Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:04:14.793Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminist Political Theory without Apology: Anna Doyle Wheeler, William Thompson, and the Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jim Jose Open the ORCID record for Jim Jose [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Anna Doyle Wheeler was a nineteenth‐century, Irish‐born socialist and feminist. She and another Irish‐born socialist and feminist, William Thompson, produced a book‐length critique in 1825, Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women: Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery: In Reply to a Paragraph of Mr. Mill's Celebrated “Article on Government,” to refute the claims of liberal philosopher James Mill in 1820 that women did not need to be enfranchised. In so doing the Appeal undermined the philosophical credibility of Mill's liberal utilitarianism. The Appeal exposed the hypocrisy of the language of contract (whether social, sexual, or marriage) by showing that men's freedom and claims to rights presupposed the unfreedom and sexual subjugation of women. The article argues that the Appeal was an original formulation of feminist political theory that still retains its relevance in the twenty‐first century.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Fall 2019 , pp. 827 - 851
Copyright
Copyright © 2019, Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Astell, Mary. 1996. Reflections upon marriage. In Astell: Political writings, ed. Springborg, Patricia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ball, Terence. 1980. Utilitarianism, feminism, and the franchise: James Mill and his critics. History of Political Thought 1 (1): 91–115.Google Scholar
Ball, Terence. 1992. Introduction. In James Mill: Political writings, ed. Ball, Terence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barker‐Benfield, G. J. 1992. The culture of sensibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy. 1980. A fragment on government, ed. Montagu, F. M. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Botting, Eileen Hunt, and Houser, Sarah L. 2006. “Drawing the line of equality”: Hannah Mather Crocker on women's rights. American Political Science Review 100 (2): 707–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulwer‐Lytton, Edward. 1833. England and the English. London: Bentley.Google Scholar
Ciolkowski, Laura. 1992. The woman (in) question: Gender, politics, and Edward Bulwer‐Lytton's “Lucretia.” NOVEL: Forum on Fiction 26 (1): 80–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clinton, Katherine B. 1975. Femme et philosophe: Enlightenment origins of feminism. Eighteenth‐Century Studies 8 (3): 283–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coole, Diane. 1988. Women in political theory: From ancient misogyny to contemporary feminism. London: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Cory, Abbie. 2004. Wheeler and Thompson's Appeal: The rhetorical re‐visioning of gender. New Hibernia Review 8 (2): 106–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cott, Nancy. 1989. What's in a name? The limits of “social feminism”; or, expanding the vocabulary of women's history. Journal of American History 76 (3): 809–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devey, Louisa. 1887. Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, with numerous extracts from her ms autobiography and other original documents, published in vindication of her memory. London: Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey and Co.Google Scholar
Dooley, Dolores. 1995. Anna Doyle Wheeler. In Women, power and consciousness in 19th century Ireland: Eight biographical studies, ed. Cullen, Mary and Luddy, Maria. Dublin: Attic Press.Google Scholar
Dooley, Dolores. 1996. Equality and community: Sexual equality in the writings of William Thompson and Anna Doyle Wheeler. Cork: Cork University Press.Google Scholar
Dooley, Dolores. 1997. William Thompson: Power in moral economy. Intellectual News 2 (1): 29–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Susan. 1999. The radical ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft. Canadian Journal of Political Science 32 (3): 427–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galgano, M. 1979. Anna Doyle Wheeler. In Biographical dictionary of modern British radicals, volume I. 1770–1830, ed. Baylen, Joseph O. and Grossman, Norbert J. Brighton, UK: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Gardner, Catherine Villanueva. 2013. Empowerment and interconnectivity: Toward a feminist history of utilitarian philosophy. University Park: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Godwin, William. 1987. Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, A short residence in Sweden and memoirs of “the author of the Rights of Woman”, ed. Holmes, Richard. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Leslie. 1982. Early feminist themes in French utopian socialism: The St.‐Simonians and Fourier. Journal of the History of Ideas 43 (1): 91–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldsworthy, Joanna, and Mulvey‐Roberts, Marie. 2010. Revolutionary mothers, revolting daughters: Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, Anna Wheeler, and Rosina Bulwer‐Lytton. In Woman to woman: Female negotiations during the long eighteenth century, ed. Williams, Carolyn D., Escott, Angela, and Duckling, Louise. Newark: University of Delaware Press.Google Scholar
