11/15 Response

Since Jen and I are presenting on "Women Writing in the Early Republic" tonight, I hate to give too many thoughts/questions away ahead of time.  However, I'll spare a section about today's reading that really made me ponder my whole view of women's writing during this time.  I will admit that I have often thought of women's writing as totally under the sphere of domesticity during this era.  Perhaps more specific, I generalized my view of "this era" as a mainly nineteenth-century approach, where women were the "nation's moral axis" (366) and where women were limited to "domestic agendas and subject matter" (374).  I suppose that this is a result of my focused attention on nineteenth century works and writers; however, after reading and pondering on Dobson and Zagarell's chapter, I now realize that I have paid minimal attention to the role of women in the eighteenth century, specifically in the role that they played in establishing this new national identity.

Yes, I have heard of Warren, Morton, and Murray, and I have read Wollstonecraft - different subject matter and continent but still prevalent for an eighteenth century discussion - but I had not realized the Enlightenment principles that these women embraced and the role of their writing - I'm speaking of American women writers here - in the creation of a national identity.  These women had a unique role through print, as they had a voice in letters, poetry, essays, education treaties, histories, novels, and plays (367) and post-revolution, their writing ventured to politics, history, religion, and the concept of new nationhood (369).  To assume - as many people might - that women writers were confined to the domestic realm during this time period is to overlook their influence through print on a vast number of cultural and political issues, as these women were addressing content that is considered public and male-dominated.  Moreover, the very fact women began to acknowledge themselves as writers (369) suggests an important shift in this era of the new republic, as women are able to participate through print in a way that makes them not only a participant in the conversation of social and public matters but as creators of discourse about these subjects.

As I am now self-reflecting on this material, I realize that I had yet to connect my understanding of works like "On the Equality of the Sexes" in relation to the role that women were also playing in the new republic.  Somehow, we tend - I understand I am generalizing here - to focus on the fight for women's rights and the realm of domesticity, while skipping over the role that women did have in print during the early years of the new republic.  Yes, I do think it is important to talk about the lack of female agency in the public domain; however, if we solely focus on the domestic sphere of the nineteenth century, then we are overlooking an important aspect of the role of women in print culture before the 1830's, though Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Jacobs clearly found a way to continue to contribute even past the 1830's landmark.  I now realize that I have gone on more than I intended, but I just find it fascinating that I have missed this crucial period up until this point.  And, because apparently I just cannot stop writing now, I think there is much to be said about the role that female editors played in defining the role of female authorship in the 1820's; however, I will save comments on that for our class discussion.