[Feminists built the nation as surely as the railroad did.]
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FEMINISM, FROM ABIGAIL ADAMS TO BEYONCE  
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Elizabeth Cobbs
March 1, 2023
Washington Post
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_ Feminists built the nation as surely as the railroad did. _

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Feminism gets a bad rap.

Polls show that a third of respondents believe it does more harm
than good
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That’s a direct result of Americans not knowing the true record of
feminist activism and how, throughout American history, it has
propelled changes that we recall fondly — from the implementation of
universal education, to the abolition of slavery, to the knitting of
the social safety net.

Feminists built the nation as surely as the railroad did.

Women’s History Month is intended to correct distortions that
undermine the sense of common experience and values that nations need
to cohere. It offers an opportunity to recognize that whether we are
Republicans, Democrats or independents, we are all feminists under the
skin — whether we know it or not. Embracing this history will
better equip us to resist extremists who try to divide us.

The ugly slander of feminism is as old as the country. Since 1776,
opponents have painted feminists as disruptive and disloyal. John
Adams was America’s first politician to employ the trick.

A crafty debater, Adams understood that nothing cuts an opponent
quicker than ridicule. In May 1776, Adams received a disturbing
letter: A British military retreat and the imminent declaration of
American independence had inspired his wife, Abigail, to express her
hope that Congress would cease treating women as “vassals of your
sex.” Abigail Adams reminded her husband that “all men would be
tyrants if they could” — a double entendre since this was the
standard criticism of kings used to describe husbands. Women should
have representation in government she averred, otherwise the new laws
would be unfair.

John Adams pretended that his wife amused more than offended him. “I
cannot but laugh,” he wrote back, though he warned that she and her
“tribe” bordered on insubordination. The enemy was egging on
“discontented” complainers from enslaved Africans to “Scotch
Renegados.”

In communications with his wife, John Adams dismissed her concerns as
silly, but the next month he soberly wrote another legislator that
they must guard against such requests. After all, he told his
colleague, “Whence arises the right of men to govern women, without
their consent?” If the vote was freely granted, “there will be no
end of it.” Other disenfranchised groups might rebel, too.

Like most Founders, Adams could conceive of no way to consolidate the
country other than as a place where White men governed. The 13
colonies could barely agree to declare independence, much less rewrite
the social contract. They bought consensus at the cost of long-term
battles by marginalized groups who had few, if any, rights.

Yet Adams mischaracterized his wife’s intent. Abigail Adams hoped to
reinforce the nation, not destabilize it. She saw a need, for example,
for new leaders to replace British ones. She often reminded her
husband that women could educate the next generation if released from
their “more than Egyptian bondage” (an allusion to the Jews’
plight in Egypt under the pharaohs) and permitted higher learning
rather than being banned from secondary schools.

Her advice proved prescient. During the same muggy summer of 1787 when
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and other
Founders sweated over the Constitution, male reformers who shared
Abigail Adams’s vision launched the first “Ladies Academy” on
Cherry Street in Philadelphia, a short walk from Independence Hall.
Soon thereafter, Isabella Graham, Eliza Hamilton’s closest
collaborator in later years, started one in New York City.

By 1830, more than 360 new female academies had sprung up across the
states, training the first generation of women teachers and paving the
way for universal public schools. Mass education, in turn, fueled
America’s industrial revolution and economic success by creating a
skilled workforce that was better-educated than any in the world.

In subsequent decades, feminists laid other milestones. They
campaigned doggedly for abolition, and after the Civil War organized
the nationwide petition drive behind the 13th Amendment that ended
slavery. They helped create an inclusive electorate by fighting for
the African American vote (theoretically achieved with ratification of
the 15th Amendment in 1870, but not fully secured until the Voting
Rights Act in 1965), and later, women’s suffrage (accomplished with
ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920).

One of their number, U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the
first woman to serve in the Cabinet, spearheaded the passage of Social
Security in 1935 and the minimum wage in 1938. Others helped double
the workforce by taking down barriers to female employment, such as
rules that required pregnant women to quit their jobs. Gradually, they
helped redefine marriage as a romantic partnership between equals.

Like the nation itself, they were racially, geographically and
religiously diverse. They did not always agree with one another.
Modern Americans would admire some more than others, just as we do the
Founders. That’s natural but not the point.

Throughout, they were unfailingly accused of being grumpy nags, even
as Americans grew prouder of the rights that Abigail Adams proposed
and John Adams resisted. In the 19th century, pioneers like Susan B.
Anthony faced the same slurs as Abigail Adams had in the previous
century, intended to ridicule and delegitimize their quest for
equality — which, after all, was America’s founding goal. In the
20th century, feminists weathered accusations that they had “penis
envy” or were “ball-busters.”

Today, male supremacists like the Proud Boys — designated a
terrorist group by Canada — continue this tradition by denigrating
feminists as “not even women anymore” and therefore “punchable
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Feminists are not some odd minority. They are anyone who believes that
women should be able to attend school, earn wages, wear pants, speak
in public, vote in elections or serve in government, all rights that
patriotic women and men labored together to win. Feminist ideals are
democratic principles that can guide us even as we grapple with
questions on which we disagree, like abortion
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and access.

If anyone is confused about what feminism is, they can cite former
first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Her 1935 definition remains surprisingly
sturdy: “The fundamental premise of feminism is that women should
have equal opportunity and equal rights with every other citizen.”

Improving national unity means honoring values that allow for
conversation despite challenging differences. Women’s History Month
is the place to begin.

_Elizabeth Cobbs is Glasscock professor of American history at Texas
A&M and author of "Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail
Adams to Beyoncé" (Harvard University Press, March 7).  Twitter
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