The Rise of Women's Transnational Activism: Identity and Sisterhood Between the World Wars 9780755625673, 9781848856714

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PLATES

1. Scandinavian delegates at the 1937 WILPF Luhacovice Congress (KvinnSam, Go¨teborgs Universitetsbibliotek) 2. Participants at the 1924 IFUW Conference in Kristiania (Hvar 8 Dag, 10 August 1924, Caroline Spurgeon Papers, PP 7/6/5/4, College Archives, Royal Holloway) 3. Madame Puech, the French Government delegate, and Miss Grace Yang, representative of China, to the 1924 IFUW Conference in Kristiania (Dagbladet, 30 July 1924, CS Papers, PP 7/6/5/4, RHUL Archives) 4. Journey home following WILPF’s mission to China – Edith Pye and Camille Drevet at Welcome Party in Japan hosted at Dr Inazo Nitobe’s House in March 1928 (from Professor Nagako Sugimori’s private collection) 5. Session at the 1935 IAW congress in Istanbul (TWL.2009.02.30, LSE Library Collections) 6. Japanese delegates to the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1928 (www.ppseawa.org/about-ppseawa/history) 7. Opening meeting at the 1930 ICW Conference in Vienna (www. ncwaustria.org/history) 8. Hamid Ali, Indian delegate to the 1937 WILPF Luhacovice Congress (KvinnSam, Go¨teborgs Universitetsbibliotek) 9. 1936 IAW Board Meeting in Amsterdam (The International Woman Suffrage News, Centenary Edition 1904 – 2004 IAW-AIF)

PLATES

10. Procession of delegates through the streets of Rome at the 1923 IAW Congress (The International Woman Suffrage News, Centenary Edition 1904 – 2004 IAW-AIF) 11. WILPF and the World Disarmament Campaign in 1932 with British activist Margaret Bondfield in the centre (WILPF collection, the Women’s Library, LSE) 12. Margery Corbett Ashby, President of the IAW 1923–46, and Rosa Manus, prominent member of both the IAW and WILPF (The International Woman Suffrage News, Centenary Edition 1904– 2004 IAW-AIF) 13. Huda Shaarawi, pioneering Egyptian feminist leader who founded both the Egyptian Feminist and the Arab Feminist Unions. She was also active in the IAW (Courtesy of Sania Sharawi) 14. Bertha Lutz, leading Brazilian feminist and member of the IAW (public domain) 15. Paulina Luisi, leading Uruguayan feminist and member of the IAW (public domain) 16. Sarojin Naidu, the first president of the AAWC, active in the AIWC and well-known Indian nationalist (public domain)

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ABBREVIATIONS

AAUW AAWC AIWC BAAW BCL BFUW BL CC DCWIO EFSC ERI FIMA IACW IAW IAWSEC ICJW ICW ICWG

American Association of University Women All-Asian Conference of Women All-India Women’s Conference Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Women British Commonwealth League British Federation of University Women British Library Countries Collection Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International Organisations European Federation of Soroptimist Clubs Equal Rights International Fusae Ichikawa Memorial Association Inter-American Commission of Women International Alliance of Women International Alliance of Women for Equal Citizenship International Council of Jewish Women International Council of Women International Co-operative Women’s Guilds

ABBREVIATIONS

IFBPW IFUW IKFF ILIHAW IWSA IWSN JS JSCWIO JWSM JWU KAF KS LCWIO LJW LKPR LSE MCA NCW NFOU NMC PPU PPWA PPWC RHUL SC SCA SKN SL

International Federation of Business and Professional Women International Federation of University Women Internationella Kvinnofo¨rbundet fo¨r Fred och Frihet International League of Iberian and Hispanic-American Women International Woman Suffrage Alliance International Woman Suffrage News Josephine Schain Joint Standing Committee of the Women’s International Organisations Japanese Women’s Suffrage Movement Japan Women’s University Kvinnliga Akademikers Fo¨rening KvinnSam Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations League of Jewish Women Landsfo¨reningen fo¨r Kvinnans Politiska Ro¨stra¨tt London School of Economics Margery Corbett Ashby National Council of Women Northern Feminist Organisations’ Union Naruse Memorial Collection Pan-Pacific Union Pan-Pacific Women’s Association Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference Royal Holloway University of London Sorabji Collection Smith College Archives Svenska Kvinnors Nationalfo¨rbund Schwimmer-Lloyd ix

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SSC WAN WCTU WIA WIL WILPF WL WUWIC WWCTU WYWCA YWCA

x

Sophia Smith Collection William Allan Nielsen Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Women’s Indian Association Women’s International League Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Women’s Library World Union of Women for International Concord World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union World Young Women’s Christian Association Young Women’s Christian Association

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have helped in making this book possible. Firstly I would like to thank my PhD supervisor, Professor Sarah Ansari, for her invaluable advice and support throughout my studies and beyond. Similarly I would like to thank my PhD adviser, Professor Vanessa Martin, Dr Emmett Sullivan, and other former colleagues in the Department of History at Royal Holloway for their advice, help and encouragement. Thanks also goes to Professor Nagako Sugimori for helping me to get a better understanding of Japanese women’s international activism and for providing the photo for the front cover as well as all the Historians of Education at the University of Winchester, in particular, Professor Joyce Goodman, for their interest in my research. My editor at I.B.Tauris, Jo Godfrey, has been a constant source of helpful suggestions, and I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on my draft manuscript, Louise Massara for her help with proofreading and copyediting, as well as staff at the Women’s Library, the Sybil Campbell Library, the British Library, the Royal Holloway College Archives, the London School of Economics Archives, KvinnSam (Women’s History Collections, Gothenburg University), the Smiths College Archives (Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts), the Fusae Ichikawa Memorial Association Library (Tokyo) and the Japan Women’s University (Tokyo) for all their help and assistance, in particular

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with regards to guidance on copyright/granting permissions. Finally I would like to thank my parents, Lisbeth and Bengt Sandell, without whose support this book would never have been written, and my husband Michael, who has put up with me during the many ups and downs of this project.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The similarity of the measures women in different countries are working for is evidence that the interests of women everywhere are fundamentally the same.1 This was the message delivered by Maud Wood Park, president of the National League of Women Voters in the United States, to the members of the International Alliance of Women (IAW) in the runup to its 1923 conference in Rome. In her presidential address to this same conference, Carrie Chapman Catt declared that ‘women of all nations, races and religions are united together in the demand for individual freedom’.2 Similarly, Professor Caroline Spurgeon, president of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW), proclaimed at its 1924 conference in Kristiania (now Oslo): Our [. . .] asset is that we are a body of women. This, I believe, in the present state of evolution with regard to the position of women, is a great bond and a great power [. . .] It is clear that women have a certain community of interest, and I believe they do, as a whole, tend to view things slightly differently from men, at a slightly different angle; and to place their values differently.3 Although striving for equality with men, members of international women’s organisations in the interwar period often

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emphasised what they perceived as the unique qualities of ‘womanhood’, referring to their ‘special power as women, as mothers, teachers, [and] heads of households’.4 Notions of gender difference and shared female characteristics lay firmly at the heart of the broader women’s movement that had begun to take shape towards the end of the nineteenth century. The struggle for female suffrage, as well as campaigns to obtain better educational and employment opportunities for girls and women and improved legal rights for married women, drew upon the co-ordinated efforts of women operating at local, national and international levels, and so a fundamental role came to be played by the transnational bodies that grew out of national organisations in North America and Europe committed to female emancipation. The relationship between feminism and internationalism during this period has underlined that, while transnational feminist networks developed out of initiatives coming from national feminist organisations, the development of transnational networks also helped to stimulate feminist organisations at the local, national and regional levels.5 Just as in countries such as Britain, where women’s movements rather than declining after securing the vote in fact broadened their agendas, so too international groups became more determined to reach a wider collection of women following World War I, raising all sorts of challenges about how to bring about the new kind of ‘sisterhood’ that this internationalism demanded.6 By the time that World War I had ended, three major international women’s organisations had been formed: the International Council of Women or ICW (1888), the IAW (1904), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom or WILPF (1915). That they were closely related is reflected in Rupp’s suggestion that they should be viewed as ‘grandmother, mother and daughter’, as one in effect gave birth to another.7 All three were secular, had no particular political affiliation, and, from the outset, welcomed female members from around the world. Integral to all their activities was the belief, something that they shared with other women’s organisations of the same vintage, that women could, and should, organise across national borders and racial and language 2

INTRODUCTION

differences since women in all societies were subordinated to men and being denied their rights.8 Hence, Lady Aberdeen felt moved to proclaim in her presidential address to the 1925 ICW conference in Washington that ‘[W]e impose no restrictions on those who join us [. . .] because we welcome all to our sisterhood, of whatever creed, party, section, or class they may belong’.9 In fact, terms such as ‘sister’, ‘comrade’, ‘unity’, ‘bond’, ‘spirit’, ‘like-minded’ and ‘friendship’ were all commonly used during the interwar period to describe what were regarded as the special connections that existed between the members of women’s organisations.10 My purpose in the chapters that follow is to focus on the growth of international women’s organisations in the interwar period, which involved expanding their membership into countries beyond Europe and North America.11 Building on Rupp’s groundbreaking and inspiring work World of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement,12 this book focuses on what remains a relatively understudied aspect of interwar world history, exploring the realities of the expanding international women’s organisations of the interwar period, and how they were experienced by women belonging to the different nationalities involved. It examines the experiences of women (both Western and non-Western) involved in these organisations, what ‘international sisterhood’ meant to them, and, importantly, how notions of ‘sisterhood’ were played out, and contested, in various international women’s organisations at this time. By interrogating more closely than has been the case in earlier literature the range of different kinds of transnational gatherings and conferences that took place, this book seeks to identify the nature of the interaction between women from the ‘non-West’ and the West, how women from the ‘non-West’ were perceived by their Western counterparts (not only by Americans and British but also by Nordic and other Western women), and vice versa. Importantly my analysis also incorporates the IFUW, an international women’s organisation that has been more or less completely overlooked during this period, despite its very interesting and clear connections with the other better-known organisations, in terms of agenda, membership and achievement. Higher education, the key issue for the IFUW, was also 3

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of great significance to other international women’s organisations in the interwar period. Not only were their memberships largely made up of educated upper and middle-class women, but their expansion into the non-West was also aided by non-Western students in the West, as they were often behind the development of national branches in their home countries.

