Emma Goldman

The definition of women's rights can be seen as the entitlements of women throughout society. Conventional wisdom has held that women's rights have often been ignored, suppressed and debated. There are many issues that are commonly linked to discussions of women's rights and these include the right to take part in an election, the right to hold public office, the right to have an occupation, the right of equal pay and the right to be educated as well as their male counterparts. Throughout history, there have been many women who have fought on both the broad and narrow fronts of women's rights. One woman in particular, Emma Goldman, saw women's rights as an issue because of societal values. Goldman continuously has been noted by historians as a consumer of thought-provoking discourse on women's rights that included marriage and motherhood. Goldman frequently argued against the modern movements of women at the time of her writings and lectures noting that much of these so-called modern movements were mere charades that had been performed by women on the behest of men. History remembers Goldman as a bold rebel who altered the explanation of women's rights.

The Goldman Standard in History

History records Emma Goldman as a prolific lecturer who became renowned for her writings on philosophy, social issues and women's rights. Much of her embrace by American history has been as a result of her being a voice for the many political concerns and cultural sensibilities. She was in effect, an authority. Feminists have recounted that Goldman was an icon. This aspect of Goldman was especially true during the 1960s when Goldman's canonization was accelerated. A massive number of books and literature on Emma Goldman have been published since the 1960s noting her as an honorable anarchist, whom Americans rarely make heroes of (Frankel). It can be said that there are very few women in history who are as extolled as Emma Goldman.

The existence of women in democracy, and more emphatically, American egalitarianism has always been restrained because of gender. The initial efforts to speak in public were shaped primarily by the cultural mores of domesticity and meekness. Women were seen as inferior, as and less than men in both the private and public spheres. In order for women to have a presence on the proverbial platform and for issues regarding women to be championed, many of the early orators for women's issues had to adopt a striking, yet brash tone of voice that was both thought-provoking and personal. Women had to be seen as a voice of authority; otherwise, that particular orator was put through the wringer by her male counterparts and in effect, American democracy in general. This would allow women to adopt what was known as the feminist style, which was an association correlated between the orator and her audience in order to assert the authority of women and provide them with a valid personalization of rights conveyed through a series of concrete arguments that they were more than just cookers, cleaners and beholden to the chauvinistic attitudes of men (Rogness and Foust). Like Sonia Sotomayor, Emma Goldman sought to challenge that by becoming a quintessential force for women’s rights. Many accounts have recognized Goldman’s determination of such.

Goldman essentially illustrates the potential for women's rhetorical success outside of the feminist style because Goldman critiqued the conventional aspects that women had become known for. Her ideals of what was known as free love encompassed a balance of individuals with their humanity; rather that a separate framework for men and women to operate under. Goldman wanted to be free from the typical feminine qualities that women had been differentiated in her day. To do this properly, her tone in writings and in speaking would be augmented by deductive structure, arguments inclined in comparison and allegory as well as a provocation of the audience listening or reading her for that matter to be free to exercise their compassion. Goldman deviated unequivocally from the norms of women because refugees and working-class women were not anticipated to be in a social context, well-behaved. Goldman altered the perspectives of virtue and rights for women because it challenged the status quo as well as introduced a new kind of feminist example that many authors and historians could later purport on. The free love methodology that Goldman operated on might be considered to be a more modernistic feminist expression of emanicpatory politics, yet when understood through Goldman's fervor for the rights of women, it is notably an alliance of both the past perspectives on women and the newer feminist styles of passion and rhetoric to strike equilibrium between the genders (Rogness and Foust; Connolly). Goldman’s cause to fight for women was a fascinating, yet jolting one because she attacked the economic, social and sexual connotations of women during her career.

Women’s Rights and Goldman

Goldman continuously throughout her career expressed the need for the financial, communal and sexual liberty of women. For Goldman, the male dominance in society added to the substandard status that had been aspect to the female. Marriage, for her was a sanctioned structure of prostitution, in which women bartered sex for monetary and social reputation. Goldman also was extensively persuaded that childbearing further corroded women's financially viable and sexual self-sufficiency. Goldman for all intents and purposes became a famous figure in the fight for free access to birth control ("Women's Rights: Emma Goldman, 1869-1940"). This was one of the central aspects of Goldman’s fight for women’s rights.

Goldman was determined to speak out on a host of issues regarding how women were treated and as a result, was recurrently arrested. This determination would bring her into conflict with the typical women's movement, which Goldman viewed as nothing more than a charade that profited middle class women only. Goldman also opposed the modern fight for women's suffrage, which history has recorded to be one of the most solid and unforgettable fights of women in during the 20th century. Goldman stated that more effort needed to be put into professional careers for women rather than the causes that she felt women's suffrage proffered. Women's suffrage has been captured into the American blueprint as a struggle to achieve equal rights for women that was started n the late 19th century. Some of the more prominent women of the movement were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Staton as well as Lucy Stone. The movement argued that women needed the right to vote and speak their truths as a conflicting gender to men. As a result of the suffrage interest group, both Stanton and Anthony would form the National Women Suffrage Association to work for suffrage at the federal level and to press for more broad institutional modifications to the current status quo of women in the world. Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which strived to grow ballot approval for women to vote through state endeavors. Goldman felt that these institutions were disturbances from a deeper and more meaningful inner struggle for women. Goldman was noted as saying "women's development, her freedom, her independence must come from herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc. By freeing herself from the fear of the public opinion and the public condemnation" ("Women's Rights: Emma Goldman, 1869-1940"; “Women’s Suffrage”). Goldman was not fond of the women’s suffrage movement because she felt it was a pretense for women and would not really aid the cause of women that needed to be addressed.

One of the more influential dynamics of Emma Goldman's agenda was her magazine, Mother Earth. Mother Earth was one of the most influential periodicals of the press at the time. Mother Earth frequently published articles that illuminated the evolution of the American woman from the 19th century and throughout the 20th century. Many considered the periodical, radical in explanation; however, Goldman felt it was an invaluable source for analyzing the influences that feminism was having on democracy. Mother Earth would play a significant role in the celebration of women as independent from men and in challenging the roles of women in the early 1900s. Around 1910, there was a concept established known as the New Woman. The New Woman encompassed unashamedly proper attitude, perspective and could for all intents and purposes, take care of herself through self-fulfillment without the use of a man. The New Woman revolution was exclusively devoted to the demands of women and what they valued and treasured. American society saw the New Woman movement as nothing more than anarchist ideas on sexuality expressed as a result of Goldman's fervor for women's rights. Mother Earth captured the movement through the public sphere in a vibrant manner and would shift the perception of women around that time and shape the overall values of women's issues. Mother Earth has been deemed the epitome of women's rights journals of its day and in modern history. Not solely because it illuminated the differences in social context between the genders, but because Goldman cast a prescription with the articles presented in rectifying the patterns in which women had been seen as. Goldman personified the New Woman's potential, and this was seen as a threat because of how she so eloquently delivered her discourse and her staunch viewpoints (Lumsden; Ferguson; Rogness and Foust). Despite the prominence that Mother Earth had, many of the articles presented were riotous in presentation because they were framed in an off-putting model against women’s suffrage as a result of Goldman’s focal point being that women’s suffrage was a travesty to the gender.

The magazine had an antipathy towards votes for women and this was not a surprise to detractors of Goldman and those that felt that Goldman had no faith in female liberation. Goldman's approach was more of a personal liberation than a collective one. Goldman's phrase, "the right to vote, equal civil rights, is all very good demands, but true emancipation begins in the soul of a woman" has been frequented displayed in articles on Goldman throughout history and is a prevailing statement used among many feminists today. Goldman's appetite in alienating feminist allies surfaced in her methods to the fidelity that women were more than what society saw them as. Goldman seemed intent on ensuring that women understood why she was seen as an anarchist. Much of Goldman's scorn as a noteworthy advocate of women's rights came as a result of her technique in battling prostitution. One particular article published in Mother Earth remains an archetypal manuscript in enlightening readers on the linkage between money matters and gender that Goldman is known for. Written as "The White Slave Traffic," the article colorfully expressed the anarchic jargon of Goldman and pointed out that women's education and employment decisions had been pruned by society and that the so-called women's suffrage movement had not made it any better. Many Americans felt that Goldman was a bothersome creature as a result of her many attempts to undermine the women's suffrage movement and to decry it (Lumsden). Goldman, however, believed in her thoughts towards the American woman and constantly encouraged women to break free from the cultural norms and values that they had been cast as. Another one of the interesting aspects of Goldman was her treatment of motherhood.

Goldman regularly conversed the role of the mother in connection to the masses in Mother Earth and in other texts. Goldman understood the importance of holding the concentration of the audience before her and thus whenever she spoke of the meaning of motherhood as a gender role; she constructed her lectures in such a way as to aggravate the consciousness of women in an appealing form. Much of her "Living My Life" text presents the formations of maternity and has become a practical oratory for the anarchist quarrel. Goldman continued to advocate for social reform of women and while she was not the first to do so, her inclusion of details of her own sexual life and the condemnation of many public officials marked her as an emphasizer of women and motherhood. Goldman opted not to become a conformist mother and as a result was denigrated continually in society. Goldman constructed that motherhood is the nonappearance of a woman's sexuality. Goldman "believed in the immutable bond between a mother and her children is [something] that could have eased suffering, despite whoever else was in [the mother's and child's life]. Goldman also points out that the maternal instinct to want to have children is a craving or the desire for children to be universal, not a [woman's] own innate want" (Ostman). Thus, it can be said that Goldman wholeheartedly believed in motherhood but opposed the societal notion that motherhood was an ability of women to be designated as caretaker.

The Importance of Goldman

Emma Goldman is one of the few intellectuals to be seen as both courageous and rich in detractors. Historians have frequently noted that the banner of liberty was increasingly recognized because of Goldman's contribution to women's rights and that Goldman is one of few who both preserved and challenged the individuality of women. Goldman was rich in thought and had a variety of things to say regarding women and their emancipation from the male gender. Emma Goldman resolved to achieve her independence in society and this resolve was one that would lead her to change the American landscape explicitly through a glorious insight in the brutality and humiliation of women as citizens in society. Goldman prevailed over the growing departure of women to break free from the cultural attitudes of the late 19th century and early 20th. Goldman burst the societal bubble with the creation of Mother Earth and her assault on motherhood and its conventional definitions. Goldman saw married life as a sorrowful road where the woman would be subjected to a bitter experience of dependence and self-effacement of the men. Marriage to Goldman was non-liberation and more of a dreary companionship of narrow existence. Many of Goldman's challenges to the conversation of civilization were drawn upon her own experiences and the disappointment she faced throughout her own life. These conceptions and thoughts would ripen as she saw the terrible conditions that women existed under. Much of Goldman's assault on the women's suffrage movement was born out of her unapologetic cultivation with being different from the normal ideals of what women were entitled to. Society consistently felt that women were less, inferior and subordinate to men and Goldman felt that this cast women as having a narrow existence and a dullness only highlighted by the women's suffrage movement which Goldman continually stated was a travesty to the gender of women ("Emma Goldman").

Perhaps history remembers Goldman because of her difference in opinion on many a matter regarding women's rights. History has a way of preserving its critics, detractors and holding them in high regard. Emma Goldman is or rather should be no exception to the rule. Goldman was a prominent figure in the debate of women's rights and rightly deserves a place as a symbol of gender equality and an alterer in the face of typical societal expression.

Works Cited

Connolly, Christine A. "“I Am a Trained Nurse”: The Nursing Identity of Anarchist and Radical Emma Goldman." Nursing History Review 18 (2010): 84-99.

"Emma Goldman." Anarchy Archives, 2013. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/bio.html.

Ferguson, Kathy E. "Gender and Genre in Emma Goldman." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36.3 (2011): 733-757.

Frankel, Oz. "Whatever Happened to "Red Emma"? Emma Goldman, from Alien Rebel to American Icon." The Journal of American History (1996): 903-942.

Lumsden, Linda L. "Anarchy Meets Feminism: A Gender Analysis of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, 1906-1917." American Journalism 24.3 (2007): 31-54.

Ostman, Heather. "The Most Dangerous Woman in America”: Emma Goldman And the Rhetoric of Motherhood in Living My Life." Prose Studies 31.1 (2009): 55-73.

Rogness, Kate Z., and Christina R. Foust. "Beyond Rights and Virtues as Foundation for Women’s Agency: Emma Goldman’s Rhetoric of Free Love." Western Journal of Communication 75.2 (2011): 148–167.

"Women's Rights: Emma Goldman, 1869-1940." Jewish Women's Archive, 2013. http://jwa.org/womenofvalor/goldman/womens-rights.

"Women's Suffrage." History of Women's Suffrage. Scholastic, 2013. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/suffrage/history.htm.