Why did some women reject the women's movement?

Answer 1

I'm not sure they were "offended," but there certainly were some women who strongly disagreed with feminism and did not understand the fight for equal rights. The women who opposed it were generally very traditional and very religious. They believed men were supposed to be in charge, and that women were not meant to be equal to men; they also believed feminists were women who wanted to be men, or at least act like men. The anti-feminists supported traditional gender roles, and did not want to see those roles change in any way. And they could not understand why these "women's libbers" wanted to stir things up. In the view of the opponents of women's rights, women already had all the rights they needed, as wives and mothers, and if a woman was dissatisfied, she was obviously not "normal."

But this was not really anything new: even back during the era of fighting for the vote (especially from 1900 to 1919), there were "anti-suffragists," conservative women who did not want the vote and did not believe women should be in the political arena. As they saw it, a woman was supposed to remain at home and be a wife and mother, not become someone who gets involved with politics. When the women's movement and second-wave feminism came along, its greatest enemies were the traditional women who were threatened (and appalled) at what they saw as a rejection of the proper roles of men and women, roles that were, they believed, established by God Himself.

Answer 2

First, it is not entirely accurate to say these women "rejected the women's movement," since there were women who agreed with some of the tenets of feminism, but disagreed with others (or disagreed with what they thought the women's movement stood for, based on how it was misrepresented by the press of that time). Also, there were two waves of feminism-- the first wave began in 1848 at Seneca Falls, NY and organized around giving married women property rights as well as giving all women the right to vote (back in the 1850s, a married woman was literally the property of her husband in most states, which meant that even wife-beating was not a crime, since the wife was simply her husband's property; the first wave feminists worked to change those laws and give women equal protection and a say in what the government decided). The second wave began in the 1960s and was about such issues as the right to choose a career, reproductive rights, equal pay, and other social issues.

That said, some women of the 1850s genuinely believed the current system of male supremacy was ordained by God, and that men were supposed to rule over women. Also, in a time where women were generally forbidden from seeking an education (most colleges would not even admit them), having a husband was the only security available to a large number of women. Later, during the suffrage battle (gaining women the right to vote, which finally occurred in 1920), some women opposed feminism because they wanted to remain home and be "protected," rather than get involved with politics and current events.

In the second wave of feminism, which was more about freedom to make choices, women who opposed the women's movement believed that women had a pretty good situation as it was, and that feminists were man-haters or women who were trying to upset the social order. Again, many opponents were conservative and religious, but some women just were traditionalists who did not see that there were any problems, and who felt the women in the feminist movement were whiners and complainers who had a pretty good life and didn't know it.

For those of us who experienced pay discrimination, sexual harassment at work, lack of advancement at our jobs just because we were women, and the refusal of some professions and some universities to allow us in, even if we were qualified, the idea that things were just fine the way they were did not convince us. But for those who opposed the goals of feminism, what mattered was being married and having a family, which back then was presented as the ultimate goal for women, and mutually exclusive with having a career. Often, the two groups-- feminists and anti-feminists-- did not understand each other's views, and that too was exacerbated by the media, leading each side to feel that the other was totally wrong, rather than working together to solve issues that affected both kinds of women.

Answer 3

Many people, including women, believed that women were not qualified to make political decisions.

Answer 4

Preferred traditional roles.