the antislavery movement was a point, from which Emerson first recognized the existence of the women’s activists groups. Because many privileged women witnessed the benefits of the antislavery movement, they started to develop their own path through the same organization method. Gougeon indicates that the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 was one of the major events, which has the impact on the whole nation. Thereafter, Emerson begins to realize the effect and the power of such movement. And, with the impact from his activist friend Paulina Wright Davis, he begins to participate in the progress of “Woman

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