Men and the Women’s Movement

Abstract

A number of men in nineteenth-century Britain and the United States were supportive of the women’s movement. The essay discusses men such as William Thompson, John Stuart Mill, George Jacob Holyoake, Friedrich Engels, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Floyd Dell; many other male intellectuals and reformers from the period might be considered male feminists. These men wrote political tracts in favour of women’s right to vote and their social and professional development, attended conventions, or were members of pro-suffrage organizations. While the primary work of the feminist movement was certainly due to women, tracing the development of supportive male figures across the period can offer a more comprehensive view of women’s rights in the nineteenth century.