Defender of women's rights

pp. 114-128

in: Harald G. Skilling, T. G. Masaryk, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1994

Abstract

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was preeminent among men in Bohemia in the late nineteenth century as an advocate of women's rights."^l Masaryk spoke out boldly and in radical tones against the enslavement of women in all spheres of life, including the home and family. In speeches and articles, and in his journal, Nasě doba, he hammered away at what he considered false beliefs about the inequality of women and criticized unjust limitations on women's place in society. In a manner which endorsed the major claims of the contemporary women's movement and anticipated many of the demands of the feminist movement of the future, he called for absolute equality for women in all spheres — equal responsibility of men and women within the family, equal access to education and the professions, equal pay for equal work, the enfranchisement of women, and full participation of women in public affairs. He condemned prostitution and what he called "polygyny" (mnohoženství), i.e. sexual relations with more than one wife or with several women. He was severely critical of prevalent views about the nature of love and of sex expounded both by official Catholic doctrine and by socialist theory, which, he felt, demeaned women and distorted love and marriage. He also condemned ideas expressed in modern literature, which encouraged sexual laxity. Alois Hajn, active in contemporary Czech progressive politics, later described him as "a pioneer of the ideas on the women's question" whose words created "a veritable revolution among Czech youth" at the time.²