SAMPLE PAPER   Feminism Demands by women for equality with men have been a continual theme in Western Society for at least the last 200 years. As early as 1777, women have been fighting for their rights. One such activist was Abigail Adams. She wrote to her husband john, then sitting in the Continental Congress, and warned him not to put such unlimited powers in the hands of the husbands. She went on to threaten that if particular care and attention was not paid to the ladies, they would most definitely foment a rebellion (Buechler, 1990). Origins of Feminism This concern demonstrates one of the two main precipitants of feminist sentiment in the Western World: the change in social values that justified an attempt to change social relations. The development of democratic values and the legitimisation of rebellion that resulted from the French and American revolutions were used by the Western women as a philosophical basis for their own rebellion (Amin et al 1990). Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the first major feminist tract, 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woma', in 1792 in reaction to the revolutionary French Declaration of The Rights of Man. The American Declaration of Independence was the model for the Declaration of Sentiments drawn up by the first feminist convention, in Senea Falls, N.Y., in 1848 (Amin et al 1990). The other major cause was industrialisation, which disrupted the entire economic structure of society and with it the family as the basic unit of production. Women and children until the 20th century have always worked. But until the development of the free labor market in which individuals were hired and paid cash for their labor, women worked as subsidiaries to the male head, who received the remuneration for family labor. Women produced goods primarily within the home until technology displaced the major female functions outside it. Concomitantly, the increasing monetization of economy meant that displaced female production had to be paid for in cash. A large part of the rise in the national product was accomplished by the monetisation of activities that were never before counted in its computation because money did not change hands for their performance (Buechler, 1990). This cash had to be obtained by employment. If the social values prevented women from working outside the home then men had to supply, indirectly, what women had once produced directly. This monopolistic access to the necessary resources for survival logically gave men more power over women, made women more dependant, and contributed to the feeling of many women that they were useless dependants. In effect, women had to enter the labor market in order to get the wherewithal to buy what they had once produced in their own homes (Frechet, 1993). Economic necessity quickly brought women of the new masses into the labor market to work for substance wages. But the values of the emerging middle class, especially the'cult of the lad' and the emphasis on female leisure and consumption as signs of their husband’s success, prohibited paid employment for middle class women (Amin et al 1990). Thus they were kept in what might be termed as a feudalistic relationship to their husbands. Given this different effect of Industrialisation, it should not be surprising that feminism has always been largely a middle class movement, with working class women fighting their battles primarily in the labor movement and often envying the leisure of the middle class female without seeing the devastating effects of economic dependence. However, the women’s movement did not reach its zenith until middle class and working class women were able to ally in the struggle for suffrage (Buechler, 1990). The first national suffrage bill of any kind was submitted to the British Parliament by John Stuart Mill in 1867. It did not pass, but two years later, Wyoming Territory became the first modern political entity to give women the vote. However, suffrage did not become a primary issue until many decades later. Throughout the 19th century the major thrust of the feminist movement was for educational opportunities, entry into the profession and the abolition of laws that denied married women legal rights, leaving them unable to act in any capacity without the permission of their husbands. In the United States, the impetus for feminism came when women began to work in the abolitionist movement and found that their effectiveness was hampered by their exclusion from many abolitionist societies and by the social stigma against women speaking in public. American women attending a World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 were prohibited from participating and made to sit in the balcony behind a curtain. Among them were Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who organized the first Women’s Rights Convention eight years earlier. Susan B. Anthony did not join the movement until 1851, but she became its most tireless and persistent organizer. Such famed abolitionists as Fredrick Douglass and Sojourner Truth were also active feminists. The Struggle for Voting Rights Women in Great Britain became the forerunner of the international suffrage movement, but not until they changed their tactics. For four decades women’s suffrage societies, which were led first by Lydia Becker and them by Millicent Fawcett, had held meetings, circulated