Penny A. Weiss

Declaring Sexual Equality: Documents from Around the Globe

From the Seneca Falls Convention on Women’s Rights in 1848 through gatherings and organizations around the world today, feminists have systematically and collectively analyzed the character and range of existing gender-related problems in their societies, envisioned more equitable and inspiring alternatives to the status quo, and explored a variety of methods for change. This article is the first to look comparatively at a wide range of documents emanating from these meetings and groups, and to read them as one would any significant political treatise. The remarks here draw on documents from both working organizations and one-time conferences, as issued by grassroots and inter-governmental groups from local, regional, and international gatherings, that are both wide-ranging and issue-specific. While the documents are not evenly distributed over time, they do represent over a century and a half of feminist organizing. What follows includes a consideration of the scope of issues raised by feminists across time and place, and then, in greater detail, examines specific ideas about politics and education. Finally, in the search for something that might be called “feminist traditions,” the article looks especially at connections and continuities in the documents.