Transnational or international? The terms ‘transnational’ and ‘international’ have sometimes been used interchangeably by historians and are often loosely defined. However, there has been a marked increase in the use of the former and there is now much interest in transnational interpretations of history, which, broadly defined, examine movements and interactions of peoples and ideas that go beyond and cross the borders of nationstates.13 Transnational tends to emphasise and refer to the roles of non-state actors in these processes, while the term international deals with the interaction between nation-states and those representing these. In this way, a transnational organisation emphasises its members’ goals, methods for achieving these, and their identities, regardless of the nationalities of their members, while an international organisation operates with the nation-state as a primary political unit and stresses co-operation between similar associations in different countries.14 This book has, thus, consciously chosen to include transnational both in the title and when describing the cross-border interactions of female activists of various nationalities representing their non-state networks in the interwar period under scrutiny here. Some of these organisations are more easily defined as transnational, for example WILPF, as it operated above national structures using peace as its unifying goal. Others, such as the ICW and the IFUW, display both transnational and international characteristics in that they engaged in transnational activism, yet are made up of a network of autonomous national associations.15 The use of terms is further complicated by the fact that international is incorporated in all these organisations’ names, and the fact that these associations themselves often employed this term when describing their co-operation, congresses and goals of becoming, for 4

INTRODUCTION

example, ‘truly’ international – that is, extending their memberships around the world. This book will therefore also use the term international when appropriate, especially when describing these organisations’ memberships and activities.

Feminism Like any historical assessment of women’s experiences, this study of international women’s organisations has encountered difficulties over the definitions of, and how to use, the contested terms ‘feminism’, ‘feminist’,16 and ‘international sisterhood’, with all their multiple meanings: for, as Tong has pointed out, ‘feminism is not a monolithic ideology, [. . .] all feminists do not think alike, and [. . .], like other time-honoured modes of thinking, feminist thought has a past as well as a present and a future’.17 Indeed, while some members of the various international women’s organisations certainly described themselves as ‘feminist’, others deliberately rejected the label. Yet, all these organisations at different times still often used it when referring to those women who were committed to women’s rights. The IAW was the organisation that most readily embraced the term and referred to its affiliations around the world as ‘feminist’;18 the IFUW, on the other hand, was the association most uncomfortable with any explicit mention of feminism. However, whereas some of the IFUW’s members announced in no uncertain terms in 1923 that it was not a ‘feminist’ organisation, others within the same organisation just a few years later in 1929 argued that it dealt with what they referred to as ‘feminist’ questions.19 It is important to place discussion of the concept of feminism in its historical context. For instance, firstly, while the winning of the vote for women in many European countries following World War I, together with the rise of anti-feminist sentiments and pressure on women to return to the domestic sphere in the interwar period, influenced the direction of feminist movements there, feminist movements elsewhere in the world were actually developing and growing stronger alongside nationalist movements during this same period. And, secondly, although the argument that the British 5

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feminist/women’s movements declined in the interwar period20 has been successfully challenged,21 insufficient attention as yet has been directed to understanding what happened to women’s international organisations during these same years.22 Therefore, the following chapters explore the interwar years, a period in which feminist movements/organisations underwent important transitions and when the definitions and priorities of feminism were increasingly debated at their forums. The 1920s witnessed the growing influence of so-called ‘new feminism’, which emphasised women’s difference from men, women’s rights as women, and women’s distinct contributions to society. It made demands for change based on women’s traditional spheres, and, unlike the more established ‘equalitarian feminism’ that downplayed differences between the sexes, it rejected socially constructed gender roles and demanded women’s equality with men.23 Whether it was really ‘new’ at all has been debated,24 yet it did emerge with a new rigour following the war. Categorising feminists into different groups, such as ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘socialist’ and ‘evangelical’,25 or grouping them according to whether or not they embraced ideas of ‘equality’ or ‘difference’, does not allow for the complexities involved in international women’s organisations of the period.26 International women’s organisations comprised women who could be described as both ‘equalitarian’ and ‘new’ feminists. While the former label was more common to the members of the IAW and WILPF and the latter to those of the ICW and IFUW, the identities and agendas of women involved in these organisations remained complicated and were fundamentally about means rather than ends, which is why I avoid what I see as a false dichotomy between ‘equality’ and ‘difference’. Yet, all these organisations were undoubtedly united in their desire to improve the lives and status of women wherever they lived in the world. And despite their somewhat different focuses on political, social, educational and/or legal rights, and whether or not they believed that they would achieve equality in these areas through emphasising ‘equality’ or ‘difference’, it could be argued that all these international organisations moved to varying degrees in the direction of broader definitions of feminism with an emphasis on peace 6

INTRODUCTION

questions during the difficult interwar period, emphasising ‘humanism’ instead of ‘feminism’ and extending it to include the struggle for all human rights and social justice.27 This turn to ‘humanism’ and/or ‘new feminism’ was clearly the result of the difficult circumstances in which female activists of this period operated. One outcome, it would seem, was that a broader set of agendas, capable of attracting a wider and more diverse membership, was adopted by at least some of them. In the case of the organisations explored here, their aim was to be as all-encompassing as possible. Being inclusive – ensuring that their doors were open to as wide a range of women from different national backgrounds as possible – was an important priority. Some, as their literature attests, were prepared to describe as ‘feminist’ any individual or institution that they believed was working to improve the status of women. Others, such as the ICW and IFUW, were much less willing to apply it to their own activities, even when they used the term in relation to others.28 Transnational organisations such as the IFUW were clearly conscious of the need, as they saw it, to play down too overt a connection with feminism in the hope of being more acceptable to a wider cross-section of women and to society at large. Thus, the fact that this period witnessed many different kinds of women’s organisations, which were in various ways committed to improving the status of women in society but which had different ideas about what feminism signified and how useful it was for their campaigns, poses significant challenges in relation to how they should, or can, be labelled by historians. Yet, in the absence of a better working alternative, I will apply the term ‘feminist’, when appropriate, to label those women active in international women’s organisations who, in my view and that of their contemporaries, recognised, opposed and took action to overcome, inequalities between women and men.

International sisterhood The notion of ‘international sisterhood’, like the concept of ‘feminism’, has been debated vigorously by historians. Yet, at the 7

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beginning of the twentieth century, the international membership alone of newly established organisations such as the IAW was viewed as evidence of ‘universal sisterhood’.29 The features of transnational co-operation in this earlier period, such as emphasis on the common subordination of women worldwide, solidarity based on ‘femaleness’ and the playing down of differences for the sake of unity in order to achieve wide support, continued after World War I. Even though the concept of ‘sisterhood’ itself is problematic to define, we find that in the interwar period it clearly pointed to the boundary of gender difference and the assumption that all women share certain characteristics as well as their common subordination to men worldwide. It also referred to a loyal relationship among members of international women’s organisations based on a set of shared ideas and aims. Indeed, ‘international sisterhood’ tended to refer to women active in women’s organisations, who knew that they were different from those who stood outside.30 Women’s involvement and activities in these organisations not only reinforced and emphasised their difference from men but also distinguished them from other women who were not committed to their cause. The idea of an ‘international sisterhood’ produced identification with and a sense of belonging to these networks, which bound these women together in a common cause. Apart from working for the empowerment of women, members of these organisations also united around other issues such as opposition to war, in particular WILPF, and the IFUW on the basis of their common educational background. Moreover, while those belonging to these organisations were joined in their quest for improvements to women’s lives, they differed over how to achieve these. Where international women’s organisations differed from their local, national or regional counterparts was in the way in which they consciously sought to provide a platform for women from anywhere in the world to join forces with each other in the struggle for female emancipation. Members, thus, shared a commitment to the improvement of women’s situation everywhere and sought to co-operate across borders in order to achieve their aims and make their sisterhoods ‘international’. Certainly, these organisations were 8