Groag, Susan, and Offen, Karen, eds. 1983. Women, the family, and freedom: The debate in documents, volume. 1, 1750–1880. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasday, Jill. 2000. Contest and consent: A legal history of marital rape. California Law Review 88 (5): 1372–1505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkesworth, Mary. 2010. From constitutive outside to the politics of extinction: Critical race theory, feminist theory, and political theory. Political Research Quarterly 63 (3): 686–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hays, Mary. 1974. Appeal to the men of Great Britain in behalf of women. Reprint of the 1798 ed. printed for Johnson, J., London. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Jo Ellen. 1998. Introduction. In The complete works of Harriet Taylor Mill, ed. Jacobs, Jo Ellen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Lyndsey. 2015. Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, suffragette, martyr. London: Biteback Publishing.Google Scholar
Jose, Jim. 1995. Ontological commitment and the concepts of “embodiment” and “embodied person”: Some problems for feminist theory. Women & Politics 15 (1): 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jose, Jim. 2000. Contesting patrilineal descent in political theory: James Mill and nineteenth‐century feminism. Hypatia 15 (1): 151–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jose, Jim. 2004. No more like Pallas Athena: Displacing patrilineal accounts of modern feminist political theory. Hypatia 19 (4): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jose, Jim. 2015. On the necessity for gender equality: Anna Doyle Wheeler and William Thompson and “Equality in Community”. Social Alternatives 34 (1): 34–38.Google Scholar
Jose, Jim. 2016. Giving voice to feminist political theory: The radical discourse of Anna Doyle Wheeler and William Thompson. In Feminist moments: Reading feminist texts, ed. Bruce, Susan and Smits, Kathy. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Kaswan, Mark. 2014. Happiness, democracy, and the cooperative movement: The radical utilitarianism of William Thompson. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Joan. 1984. Women, history and theory: The essays of Joan Kelly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Laura. 2015. William Thompson and Anna Wheeler: Equality and utilitarianism in the 19th century. PhD diss. Queen's University, Canada.Google Scholar
Kilfeather, Siobhán. 2005. Irish feminism. In The Cambridge companion to Irish culture, ed. Cleary, Joe and Connolly, Claire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Killham, John. 1958. Tennyson and the princess: Reflections of an age. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Lively, Jack, and Rees, John. 1978. Introduction. In Utilitarian logic and politics: James Mill's “Essay on Government”, Macaulay's critique and the ensuing debate, ed. Lively, Jack and Rees, John. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McFadden, Margaret. 1989. Anna Doyle Wheeler (1785–1848): Philosopher, socialist, feminist. Hypatia 4 (1): 91–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFadden, Margaret. 1999. Golden cables of sympathy: The transatlantic sources of nineteenth‐century feminism. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
McInnes, Andrew. 2013. Wollstonecraft's legion: Feminism in crisis, 1799. Women's Writing 20 (4): 479–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malmgreen, Gail. 1978. Neither bread nor roses: Utopian feminists and the English working class, 1800–1850. Brighton, UK: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Mill, Harriet Taylor. 1998a. Enfranchisement of women. In The complete works of Harriet Taylor Mill, ed. Jacobs, Jo Ellen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mill, Harriet Taylor. 1998b. On marriage. In The complete works of Harriet Taylor Mill, ed. Jacobs, Jo Ellen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mill, James. 1992. Essay on government. In Selected political writings, ed. Ball, Terence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1981. Autobiography. In Autobiography and literary essays, volume I of Collected works, ed. Robson, John and Stillinger, Jack. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1984. The subjection of women. In Essays on equality, law and education. Volume XXI of Collected Works, ed. Robson, John. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Morales, Maria H. 1996. Perfect equality: John Stuart Mill on well‐constituted communities. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Morales, Maria H. 2005. The corrupting influence of power. In Mill's The Subjection of Women: Critical essays, ed. Morales, Maria H. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Moriarty, Theresa. 2012. “One darling though terrific theme”: Anna Wheeler and the rights of women. In The politics of the (im)possible: Utopia and dystopia reconsidered, ed. Bagchi, Barnita. New Delhi: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Moses, C. G. 2012. “What's in a name?” On writing the history of feminism. Feminist Studies 38 (3): 757–79.Google Scholar