petitions, lobbied Parliament, and disseminated literature, especially John Stuart Mill’s 'On the subjection of women'. In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Manchester with the support of her two daughters. They pursued an unostentatious course until 1905, when uproar was created over the arrest of Christabel Pankhurst and a mill girl, Annie Kenney, for disrupting a political meeting. The resulting publicity convinced the WSPU that this was the way to arouse public opinion over suffrage. For the next ten years, prompted by the inflexibility and patronising attitude of the Liberal Party cabinet and Prime Minister Henry Asquith, the WSPU employed increasingly militant tactics. They invaded Parliament, heckling ministers, chained themselves to the gates of government buildings and chanted'votes for women' until dragged away by the police, marched in good weather and bad, disrupted political meetings by shouting for the vote, broke windows, pour acid in mail boxes, slashed museum paintings, and burned government buildings (Amin et al 1990). When arrested by the police, they underwent long hunger strikes in prison. Their campaign was broken by World War I, in which the militants enlisted wholeheartedly, and afterwards, partially in gratitude for their cooperation, suffrage was extended to some women over 30 years of age. By comparison, the suffrage movement in the United States was almost respectable. The National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) concentrated on state-by-state activity and by 1912 nine states had granted two million women the vote. That same year, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns returned from their suffrage work in Britain, where they had been impressed with the WSPU’s militancy. They persuaded NAWSA to let them organise a congressional committee to campaign for a federal amendment. This committee organised a major suffrage parade of 8,000 in Washington on the day Woodrow Wilson arrived for his inauguration. Met by empty seats, Wilson is reported to have asked, “Where are the people?” and been told 'Off watching the women' (Frechet, 1993). During the next eight years, President Wilson and the suffragists came into conflict frequently, as Wilson expressed support for them in private but refused to do so in public. Alice Paul’s Militants attracted increasing attention with their tactics of mass demonstrations, picketing, and occasional hunger strikes. Although NAWSA disowned the militants, it was stimulated by them to renewed suffrage activity. One of NAWSA’s best organisers, Carrie Chapman Catt resumed it presidency in 1915. Her winning plan of national organisation and intensive lobbing helped achieve congressional passage of the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919, and its ratification by August 26, 1920. The war did not interrupt the activities of the American suffragists as it had those of their British counterparts (Jenkins, 1983). Resource Mobilisation Resource mobilisation theory analyzes social movements from the viewpoint of organisations in need of and in search of resources. Resource Mobilisation addresses questions such as: where are the resources available for the movement, how are they organized, how does the state facilitate or impede mobilisation, and what are the outcomes? Jenkins defines mobilisation as the process by which a group secures collective control over the resources needed for collective action (Frechet, 1993). Freeman defines resources as both tangible and intangible. Tangible resources include money, facilities, and means of communication, while intangible resources include the skills and labor of an organisation’s supporters. Jenkins also pointed out that early ideas about resource appropriation were that social movement organisations attained their resources through non-institutionalised means. He argued that since social movement organisations were seen as on the fringe of society, resources had to be obtained outside institutionalised channels. Recently, as social movement organisations become more “legitimised,” the central paradigm has begun to shift to include more institutionalised channels such as private foundations and corporations as sources of support for social movement organisations. Another important part of resource mobilisation theory is the concept of rational choice. Actors participate in collective action/social movements because it is the most rational method of gaining resources previously denied to them. Thus, Resource Mobilisation theory coincides with all the basic principles and objectives of the Feminist Movements. Works Cited Frechet, Guy and Barbara Worndl 1993 "The Ecological Movements in the Light of Social Movements' Development: The Cases of Four Contemporary Industrialized Societies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 34(1-2):65-74. Amin, Samir, G. Arrighi, A. G. Frank, I. Wallerstein 1990 Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements in the World-System, new York: Monthly Review Press. Buechler, Steven M. 1990 Women's Movements in the United States: Woman Suffrage, Equal Rights, and Beyond, new Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Jenkins, "Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements," Annual Review of Sociology 9 (1983)       Trusted by over 145,000 highly satisfied UK students.

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