INTRODUCTION

dominated by North American and European women but gradually, during the 1920s and 1930s in particular, they did expand to include increasing numbers of women from other parts of the world. But while these organisations undoubtedly moved in the direction of their professed objective of becoming ‘truly international’,31 creating a genuinely ‘international sisterhood’ in the interwar period remained fraught with difficulties. Despite the great deal of talk that was generated by them, it is possible to question how far their international ambitions actually translated into meaningful achievement, particularly in relation to what this ‘international sisterhood’ meant, and how it was experienced by non-Western women at this time. The discourse of ‘international sisterhood’ at this time seems to have been primarily a Western construct, thanks to the fact that the organisations involved emerged from the historical context of nineteenth and early twentieth-century North America and Europe,32 and therefore tended to take Western cultural values for granted.33 It should be noted here that that there were always, in addition, other groups of women whose definition of ‘internationalism’ differed from those of the ICW, IAW, WILPF and IFUW. For instance, the internationalism of socialist women was marked as much by their membership of a particular socialist party as by gender, in which the language of ‘comradeship’ rather than ‘sisterhood’ was the orthodoxy. Moreover, unlike those women involved in international women’s organisations, the transnational activities of socialist women took place in mixed-sex organisations and forums, though, like the former, socialist international gatherings also tended to be dominated for historical reasons by participants who belonged in the main to countries in Europe and North America.34

Class connections But by placing gender difference firmly at the top of their agendas, these organisations often failed in the main to consider important distinctions between women. While they may have successfully transcended national barriers in the interwar period, it is clear that 9

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their transnational co-operation largely failed to reach beyond a highly educated elite group of women. Indeed, transnational cooperation favoured privileged women, those who were affluent with time to travel and educated with the ability to speak foreign languages. As this book will highlight, the elite cohort of women involved in international women’s organisations often had more in common with one another than with less privileged groups of women belonging to other classes in their own countries. Interaction and co-operation within international women’s organisations was a complex process. While transnational co-operation was motivated by the creation of an ‘international sisterhood’ located outside the framework of an imperial context, it was clearly eased, in my view, by the common class backgrounds of members belonging to these organisations.35 Their internationalism was helped in particular by the ‘Westernisation’ of non-Western members, achieved through the mediation of a Western-style education and links with Christianity, both of which could often be signs of privileged status and wealth. Indeed, despite claiming repeatedly that their memberships were open to all and that they were working for all women,36 these organisations proved to be more successful at crossing national rather than class barriers, as they remained dominated by upper and middle-class women wherever they were in the world throughout the interwar period. Yet, it is important to point out that while transnational co-operation in the form of participation at international congresses favoured privileged members, these organisations essentially constituted ‘umbrella’ associations, in particular in the West, and, thus, laid claim to extensive local and national networks that did include women from a wider range of class backgrounds.

Feminist orientalism Much of the controversy around the concept of ‘international sisterhood’ is linked to the fact that strong historical connections have existed between notions of ‘sisterhood’ and the kind of liberal feminist thinking in the West that arguably allowed for little, if any, 10

INTRODUCTION

understanding or appreciation of difference between women from various backgrounds. As we have seen, this early ‘first wave’ feminism, dating from the late nineteenth century, was based to a large extent on assumptions of gender difference and distinct female characteristics shared by all women worldwide. A product of its time, it was closely linked to confidence in the achievements of the West and, likewise, to the presumed need for Western women to assist their sisters living in the ‘backward East’. So-called ‘feminist orientalism’ of this kind, however, eventually came to be challenged by women from the non-Western world, by women of colour and by some women in the West itself, primarily working-class, who maintained instead that women possess multiple and conflicting identities and loyalties and that many of them are faced with inequalities that are not based on sex but on other factors such as race, class and religion. However, during the early decades of the twentieth century, when empires seemingly remained strong and real debates about such differences had yet to come to the fore, international women’s organisations were understandably replete with so-called ‘feminist orientalist’ attitudes.37 The coining of the actual term ‘feminist orientalism’ can be traced back to Zonana, whose work demonstrated how images of oriental life in the writings of Bronte¨, Wollstonecraft, Barrett Browning, Nightingale, and other Western female authors, had the function of criticising the West by determining certain aspects of life there as ‘eastern’. Unlike the larger Orientalism argued by Said to inform Western self-representation and to secure Western domination over the ‘East’,38 Zonana highlights how the ‘feminist orientalism’ of these writers was concerned with the removal of eastern elements from their lives.39 But, the concept of ‘feminist orientalism’ is used in Zonana’s writings to refer to a specific use of ‘orientalism’ by women writers, and so I sympathise with historians such as Fay who have more recently argued that it is not easily applicable to what the latter describes as feminist women and organisations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.40 Indeed, while women writers and even travellers and missionaries tended to draw a wide gulf between themselves and ‘colonised’ women,41 those women involved in 11

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international women’s organisations specifically advocated an international sisterhood and, thus, actively and deliberately formed bonds and friendships between women across national borders in order to work for women’s equality internationally.42 Burton and Ramusack have developed their own particular vocabularies, employing the terms ‘imperial feminists’ and ‘maternal imperialists’ respectively to describe the attitude of those whom they label as British feminists towards Indian women at the end of the nineteenth and during the early twentieth century.43 Burton argues that the interest taken by these British ‘imperial feminists’ in Indian women stemmed from a sense of responsibility for their colonial ‘sisters’. Such sympathy and protectiveness lay at the heart of many British feminists’ attitudes and thus, in her view, formed the basis of the particular ‘international sisterhood’ to which they subscribed. Middle-class British feminists, according to Burton, matured during an imperial age and thus participated in many of the assumptions of the imperial culture in which they lived and operated.44 Ramusack, on the other hand, favours the term ‘maternal imperialists’ as the most appropriate to describe British women, who ‘were frequently referred to as mothers or saw themselves as mothering India and Indians’.45 But while it could be argued that using fictive kinship terms was a way of integrating these British women into Indian culture, the mother– daughter relationship was clearly not one that involved equals, especially as the mother figures concerned were British and the daughters were Indian.46 In my view, the notions of ‘feminist imperialism’ and ‘maternal imperialism’ are arguably more useful to my study than the literary concept of ‘feminist orientalism’ when assessing the relationships experienced by women within international women’s organisations during the interwar period. Reactions to specific historical circumstances, these concepts describe the direct interaction between, for instance, British and Indian women rather than the attitudes of Western women writers as described by Zonana’s ‘feminist orientalism’. The limitations of the labels produced by Ramusack and Burton as far as I am concerned, however, lie in their specific focus on just Britain and India, and, in the case of Burton, the fact that her works do not look beyond 12

INTRODUCTION

1915.47 Indeed, in the interwar period international women’s organisations expanded to include members from around the world, and not all member countries in the so-called West and East possessed the same coloniser– colonised connection that existed, say, between Britain and India. So while the relationship between members of a wider group of international women’s organisations was often more complex in reality than the kinds of relationship between Western and Eastern women suggested by the concepts of ‘feminist orientalism’, ‘imperial feminism’ and ‘maternal feminism’,48 it was undoubtedly the case that Western women continued at various points to be influenced by these discourses. The following chapters will on occasion use ‘feminist orientalism’ in a similar fashion to that employed by Rupp, as a kind of ‘shorthand’ for the superior attitudes that were occasionally, if unintentionally, demonstrated by Western members of the organisations under scrutiny.49 Moreover, women themselves at the time often deliberately chose to use fictive kinship terms to describe their links, in particular those who had a more direct contact with women of other nationalities than merely describing or reflecting on other women’s status in literary and travel writings. Ramusack’s work, as noted above, has already explored the mother– daughter rapport between British and Indian women, while Burton refers to ‘sisters’, for example, maintaining that ‘many middle-class feminists viewed women of the East not as equals but as unfortunates in need of saving by their British feminist “sisters”’.50 This book will show that the latter terminology was the one most frequently used by members of international women’s organisations to describe the bond between their members. As these women were set on building an ‘international sisterhood’ of women based on common subordination worldwide and notions of difference from men, the mother– daughter relationship may well have implied too wide a gulf to be applicable in their case. Sisters, on the other hand, suggested a less hierarchical relationship, although the meaning was mediated by being preceded by terms such as ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’, with all their accompanying cultural connotations. I therefore progress the use of this terminology a step further by showing how the relationships among members of international 13

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women’s organisations in the interwar period were often described as those between a ‘big sister’ and a ‘little sister’, or sometimes alternatively a ‘tutor’ and a ‘student’. The big/little sister terminology is particularly interesting for it implies a more even relationship than that linking mother and daughter, yet less balanced than that between just ‘sisters’. In my opinion, it more closely reflects the hierarchies and distinctions that existed within the various international women’s organisations at the time.51

Defining East and West The transnational dimension of my research means that this book inevitably engages with issues of East– West encounters, colonialism and the construction of the ‘Others’. Labels such as the ‘Orient’, ‘oriental’, ‘East’ and ‘Eastern’ can be problematic since they have come to imply the cultural superiority of the West, and involve extensive generalisation about widely different areas and peoples, having been frequently used to define the ‘Other’.52 While there was clearly a non-West/West divide within international women’s organisations, which readily employed the above contested terms during the interwar period, available sources are inconsistent and it is important to note that there were also differences over time as well as between how non-Western women were described by others and how they described themselves. Aware of the difficulties associated with these terms, the following chapters as far as possible deploy the terms ‘non-West’ and ‘non-Western’ to describe areas outside of North America and Europe and their citizens. However, ‘East’ and ‘Eastern’ are sometimes used to refer specifically to Middle Eastern and Asian women where and when appropriate.53 It is equally important to be alert to how the terms ‘West’ and ‘Western’ are applied, yet most historians working on the East–West encounters between women have tended to leave these terms unproblematised, and have thus overlooked similar complexities involved in relationships between women who might all be described as ‘Western’ in one way or another. It seems improbable, for instance, that there was never tension between the dominant Anglo– American 14

INTRODUCTION

elite involved in these organisations and other women with Western origins. Indeed, the sources consulted for this research reveal insecurities with regard to their command of English, the language preferred at international women’s conferences, exhibited by both European and non-Western members, as well as evidence of tensions between north-western European women and those from eastern Europe and so-called ‘Latin’ countries. As with the ‘East’, my research shows that the ‘West’ was commonly used as a label or description by women active in international organisations in the interwar period. However, while the definitions of what constituted ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ were not always clear, the former tended to refer primarily to North American and European women and the latter to women from Asia and the Middle East. Australia and New Zealand were commonly included in the category of the ‘West’, though it is not always apparent whether ‘non-Western’ areas such as Africa and South America were necessarily included in the ‘East’. Indeed, Rupp has pointed out that East– West did not necessarily refer to geographical boundaries but more to cultural differences.54 In this way, the ‘West’ tended to stretch to include those places such as New Zealand and Australia that were primarily populated by people of European heritage. However, parts of the world such as South Africa, South America and Palestine pose problems to this type of definition. While women active in international women’s organisations from there tended to be white women of European origin, women of southern European origin and Jewish settlers from eastern Europe respectively, the majority of the local populations could be seen as culturally ‘Eastern’ or more accurately ‘non-Western’.55 Yet, we should not overlook the fact that the concepts of the ‘East’ and the ‘West’ were most commonly used by members of international women’s organisations precisely in order to illustrate, and proudly celebrate, the global span of their movements. Certainly, the East– West terminology was not regarded as a problem by most of the members themselves, who instead quite readily embraced these labels and even acted them out with regard, for example, to clothing at conferences. It was also common practice by these women, whether 15

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‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’, to draw attention to the differences between the two in order to emphasise the impressive extent of their particular organisation’s internationalism. Thus, while it is important to problematise both the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, it is necessary to recognise that the former has been surrounded by more controversy than the latter, which has continued to be used without much discussion through to the present day. While I acknowledge the challenges involved in using these terms, I will employ ‘Western’ to describe those who embraced the term in the interwar period, and who tended to be women of European origin. South America, South Africa and Palestine will generally be described as ‘non-Western’ due to their geographical location and because the majority of their populations did not have Western origins.

Methodology Just as the question of definitions raises challenges for this research, so does the nature of the kinds of sources consulted for it. This book is constructed primarily from women’s own accounts, both official and unofficial.56 It focuses on international women’s organisations in their own right, and attempts to avoid assessing them and their membership in hindsight. Instead it seeks to place their experiences in the context of their own time. All the same, it is important to note that the ‘experiences’ of members of international women’s organisations – both collective and individual – have been recorded in various ways. While the bulk of the primary sources constitute organisational records (including printed conference reports and official publications) and private papers (of members belonging to these international women’s organisations), I have also consulted newspapers, autobiographies and biographies. The size and scope of organisational records certainly varies between the different organisations concerned, but their strengths, or advantages, in comparison with other sources lie in their general abundance. Relying primarily on organisational records, however, can be problematic. Interest groups such as those being examined here were clearly conscious of leaving documents for history, as demonstrated 16

INTRODUCTION

by the careful way in which they recorded their activities in conference reports, executive meeting reports, journals and other publications.57 This guaranteed them and their members a voice; it allowed them to make claims about themselves and their members and, thus, to exert extensive power over their own history both at the time and also subsequently.58 It is, for example, not surprising that official accounts tend to underline the extent of unity and friendship existing within organisations. Everything published in organisational publications such as conference reports and journals was also collected and filtered through the headquarters that tended to be staffed by Western women.59 Therefore, focusing on the official papers of international women’s organisations runs the risk, as Rupp has acknowledged in relation to her own work, of placing all attention on core members coming from particular parts of the world.60 Interpretations of organisational records therefore have to be carried out with care and most importantly supplemented by additional sources such as letters, newspapers and autobiographies in order more fully to come to grips with the experiences of members of international women’s organisations. The relative honesty and lack of objectivity sometimes seen in private letters can often contrast sharply with official accounts and give alternative insights into the nature of women’s transnational co-operation. The advantages of private letters are that they offer a window into the private thoughts and feelings of women engaged in transnational co-operation. On the other hand, newspapers present contemporary glimpses of how these organisations were viewed by society at large. However, while private accounts in letters represent the views of a minority of members of international women’s organisations, newspaper articles were written with a particular audience in mind; ultimately it was the editor’s choice about what was included and what was omitted. For these methodological reasons, I have consulted as wide a range of different kinds of sources as possible in order to trace and explain the evolution of international women’s organisations in the interwar period and how ‘international sisterhood’ was experienced by their members. Great care has been taken not to over-emphasise the evidence produced by one set of sources over that of another. 17

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Importantly, taken together and examined with sensitivity, conference reports, correspondence, journals, newsletters and other publications alongside recollections by these organisations’ members can reveal much about women outside of the centre, including nonWestern women. Thus, a careful interpretation of different types of sources allows historians to move beyond the official ‘voice’ and ‘image’ portrayed by these organisations, in particular by allowing research to pay attention not only to what has been written but also to what has been omitted. This book is divided into two parts. The first section – ‘Establishing an international framework’ – addresses the historical background and subsequent evolution of the leading international women’s organisations in the interwar period. It places their development within its broader context, in particular outlining the substructure of international Christian women’s organisations formed earlier on which later developments were built. It then examines the unprecedented expansion of international women’s organisations in the 1920s, and assesses the challenges experienced by them during the troubled 1930s. The second section – ‘Education, travel and regionalisation’ – in contrast explores the significance of education, travel and increased regionalisation. It begins by highlighting the importance of higher education for women’s transnational co-operation in the interwar period and the role of the IFUW in particular. It then evaluates the function of international travel for the expansion of international women’s organisations, drawing particular attention to the changing purposes of this travel during the first half of the twentieth century. Finally it addresses the increased regionalisation that had emerged by the end of the 1930s, comparing and contrasting the involvement of non-Western women in particular in, and their consequent experience of, regional and international organisations.

18

CHAPTER 2 THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT PRIOR TO 1919

The internationalisation of the women’s movement reveals the mutual dependence and trust that bourgeois women felt toward each other. A common empathy and purpose swept over oceans and erased cultural and political conditions that might otherwise have created obstacles toward unity. (Edith F. Hurwitz, ‘The international sisterhood’)1 The focus of this book is the international women’s movement during the interwar years and the changing patterns of interaction that occurred during this critical phase in its evolution. While the movement displayed important similarities with its predecessor during the pre-1919 period, there were also significant distinctions that eventually emerged by the late 1930s. To make sense of this shifting pattern, it is necessary first to appreciate the way in which this movement had evolved before the end of World War I. Understanding the changes and continuities involved, therefore, requires an assessment of the main features of the movement by 1919 and the broader context in which they had taken shape.

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Raising of a ‘female consciousness’2 The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the appearance of the ‘new woman’ in North America and Europe and, by the early twentieth century, in non-Western countries such as Japan. According to Smith, the new type of (British) woman seemed to reject Victorian concepts of home and domesticity or at least wanted these concepts modified. The new woman did not accept standard roles for what was ladylike or many other accepted gender definitions. Her activities received more attention and comment than major political events in Western societies at the end of the century, and literature about her flooded the market. The emergence of these new, emancipated, women, who were predominately from upper and middle-class backgrounds, was made possible by the social reforms and changes taking place during the late nineteenth century, which had opened up greater access to education and employment for women as well as giving women more rights, for example in terms of property in England and France.3 The position of women within marriage was also questioned, with Ibsen’s portrayal of a problematic marriage in his play A Doll’s House (1879) receiving attention in Europe and beyond.4 Ellen Key (1849–1926), the well-known Swedish writer and feminist,5 ‘saw the new woman deriving happiness from an unmarried state, living with a woman friend and yet being a mother’.6 Not surprisingly, this kind of woman met with the disapproval of many. The control of her fertility, for instance, raised fears about national population declines, shortages of workers and insufficient troops. Moreover, the fact that many such women had political opinions that were feminist or socialist or were in other ways radically different from the ruling consensus of the time proved very unsettling. Education and missionary activities These trends owed much to improvements in education for girls and women brought about by social reforms: [T]he first generations of European women who went to the colleges or to universities proceeded to organize further social 22