Nyland, Chris, and Heenan, Thomas. 2003. William Thompson and Anna Doyle Wheeler: A marriage of minds on Jeremy Bentham's doorstep. In The status of women in classical economic thought, ed. Dimand, Robert and Nyland, Chris. London: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Offen, Karen. 1988. Defining feminism: A comparative historical approach. Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society 14 (1): 119–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offen, Karen. 2000. European feminisms 1700–1950: A political history. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Packe, Michael St. John. 1954. The life of John Stuart Mill. London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, Richard. 1945. Anna Wheeler: A pioneer socialist and feminist. Political Quarterly 25 (2): 132–43.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, Richard. 1954. William Thompson (1775–1833): Britain's pioneer socialist, feminist and co‐operator. London: Watts.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The sexual contract. London: Polity.Google Scholar
Phillips, Menaka. 2018. The “beloved and deplored” memory of Harriet Taylor Mill: Rethinking gender and intellectual labor in the canon. Hypatia 33 (4): 626–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe, Mary Ann. 1980. The female advocate; or, an attempt to recover the rights of women from male usurpation. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag.Google Scholar
Robinson, Mary. 1799. A letter to the women of England: On the injustice of mental subordination and anecdotes. London: Longman and Rees. https://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/robinson/mrletterfrst.htm#randall.Google Scholar
Rossi, Alice S. 1970. Sentiment and intellect: The story of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill. In Essays on sex equality: John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, ed. Rossi, Alice S. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Virginia. 1992. A vindication of political virtue: The political theory of Mary Wollstonecraft. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shanley, Mary Lydon. 1991. Marital slavery and friendship: John Stuart Mill. In Feminist interpretations and political theory, ed. Shanley, Mary Lydon and Pateman, Carole. University Park: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. 1818. The revolt of Islam: A poem in twelve cantos. London: C. & J. Ollier.Google Scholar
Siegel, Reva. 1998. “Rule of love”: Wife beating as prerogative and privacy. Yale Law Journal. 105 (8): 2117–2207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Barbara. 1993. Eve and the new Jerusalem: Socialism and feminism in the nineteenth century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thiele, Beverly. 1986. Vanishing acts in social and political theory: Tricks of the trade. In Feminist challenges: Social and political theory, ed. Pateman, Carole and Gross, Elizabeth. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Thompson, William. 1824. An inquiry into the principles of the distribution of wealth most conducive to human happiness applied to the newly proposed system of voluntary equality of wealth. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green.Google Scholar
Thompson, William [and Wheeler, Anna Doyle]. 1825. Appeal of one half the human race, women: Against the pretensions of the other half, men, to retain them in political, and thence in civil and domestic, slavery: In reply to a paragraph of Mr. Mill's celebrated “Article on Government.” London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green.Google Scholar
Waithe, Mary Ellen. 1991. Women philosophers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In A history of women philosophers, volume III, Modern women philosophers, 1600–1900, ed. Waithe, Mary Ellen. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Wakefield, Priscilla. 1798/2015. Reflections on the present condition of the female sex: With suggestions for its improvement. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Anna Doyle. 1830a. Rights of women. The British Cooperator, April, no. 1: 12–15.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Anna Doyle. 1830b. Rights of women. Pt II. The British Cooperator, May: 33–36.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Anna Doyle. 1831. Letter to Robert Owen. July 19. National Co‐operative Archive, Manchester, UK. GB 1499 ROC/22/28/1.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Anna Doyle. (Vlasta). 1833. To the editor of the Crisis. The Crisis 2 (35/36): 277–79.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Anna Doyle. 1976. A. D. Wheeler to Marc Antoine Jullien de Paris. In Stephen Burke, Letter from a pioneer feminist. Studies in Labour History 1 (1): 19–23.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1792/1978. Vindication of the rights of woman, ed. Kramnick, Miriam. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar