Icaria

• Etienne Cabet’s dream
• Based around the book Voyage en Icarie
• Based on equality and Fraternity
• Was moved to America due to the situation already evident in France

 

 

 

Cabet’s Take on Women

• Women were good and bad
• Women were there to appease men and help bring more babies to Icaria
• Masterpieces of Nature, yet if are an irritable attraction for men
• He promised fredom and education

 

 

 

 

Expectation of Women

• Icaria seemed perfect
• Ideals of equality and fraternity set by Cabet were particularly appealling
• Saw oppurtunity for not only themselves but for their daughters as well
• “’transported with joy’ to go and live in that ideal perfect world (May 30, 1847).”
• Other letters compared Cabet’s Icaria to religious references claiming that his utopia was the “’promised land,’ the ‘new Moses,’ ‘the kingdom of god on earth,’ and ‘saintly missions,’

 

 

 

Reality of Icaria

• Women did recieve everything they were promised, but Cabet did not include other elements of the society
• Women struggled to have an affect on the rules and regulations of the community
• Women could not vote
• Education was only used towards factory jobs or music to appease men

 

 

 

How did Cabet deal with the women

• Cabet did not allow women to leave as they were not considered members of the society
• Cabet did not allow letters of gender equaity to leave Icarian without his provision
• All mentioning of gender inequality was censored
• In the case of uprisings, he let one group rebllious group go, but after greated rules to deal with rebellious groups which always favored men
• Created new rules to deal with the disagreements of women which always favored Cabet’s thinking

 

 

 

Why did women get such a false impression of Icaria?

• Cabet was not complete with his views of women in Voyage en Icarie
• His views can be seen in other writings, but they require interpretation to understand how Cabet envisions women