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institutions after they left school. They established clubs, Philanthropic societies, and settlement houses. In this way, the new women multiplied by creating communities.7 Indeed, educational reform, in particular those reforms aimed at the introduction of equal educational opportunities, was an important part of the developing women’s movement’s agenda. In Britain, educational reform began in the 1840s, and was stimulated by the rising wealth and expectations of the middle class; the belief that the mother, as the first educator of her children, needed a good education; and an increase in unmarried middle-class women and the need for them to receive better education in order to get respectable employment. However, female access to education, especially higher education, was not straightforward as it was resisted by many different groups in society. By the beginning of the twentieth century, women constituted only 15 per cent of British university students.8 All the same, improvements in education for girls and women were experienced both in the West and in other parts of the world, introduced by Western missionaries, private individuals and governments pursuing social reform, with implications for the emergence of a feminist consciousness and women’s organisations there. Christian missionary activities in the non-Western world were often behind the establishment of schools and colleges for girls and women. For example, by the mid-1850s, the first girls’ schools in China had been started by Western missionaries. Likewise, missionaries took the lead in the field of women’s education in Japan where they opened schools from 1870 onwards. Moreover, philanthropic activities expanded from the desire to educate British working-class women in religion, morality and sanitation to carrying out this mission ‘wherever the British flag was flying’. During the late nineteenth century, a number of foreign women, mainly British, went to India to campaign for improvement in social conditions for local women. Women such as Margaret Gillespie Cousins9 and Agatha Harrison focused on both women’s issues and progress towards Indian independence.10 Missionary activities not only opened up education for women in many parts of the non-Western 23

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world, through which they contributed to the process of emancipation of local women, but, in addition, they brought the latter into contact with Western women, Western culture and the English language, from which international women’s organisations later stood to benefit when they expanded their organisations beyond Europe and North America. Thus, early educational ‘missionary’ efforts by Western women contributed to the formation of connections that were later used by international women’s organisations. Missionaries were prepared to work for social change where indigenous practices such as foot-binding and polygamy came into conflict with Western values.11 Undoubtedly, missionary women operated within a broader colonial framework that was structured on notions of racial and cultural superiority.12 As Burton has argued with reference to British feminists of the period, they were ‘trapped within an imperial discourse they did not create and perhaps which they could not escape’.13 Nevertheless, these missionaries influenced the way that, for example, Indian culture and Indian women were represented in Britain at the time, for while many missionaries and philanthropists believed in Empire and their country’s ‘civilising’ missions, other women fought all kinds of oppressions, including imperialism. But whatever their intentions, they helped to educate local people in the English language and culture, and thus established a mutual basis for communication.14 Colonialism, and the power relations that it created between nations and their peoples, thus influenced both Western and nonWestern women at the end of the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century, Western imperial powers had come to control large parts of Asia and Africa. This intrusion largely took two forms: direct control, such as that exercised by the British in India, or indirect control, such as the economic treaties imposed on Japan by Western nations. In these existing circumstances, discourses emerged in Western imperial nations that viewed their own societies as progressive and advanced while, in contrast, non-Western societies could be classified as backward and even uncivilised. One of the crucial elements in this construction was the nature of gender 24

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relations and how these differed in the non-West from those in the West. Women’s status and position accordingly came to be used as a way of measuring the relative advancement or backwardness of a society: the West was regarded as more progressive as its women were considered to be in a better position and so held in higher esteem than in the ‘backward’ East. As Grewal has argued, ‘the idea of the Englishwoman as one who had rights, powers, and capabilities that reached those of Englishmen emerged from contrast with Asian women’.15 What is interesting is that these discourses were not restricted to the West but were also adopted by non-Western male social reformers during the nineteenth century. They used them to explain why their own country lagged behind the West, with the result that this became a crucial issue that they had to address in their efforts to modernise their societies. In China, as in other countries that were indirectly colonised, male reformers analysed the reasons behind their ‘backwardness’ and linked it with the low status of women in their societies. Bourgeoisie and intellectuals alike sought to give their country a progressive image abroad, which led to attacks on degrading social practices, such as foot-binding. In India, improving the status of women, as an indicator of a society’s general advancement, acquired importance for urban, middle-class, Westernised Indian men, who wanted to modernise their own society.16 Thus, Western criticism of gender relations and the position of women in non-Western societies were together seen as explaining the backwardness of these societies in relation to the West, and were picked up by male social reformers, such as those in Japan, in their various modernising quests to transform their country’s image in the eyes of others. The position of Japanese women was used by both Western imperial powers and Japanese reformers, usually male, to explain Japan’s economic and military weakness. The motive of Japanese social reformers, as of those elsewhere in the non-Western world, was to raise their country’s position in the world. Since ‘their primary concern in arguing for an improvement in women’s position was the subjugation of the Japanese nation, not the subordination of women’, 25

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so ‘changes to women’s position were designed to create a new Japanese womanhood which would gain international respectability abroad while retaining male control at home’.17 The emphasis of male reformers on female education at this time also had its roots in this debate. In Japan ‘as in many other countries [. . .] the issue of women’s education as a means of intellectual and social advancement became an integral part of the reformist movement’.18 Promoting education for women was central to these efforts. In 1872, the Japanese government introduced an Education Ordinance with the goal of achieving universal literacy. In 1874, the first Women’s Normal School (now Ochanomizu Women’s University) was established, and by 1898 there were 34 public high schools for girls, with a total enrolment of about 8,000. However, the development of tertiary education for Japanese women was slower. Unlike men, women at this time were restricted to the higher school level, although the gap was filled to some extent by missionary schools in their role as major providers of female education in Japan. The late nineteenth century also witnessed the emergence of international educational exchanges, which would subsequently benefit the interaction between international female activists as well as the recruitment of non-Western women to international women’s organisations. For example, five young Japanese women were part of the Iwakura Mission, which travelled to the United States and Europe in 1872 on a fact-finding tour. These women remained in the United States to receive an education there, and three of them stayed for as long as ten years. One went on later to establish a Women’s English College in 1900, known as Tsuda Juku Daigaku or Tsuda College, which was the first tertiary institution for women in Japan.19 Just as the Victorian ideology of domesticity exerted a powerful influence on female education in Britain, so education for Japanese women under the Meiji government of the period was primarily designed to make women into ‘good wives and wise mothers’. Education was for the sake of the nation, and not the women themselves, as reflected in the fact that it continued to stress traditional female roles. Japanese society turned more conservative towards the end of the century, with implications for women and the 26

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nature and content of their education. Yet, despite the continued emphasis on the ideology of domesticity in Japan and elsewhere, female access to education and increased literacy in Japan, as in Britain, contributed in the longer run to the development of a feminist consciousness. Women, albeit from particular backgrounds, increasingly debated their own situation, rather than leaving that to male reformers, and rejected traditional female roles. Education also opened up new employment opportunities for women. In Japan, as in other non-Western societies as well as in the West itself, increased access to education over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century helped to raise the level of feminist consciousness among certain groups of women.20 Importance of literature The translation of literature concerned with the ‘woman question’ played an important role in stimulating the growth of feminist sentiment in many countries. Literary works portraying the ‘new woman’ took Europe by storm. They mirrored women’s real lives as activists and innovators, and, while they shocked some members of society, they encouraged others to imitate their heroines. Radical women across Europe and in the United States were affected and influenced by each other’s proclamations and later they translated each other’s words. Western journals at this time also took an increased interest in the experience of women in the non-Western world. For example, British periodicals published between 1865 and 1915 included a growing number of items on Indian women, often portraying them as the special ‘imperial burden’ of British feminists. One of the most well-known, the English Woman’s Journal, was established in 1857 and provided a focal point for discontent over inequalities and disadvantages and brought like-minded women together.21 Developments in the Near East, as well as east Asia, during this period highlight the extent to which education and literature on the ‘woman question’ went hand in hand to foster the rise of a women’s movement. Badran, for instance, has identified the first stage of the feminist movement in Egypt by pointing out the rise in a feminist consciousness expressed in poems, essays and stories that took place 27

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there in the late nineteenth century. Egyptian women influenced national discussion on the position of women through their own books and magazines and their articles in mainstream journals. A similar trend was seen in Japan, where literate women debated their own situation and, thus, were not simply the subject of male reformers. All the same, in both cases, their writings were still very often published in journals edited by men.22 Thus, various different kinds of literature on the ‘woman question’ were translated and circulated, contributing to emerging feminist consciousness and the international women’s movement. As mentioned above, Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, about a problematic marriage, generated discussion in many parts of the world. As Jayawardena has pointed out, the meaning of Nora’s escape from her marriage and home was debated in many Asian countries, with Nora seen as a symbol that broke with traditional, widely accepted social norms and morality.23 Moreover, foreign language translations of feminist classics such as John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (first published 1869) contributed to the growth of a shared feminist sentiment. Another author with a similar impact beyond Europe and other parts of the West was Ellen Key, whose books Love and Marriage (1911) and The Woman Movement (1912), which both rejected feudal traditions and glorified love, inspired Japanese women to ‘dare to dream’ of romantic love and to criticise ‘domestic servitude’. Yet despite all this attention devoted to the ‘new woman’, there was no common idea of what exactly she constituted: while highlighting debates on the ‘woman question’, women belonging to the developing women’s movement did not necessarily fall into this category and their attitudes towards her varied.24 Early activism In the mid-nineteenth century, women’s suffrage may not yet have been on the agenda, but women were starting the process of organising themselves into separate organisations from men in order to work for the emancipation of women. Upper and middle-class women had engaged in philanthropy and become active in the abolitionist movement from the end of the eighteenth century and 28

