The construction of the social role of women in Lithuanian public discourse in the late 19th – early 20th centuries

The article, on the basis primarily of periodic press publications, examines whether the participants in the various ideological discourses of the late 19th–early 20th century recognized women as equal participants in public life and how their attitudes influenced the development of the national movement and the spread of ideological doctrines. During the last decade of the 19th century, representatives of the catholic community were the first to begin speaking about the necessity of publicly active women in the national rebirth movement and claiming that the education of the community and the dissemination of the national press were a woman’s job in the national movement. in the early 20th century Catholics began to be more strongly affected by the ideas of Christian democracy, especially by the encyclical Rerum Novarum. Fearing a disintegration of individual Christian values and of the family institution, they did not promote the ideas of the equality of the sexes and personal freedom. But by speaking out for women’s education, their acquiring of a profession, and their cultural work, they in actuality created a conception of active and independent women. The participants in the liberal discourse of the late 19th century employed the principles of nationalism more than those of classical liberalism. They subordinated the realization of the social role of women to the sphere of the family, i.e., to the roles of wife and mother that they performed. The categories of individual freedom and equality became important in liberal discourse in the early 20th century. The task, raised at that time, to inspire the civil initiative of women affirmed the necessity for women to work with men in the public sphere as equals. It is logical that at this time the ideas of equal political rights began to be raised and the prospect of political activity of women started to be considered.[...]Humanitarinių mokslų fakultetasIstorijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta