After reading Women in Utopia: The Ideology of Gender in American Owenite Communities, by Carol A. Kolmerten, I have decided to refine my research question by not only asking if women were neglected in the Owenite community, but also asking why they were neglected. While some of the other sources I have read have discussed the fact that women were being oppressed in Owenite communities, the sources were not able to provide an explanation as to why women were oppressed in these societies that claimed there would be freedom for all.

After reading about Frances Wright’s life journey and her struggle to have women’s rights recognized, it has come to my understanding that a large reason for women not receiving equal treatment in the Owenite communities is a result of their only form of support, other women who were brave enough to stand up and speak out, being oppressed as well, outside of Owenite communities in the real world. These radical-minded women were completely rejected by society. Frances Wright, a women’s rights activist in a sense, fought her whole life for the equal treatment of women, all to no prevail.

After reading this chapter by Kolmerten, I have come to realize that there were many factors in the subjugation of women, actually.  Women entering into an Owenite community usually were there because they were simply following their husbands. From the very start, women were entering into a male-dominated society, even though the goal of an an Owenite society was to provide an egalitarian style community for all. Women, most of the time, were not even considered members. They often received gender-based education and jobs, leaving them overwhelmed with domestic work.

I plan on writing about the efforts put forth by Frances Wright in her lifetime, but also researching other women who made an impact, or at least attempted to make an impact, on the lives of women in the Owenite community. I also plan on discussing the other reasons that could have contributed to the unfair treatment of women, like those mentioned in the paragraph above. I also hope to locate a primary source written by a woman in an Owenite community to gain a first hand understanding of how severe their treatment truly was.

Work Cited:

Kolmerten, Carol A. “Frances Wright: A Woman in Utopia”. In Women in utopia: the ideology of gender in the American Owenite community, 111-141. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990.