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during the early nineteenth century, and had gone on to channel their activism into temperance movements against alcohol, prostitution and war. This early activism and the organisational structures that this created, contributed to the development of skills among women activists and the formation of a network or ‘substructure’ of international contacts on which other international women’s organisations could later build. During the second half of the nineteenth century, women’s activism in the West increasingly took the form of temperance and Christian reform organisations, highlighting the extent to which social and moral reform was the central concern of the early women’s movement. Alcohol abuse was one of the first issues to raise female consciousness, and other issues that received attention from women involved in these early organisations were prostitution and peace. While temperance movements were not new, it was only during the latter stages of the nineteenth century that international female temperance organisations emerged onto the scene. Temperance movements had a strong link to Protestant values and often worked for prohibition through churches.25 One of the earliest and most influential women’s temperance organisations was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), established in 1874 in the United States. The WCTU fought against war, impurity and alcohol, and embraced Christian and family values as well as advocating social reform and the emancipation of women. Its female members were able to forge ‘bonds of sympathy with their sisters [internationally] based on a common awareness of their sex’s oppression’.26 Indeed, from its inception, the WCTU was pushing for internationalism and organised world conventions from the 1870s onwards. However, only four countries – Canada, the United States, Britain and Japan27 – were represented at its 1876 convention, and subsequent conventions tended to be dominated by Anglo-Saxon or Anglicised delegates from Western colonies. All the same, the early gatherings did enjoy the presence of Scandinavian, German, Swiss, Italian, French, Icelandic and Japanese delegates. 29

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The WCTU, however, still took great pride in its transnational links: as Canon Basil Wilberforce, at its first and special British conference in May 1892, pronounced ‘The sun never sets on the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.’28 His remark deeply touched the leaders of the WCTU, as it gave recognition to the movement’s international achievements. Indeed, its nominal coverage included every continent, except Antarctica, with affiliated national unions in more than 40 countries and representatives in many more.29 The international character of the WCTU, in particular during its conferences, meant that communication was sometimes made difficult by the limited English of some of the delegates, even though the WCTU tended to rely on returning missionaries to act as representation for non-Western countries such as Japan, India and China. Moreover, all conventions were held in the northern hemisphere, which reflected the domination of the organisation numerically by Anglo– American groups. Travel from areas outside the United States and Europe was costly and so delegates from Australia and New Zealand often chose to combine attendance at a conference with round-the-world tours. The main purpose of international conventions was to focus world attention on temperance and women’s questions. They also served as inspiration for members, as reflected in the speeches and correspondence of delegates: ‘long after attendance at the conventions, members and friends returned to this inspirational appeal. Men as well as women were so affected.’30 Once delegates had returned home from WCTU conventions, they would give speeches explaining the organisation’s work and retelling incidents from the convention. Such reminiscences became an important vehicle for spreading knowledge internationally about the issues championed by the WCTU. Moreover, these ‘conventions exposed delegates to the famous women whom they had worshiped from afar’.31 The efforts of temperance women to emancipate their non-Western sisters from subordination remained bound up with the colonial extension of Europe and European values. Yet, as Tyrell has pointed out, since drinking and associated ‘vices’ were as much if not more commonly associated with European peoples, the notion of the cultural 30

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superiority of whites and the Christian religion could not be assumed. The WCTU could not simply force its own conception of a superior morality on less fortunate women, and so collaboration always played a part when the WCTU extended its organisation and activities into the non-Western world. For instance, while North American and European women still dominated the movement in the 1890s, it was its Japanese affiliates that could claim the largest increase in membership and thus win the World’s WCTU banner in 1897. Despite this, by the end of the century, the WCTU remained tied to its Anglo-Saxon base and only in Britain, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hawaii, and in the missionary outposts of the Anglo–American empires in Japan, China and India, did it achieve more than a passing significance. The WCTU, however, was definitely a pioneer in work later taken up by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Like the WCTU, the YWCA sent out its own emissaries, organised a World’s YWCA, promoted international sisterhood, and held its first convention in 1898. Thus, the WCTU’s international activity provided a model that other organisations later could emulate.32 Interestingly, however, it took many years for these later organisations to become as ‘international’ as the WCTU had become by the turn of the twentieth century. Temperance and Christianity were closely linked. Accordingly, some of the earliest women’s organisations to be created in Japan can be connected to the influence of Christianity there. These included, in addition to the Japanese section of the WCTU, women’s organisations associated with the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Their members shared with their Western counterparts a sense of dissatisfaction with aspects of masculine behaviour. Japanese reformers, though, were more interested in reforming male sexual behaviour and looking after the victims of institutionalised prostitution, than in curbing the abuse of alcohol that so angered their counterparts in other countries. Following a visit in 1886 to Japan by an American WCTU representative, Mary Leavitt, Japanese women were reportedly inspired to set up the Tokyo Reform Society, with Yajima Kajiko as its first president, which became a national organisation in 1893. However, the Reform Society was affected by 31

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the conservative mood of the decade, its prevalent anti-feminism and, in particular, a growing anti-Christian sentiment, as Christianity was held to be responsible for the supposed subversion of Japanese culture. Elsewhere in the non-Western world, women’s work was also often channelled through religion. For example, the first women’s societies in Egypt were formal associations, founded by upper and middle-class women, which pledged to work for women’s advancement through Islamic activism or reform.33 These religious reform associations provided women with the experience of belonging to and running organisations, and also established an international framework on which later women’s organisations would be able to base their own post-World War I expansion. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a new trend emerged. Women now started to form more radical organisations, concerned with what later became known as women’s rights. These were specifically aimed at securing the vote and other legal advances for women. Women organised themselves into associations that worked for female emancipation in terms of education, marriage, citizenship, suffrage and political activism. While some sought women’s access to the public sphere (universities, professions and local government), others aimed to improve women’s position within the domestic sphere and to challenge existing double standards of morality.34 Indeed, ‘new ideas about women, about their nature, their sexuality, and their interests came to the fore and were discussed and espoused by some feminists’.35 The reasons behind the emergence of these separatist organisations lay in belief in the uniqueness of female qualities and women’s common struggle against subordination that had been circulating for some time, but they were also the result of the treatment and experience of women within mixed organisations. Mixed clubs certainly provided platforms for women to speak and to meet other male and female activists, yet frequently they could prove intimidating to women as, according to Levine’s assessment, ‘the women members found themselves constantly silenced and criticized by the male members’.36 In addition, constraints on women’s freedom of movement, especially those experienced by middle-class women, 32

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meant that those who were drawn to these organisations, especially single women, acquired in the process an alternative social environment to that of their home. However, not all women’s societies or even women’s suffrage societies were separatist; for example, most British organisations allowed men as members. According to Rupp, women committed to female rights began to organise across national borders at the end of the nineteenth century. First they gathered at conferences without larger permanent structures, but they soon formalised these early contacts in the shape of organisations based on particular interests. One of the first major international women’s organisations was the International Council of Women (ICW), which was established in 1888 at a meeting of the US National Woman Suffrage Association.37 For the first five years, the ICW remained a purely American organisation – affiliation was via National Councils and the first one of these, apart from the American, was not established until 1893 in Canada. Nevertheless, the ICW quickly expanded its membership in different parts of the Western world following the establishment of National Councils in Germany (1894), Britain (1895), Sweden and New Zealand (1896), Italy and the Netherlands (1898) and Denmark (1899). Its first president was Lady Aberdeen, who accepted the post in 1893 and continued as president more or less continuously until 1936. However, it should be pointed out that apart from the WCTU and the YWCA described above, there had been earlier attempts made to form international women’s organisations: for example, in 1868, the Swiss feminist Marie Gregg launched the short-lived International Association of Women based in Geneva until it collapsed in 1871.38 Thus, the women’s movement in the late nineteenth century was, in practice, diverse, concerned with both gaining access for women to the public sphere and ending the private oppression of women. While there were also some women activists and organisations that opposed the more mainstream associations, the majority were reformers and rarely revolutionaries. For example, socialist feminists distanced themselves from national and international women’s organisations and the class bias of their feminism. Indeed, the assumption that middle and working-class women faced the same 33

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problems was challenged at the end of the nineteenth century with the rise of the labour movement and the groups of women affiliated to it.39 This also resulted in new organisations such as the Women’s Cooperative Guild, founded in 1884, that drew its membership from married working-class women. As the writings of both Hannam and Hunt demonstrate, women’s opinions were divided by their class, religion and politics, and women involved in mainstream political parties faced the dilemma of how to reconcile their particular brand of feminism with their political beliefs, something that was especially difficult in socialist parties because of their emphasis on class rather than gender inequalities.40

International women’s organisations: 1900 to 1919 By 1900, the women’s movement in the West was firmly under way. While the ICW expanded and consolidated its activities such as international conferences, the early years of the twentieth century witnessed new organisations and widening participation. Women were now organising around various causes, but it was suffrage that emerged as the main issue that brought a large body of women together in the period before World War I. Early organisations 1904 saw the establishment of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA, later the International Alliance of Women for Equal Citizenship, IAWSEC or IAW for short), which was born of disagreements within the ICW about whether to take a firm stand with regard to women’s suffrage. The issue of suffrage had the ability to unite and attract many women. Indeed, as Smith demonstrates, the suffrage movement in each country represented the first mass organisation of women and the vitality of these organisations derived from women’s prior experience with reform.41 New ways of campaigning were introduced, such as using banners, organising marches and holding giant public meetings, all of which attracted significant public attention.42 The early years of the twentieth century also saw the intensification of women’s movements in non34

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Western societies, the emergence there of the so-called ‘new woman’ and a growing interest in international women’s organisations. However, despite the ability of suffrage to unite women across national borders, individual suffrage movements, such as that in Britain, experienced internal divisions, in this case between its constitutional and militant wings in particular.43 International women’s organisations brought together women from a range of nationalities, co-operation that was facilitated primarily through their international congresses, journals and correspondence. As mentioned above, the first major international women’s organisation, the ICW, had been established in 1888, after which it proceeded to mobilise a wide variety of existing women’s groups by organising them into national councils. To the national councils established during its early years now were added those of Switzerland and Argentina (1900), France (1901), Austria (1902), Hungary and Norway (1904), Belgium (1905), Bulgaria and Greece (1908), Serbia (1911), South Africa (1913), Portugal (1914) and the various states of Australia (1896 to 1911). The extent of the ICW’s membership at this time provides an indication of the global distribution of women’s movements before World War I, which by 1907 claimed to represent between four and five million women. Since the ICW’s aim was to be inclusive and represent the diverse interests of women, it lacked a clear goal, and instead avoided taking sides on controversial issues, including female suffrage during the early years. As time passed, however, with the solidification of its organisational structure, it took on more substantial issues, including eventually the question of the vote. By its fifth conference in Rome in 1914, the ICW’s activities had been organised into Peace, the Legal Position of Women, Education, Equal Moral Standards, Migration and Public Health Committees.44 Indeed, the issue of female suffrage gained increasing attention at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1904, the IWSA was established, as a result of a split within the ICW between moderates and those who wanted to press on more strongly. At its inception, it only comprised suffrage societies in the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. However, by 35

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1914, this number had expanded to 26 affiliated nations, including Russia (1906), South Africa (1908) and China (1913). Unlike the ICW, the IWSA had a clear goal from the outset – female suffrage – and it consequently worked as an umbrella organisation with the aim of uniting suffragists around the world. Whereas the ICW represented moderate change on an international level, the IWSA therefore stood for more radical reform.45 Like the ICW, the IWSA operated through international congresses, which were normally held every two to three years (unlike the ICW, which only held its conferences every five years). It also established an international journal, Jus Suffragii (later the International Woman Suffrage News, or IWSN) in 1906, to promote its cause, bring women within the movement together and update its members on developments in different countries.46 The dominance of ‘Western’ women Both the ICW and IWSA were dominated by North American and European women, the majority of whom, according to Rupp, could be described as older, elite and Christian. This pattern had implications for the general outlook of these organisations. So-called ‘feminist orientalist’ discourse, as discussed in Chapter 1, influenced the international women’s movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, and was not only used to explain Euro– American leadership of these organisations but also to criticise Western men for seeming ‘oriental’ if they refused to accept the emancipation of their own womenfolk.47 It is important, however, to place such ‘feminist orientalism’ in the context in which it developed and, especially, to acknowledge the wider impact of colonialism on Western women at this time. It is now widely accepted that ‘middle-class British feminists matured during an imperial age’, which had consequences in particular for their relations with Indian women, who became seen as their special burden. The writings and activities of British feminists, for instance, revealed a sense of responsibility for their colonial ‘sisters’: for many of them this attitude of sympathy and wanting to help Indian women formed the basis of their understanding of ‘international sisterhood’. In Burton’s words, ‘consciousness of 36

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Britain’s imperial status, and particularly of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority, led many prominent British feminists to view Indian women as lower on a scale of human development and, most significantly, in need of salvation by their British feminist sisters’.48 This outlook also stemmed from the belief that the British had created the whole idea of sex equality and that Britain was the ‘storm-centre’ of the international women’s movement.49 Such perspectives were not confined to British women. Hoganson, for instance, argues that American women maintained a similar protective role vis-a`-vis Filipino women at the turn of the century.50 Likewise, according to Burton, American Carrie Chapman Catt, who became the president of the IWSA in 1904, also believed in ‘women of the west [leading] the women of the world toward emancipation’.51 Nevertheless, at the same time, many middleclass British and American feminists still believed that women’s oppression was universal, that it transcended national and racial boundaries, and that women were united by the similarity of their situation.52 Thus, the ‘promise of universal sisterhood came into repeated conflict with British feminists’ determination to lead the world of women to freedom’.53 However, it is important to avoid viewing women in the nonWestern world as simply passive followers of Western female activists. While Indian women worked within British suffrage organisations, for instance, they had also by 1915 created their own organisations in India as well as in Britain to work for female access to education and political equality.54 Thus, although influencing the attitudes of women from the West at this time, the impact of the binary structure of Western ‘superiority’ and Eastern ‘backwardness’ implied by ‘feminist orientalism’ discourses faded somewhat as international women’s organisations expanded around the world in their quest to establish their ‘international sisterhoods’. International expansion Both the ICW and the IWSA realised the importance of expanding their organisations beyond western Europe and North America in the period before World War I. World tours became one way of 37

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making contact with places that were not well represented, while other forms of recruitment that were used included personal connections and friendships, distributing journals, and attending conferences where potential members would be immersed in the spirit of internationalism. However, these organisations did recognise that apart from language barriers, there were other difficulties involved in this kind of expansion: such as the question of what constituted a national section, whether it was all right to admit groups from colonised countries, and whether it was possible to allow more than one group from countries divided by ethnicity and religion. Zimmermann argues that because the ICW and the IWSA conceptualised ‘the international’ in terms of a multiplication of ‘the national’, colonised areas and multinational empires that did not conform to the Western notion of the nation-state proved a challenge to their expansion efforts in the early twentieth century. The Habsburg monarchy, the Swedish – Norwegian question, the Finnish– Russian relationship, as well as the Australian Commonwealth, all proved problematic for ICW recruitment, and its response remained ambiguous: while being prepared to federate national councils from the Commonwealth of Australia, Norway, Hungary and Finland, it denied independent representation for the Bohemian women’s movement and for Polish women from the former kingdom of Poland, by then ruled by Russia.55 Women’s movements in the ‘non-West’ The growing interest in the non-West exhibited by international women’s organisations coincided with the developments of local women’s movements there. The emergence of the ‘new woman’, seen in the West at the end of the nineteenth century, was now under way in many non-Western societies, the ‘time lag’ primarily attributable to their later experience of industrialisation and associated processes of ‘modernisation’. To some extent, every women’s movement was the product of economic or political change in the country where this occurred.56 This factor also had an impact on the issues raised by women in different countries at this time. For example, although many women’s movements in the West were involved in suffrage 38

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campaigns, their eastern counterparts were only just beginning to express discontent over the rights and roles of women through journals and the establishment of the first women’s associations. In the case of Egypt, women there were not calling for the vote since the franchise, it could be argued, had little significance in a place that remained under British occupation.57 While it is important not to generalise since differences in terms of the ‘timing’ of the emergence of a women’s movement occurred within both the West and the non-Western world (with female suffrage demands notably being made in Japan as early as the end of the nineteenth century),58 there are also interesting common patterns. Badran, for instance, divides the Egyptian feminist movement into three stages: first, rising ‘feminist consciousness’ as expressed through poems, stories and essays at the end of the nineteenth century; second, invisible everyday ‘feminist’ activism performed through philanthropy, intellectual programmes and teaching during the first two decades of the twentieth century; and, third, highly visible organised feminism in the shape of the feminist association, the Egyptian Feminist Union established in 1922.59 This pattern of developments was not only mirrored in other non-Western women’s movements, but, as referred to above, was also relevant to the life-cycles of feminist movements in the West, underlining the extent to which women’s movements and ‘feminisms [need to be understood as] [. . .] the products of specific historical contexts’.60 Ideas concerning women’s superiority in relation to men flourished within all these women’s movements. Arguments about women’s moral superiority were not only voiced by Western middle-class feminist movements but also by early middle-class Indian and ‘first wave’ Egyptian feminists, due to the impact of (Western-style) education and marked class values on what were largely upper and middle-class women’s movements. On the other hand, these arguments were, in the British context, mixed in with notions of cultural and racial superiority: ‘middle-class British feminists, at any rate, were not feminists first and British second and bourgeois third. They occupied a place at the crossroads of several interlocking 39

