Womens Participation in the Nationalist Movements in Europe

The documents included in this question relate to how the role of women has changed and how it has stayed the same. In the documents, women of different nations individually speak out on issues such as equality, social responsibility, and the traditional cultural views on women.

One group of documents - #1, #4 – relates the view that the participation of women in their country’s liberation enables them to achieve equality in their standing with men. According to “An Indian Freedom Fighter Recalls Her Life,” (#1) Manmohini Zutshi Saghal recalls that the satyagraha, the nonviolent resistance approach developed by Gandhi, included women and thus allowed them to participate in processions and Congressional meetings. Teodora Ignacia Gomes (#4) of the African Party for Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in 1974 makes clear that women need to participate in the national struggle for independence in

Teodora Ignacia Gomes argues the point that women need to participate in constructing a society free of exploitation so that they are liberated from the bonds traditional gender roles have confined them to. She repetitiously reminds her audience that women need perform the same work as men to ensure the independence of their country. In doing so, these women will have convinced their country fellowmen of their potential in hopes of being treated as equals.

Marie-Aimée Helie-Lucas fervently derides the situation in that women after the liberation of Algeria were still confined to their traditional roles. Her mention of women sewing clothes, carrying parcels, and typing suggests that the roles of women did not change during the liberation period. The confinement of women to their traditional roles infuriates Marie in that even after Algeria’s independence, there was no change. Women were neither liberated nor seen as equal to that of men. Her view is substantiated by the similar accounts of the aftermath of other liberated countries. Women who participated in the liberation movement in hopes of attaining equality under the new government are often disappointed in that the new nation-state identifies itself by its culture. Certain cultures align women to perform only in traditional gender

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