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IdentificationThe earliest seeds of the women’s movement showed during the French Revolution. The feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), was the first person to tie her own and other women’s experience of oppression to democracy’s new ideals of equality. Her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Man, published in 1790, was a glowing speech in defence of the rights of man. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792, is regarded as a pioneering work within feminist philosophy. In it, Mary Wollstonecraft argued for education as the way to the liberation of women. In Denmark, the author, Mathilde Fibiger (1830-1872), surprised her contemporaries with the novel, Clara Raphael, Twelve Letters, published in 1851, in which she drew a connection between the national-democratic movement and the liberation of women.
Even though women did not take part in the large-scale procession to the king on 21 March 1848, Mathilde Fibiger nevertheless made the event the starting point of the first feminist novel in Denmark, Clara Raphael, Twelve Letters, which was published in 1951. In her first letter to her female friend, Clara writes enthusiastically about the event in 1848: “21st March opened up a new life for me. I saw the Danish people, who I only knew from legends and songs; I heard the words spoken, which resonated deeply in my soul. My ideals stepped forward to meet me in the real world, and my heart pounded in proud selfawareness.” In the novel, Clara Raphael thus draws a connection between the introduction of democracy and her own ideals of freedom and liberation. However, it was difficult for her to share her enthusiasm for the new ideas with the people she lived among on the island of Lolland. “I have personally tried to talk “about something” with people here, but the only effect it has had is to make them believe I have a screw loose.” Clara Raphael despairs at the position of women. “Our position in society is tragic, and why? What right does man have to suppress us? For subjugated we are, despite the chains being gilded.” To cast off these chains is, however, no easy matter, because they are embedded in the mind and the consciousness: “When the peasants were granted their freedom, some of them wept, begging for permission to keep things as they had been.” Clara Raphael’s hope of breaking with the existing patriarchal system of society required national and democratic self-awareness, which for her constituted a promise of freedom. In response to her female friend’s question about what it was that she was actually fighting for, she answered: “I will fight and live for what I understand by the emancipation of women.” Mathilde Fibiger’s book created a great furore and resulted in the so-called Clara Raphael Dispute, in which N.F.S. Grundtvig defended Mathilde Fibiger. In 1869, Georg Brandes entered the battle for women’s rights with a translation of Stuart Mills (1806- 1873) book, The Subjection of Women, in which Brandes wrote an enthusiastic preface. In 1871, Frederik Bajer (1837-1922) and Matilde Bajer (1840-1934) founded the Danish Women’s Society, the first women’s organisation in Denmark. Mathilde Fibiger was one of the earliest members of the Society. When the Danish Women’s Society was established, it did not demand female suffrage. It was not until 1906 that a majority of the members became in favour of making the demand the Society’s official policy. Since then, women have gained increasing representation in society’s institutions. Whether they have achieved full equal rights is still the subject of debate. “Widows, abandoned and separated wives and
unmarried women aged 25 or older, of age, with or
without trustee, shall have equal opportunity with
male persons to engage in trading activities when
they satisfy the prescribed conditions laid down for
men.”
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This page is part of the electronic publication "The Danish Democracy Canon"