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identities.’61 Yet, British women together with women of other nationalities still identified themselves as a group, oppressed in the society in which they lived thanks to their sex, which made them an ‘Other’.62 This ‘Otherness’ undoubtedly bonded women more tightly together at the beginning of the twentieth century and played its part in the forming of an international sisterhood, albeit with many difficulties. Similar trends were becoming visible in various parts of the nonWestern world. For instance, a new group of women had started to make their appearance in early twentieth-century China. Described as ‘intellectual women’ by Lu,63 they were the product of the modernisation of the country’s educational system. While, as discussed above, schools had initially been introduced by Western missionaries, more were subsequently founded by private groups and the government. The emergence of women educated along Western lines coincided with the rise in popularity of Western notions of democracy, which were then being introduced into Chinese society. These new ideas included theories and histories of women’s movements in the West. During the first decade of the twentieth century, women’s groups emerged with greater speed, and the number of women’s publications rapidly increased. Journals created by Chinese women who studied in Japan made a special impact, with Zhongguo xinnujie zazhi (New Chinese Women’s Magazine), founded in Tokyo and published both in Japan and China, enjoying a circulation of up to 5,000. While these early efforts enjoyed success in terms of establishing schools for girls and in gathering support for the campaign against foot-binding, some Chinese women following the 1911 revolution looked to the British suffragist movement as their model, and this resulted in a rise in female political participation. A number of Chinese women’s organisations were established, including the Chinese Women’s Franchise Association, the Chinese Women’s Co-operative Association and the Chinese Suffrage Society, the last of which was modelled on the British movement. While these organisations, based in major cities such as Peking, Shanghai, Canton and Tientsin, were primarily concerned with suffrage, they worked for improved educational opportunities 40

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for women and an end to social evils such as foot-binding, concubinage, prostitution and child marriage. In addition, they campaigned for equal political rights and improvements to women’s status and rights within the family. In 1912, leaders of the women’s political participation movement in Shanghai, Nanjing, Tianjin and Peking met with Carrie Chapman Catt and Aletta Jacobs of the IWSA, when they stopped in China while on their world tour.64 The period beginning with the new cultural movement in 1916 saw increased importance given to the ‘woman question’ in China. During the Reform Movement of 1898 and the 1911 revolution, people had been concerned about women’s duty and their rights. Now, during the period of the New Culture Movement, the emphasis shifted to the independent personality of women, and as a result, ‘discussions of women’s issues [. . .] touched on nearly every problem related to women’s liberation’.65 There was also growing interest in foreign literature that dealt with the ‘woman question’. For example, in 1918, The Doctrine of Chastity by the Japanese female scholar Yosano Akiko was translated and published. And during the May Fourth Movement, which began in 1919, A Doll’s House was translated into Chinese, with the bravery of its main character Nora influencing the outlook of many young women and men. Furthermore, several cities saw the establishment of women’s rights organisations between 1919 and 1921.66 Japan similarly witnessed emerging debates over the ‘new woman’ at the beginning of the twentieth century. These debates, that began in the 1910s, were waged between four women in particular – Yosano Akiko, Hiratsuka Raicho¯, Yamakawa Kikue and Yamada Waka – who introduced the writings of Western feminists, touching on topics such as women in politics, education for women, women’s rights, sexuality and the government’s role in supporting mothers and wives. Yosano’s feminism was grounded in equal legal, educational, and social rights and responsibilities for women; Hiratsuka favoured a doctrine of motherhood that called for state protection of and special privileges for mothers; Yamakawa held a socialist view of history that blamed women’s subordination on the system of private property and set the destruction of that system as 41

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her goal; while Yamada subscribed to the traditional view of women as ‘good wives and wise mothers’. A major forum for discussion between these women was the literary magazine Seito¯ (Bluestocking), founded in 1911 by Hiratsuka.67 What is interesting is that these Japanese activists were both influenced by feminist women abroad and, at the same time, critical of them. For example, Hiratsuka was profoundly affected by the work of Ellen Key, which she translated and published in Seito¯.68 Yosano meanwhile travelled to Europe, where she compared women’s movements and situations there with that in Japan. Following this trip, she gave an ‘optimistic view on the future of the women’s movement in Japan. Compared to the British and Japanese, French women, she felt, were somewhat lethargic in their efforts toward reform and overly accepting of such social evils as prostitution.’69 Moreover, Yosano criticised Key, along with Tolstoy, for promoting ‘the idea that it was the mission and natural right of men to do both physical and mental labor [sic], and that women’s activity was of a secondary nature’.70 In Japan, Key’s thinking was often counterbalanced with that of the South African Olive Schreiner, whose Women and Work was translated into Japanese in 1914. Whereas Key was mainly associated with the concept of ‘support for motherhood’, Schreiner was seen as favouring economic independence for women. These two arguments thus appealed to two different groups of feminists in Japan.71 As in Japan, the women’s movement in India began to get properly under way during the second decade of the twentieth century, with the establishment of several women’s organisations, such as Mahamandal in 1910 and the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) in 1917, organised by Dorothy Jinarajadasa and Margaret Cousins,72 and comprising urban, middle and upper-class educated women.73 The WIA, under its first president Annie Besant, justified the creation of separate organisations on the grounds that they provided an environment where women, who had been raised in a sex-segregated society, could speak with some autonomy. But there were others that pointed to the special nature of women and men’s inability to understand them. For example, the All-India Muslim Ladies Conference (Anjuman-eKhawatin-e-Islam), founded in 1914, represented one of the few 42

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opportunities for women who observed purdah to meet women from other regions. While it set out to work for the advancement of education and rights for Muslim women, it came under attack for being ‘anti-Islamic’, and, when it passed a resolution in 1918 condemning polygamy, its members were criticised for seeking to impress what were described as their Western and Christian mentors.74 This kind of criticism was encountered by many other non-Western feminists, especially when their country’s nationalist movements developed momentum during the early decades of the twentieth century. The impact of World War I Thus, while international women’s organisations established in the West at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century consolidated their activities and began to expand in other parts of the world, non-Western women from countries such as China, Japan and India started to channel their activism into women’s organisations and publications during the same period, displaying a growing interest in ideas associated with Western feminism. The outbreak of World War I, however, disrupted developments. The ICW and the IWSA did not hold any conferences, and no new societies were affiliated, though efforts were made by ICW board members to maintain contact with each other during the war years. The IWSA was able to keep publishing its journal, Jus Suffragii, and, indeed, its editor, Mary Sheepshanks, deliberately included news from the two opposing sides with the aim of putting a human face on the enemy.75 However, Sheepshanks was partisan on the subject, and her publication of Aletta Jacob’s ‘Call to the Women of All Nations’ on the subject of holding an international conference in the Hague was met by criticism from fellow suffragists as it fell outside the subject of suffrage, the aim of the organisation and its publication. Indeed, it was disagreement within the IWSA at the start of the war that led directly to the formation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), just as disagreement over the issue of suffrage within the ICW had earlier produced the IWSA.76 WILPF was a product of the challenges posed to the women’s movement by World War I. It grew out of the conference that was held 43

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in the Hague by the Dutch section of the IWSA in 1915, but which failed to get an official blessing from that organisation.77 The Hague congress has been viewed as ‘a remarkable wartime gathering of women from the neutral and belligerent countries’,78 for even though none of the national suffrage societies at war sent delegates, outstanding individual personalities from the women’s movement, including Jane Addams, Emily Balch, Lida Gustava Heymann, Anita Augspurg, Rosika Schwimmer, Maude Royden, Charlotte Despard and Mary Sheepshanks, gave their support to the congress. WILPF was established with the express purpose of securing disarmament, social and economic justice and an end to all wars. In stark contrast to the ICW and the IWSA, it started life with a functioning international structure but had to build national sections. At its inception, it had 13 national sections attached to it: those of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States, while Australia, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Poland and Switzerland joined shortly after the war in 1919. Like its predecessors, WILPF was an all-female separatist organisation, even though, unlike the IWSA, it did tussle with the question of male collaboration from the outset with some of its members calling on it to unite forces with men. Yet, whether officially separatist or not, whether longer-established or newer on the scene, all the international women’s organisations that had emerged by 1919 in practice participated in mixed congresses during this period.79 *** The origins of interwar international women’s organisations, such as the ICW, IWSA and WILPF, were firmly rooted in the nineteenth century. It was dissatisfaction with women’s roles in society that led by the end of the nineteenth century to the emergence of a women’s movement. American women were the forerunners; however, many countries in western and northern Europe witnessed similar developments, as did countries outside the West, albeit a little later. The emergence of a distinct feminist consciousness during the nineteenth century must be placed in the context of broader changes 44

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taking place within the society as a whole. ‘Traditional’ society, and women’s roles within it, began to erode under the pressure of modernisation. With this shift came ideas about the need to improve the position of women as a prerequisite for a modern and prosperous society. Social reformers, therefore, increasingly concerned themselves with the so-called ‘woman question’, and the appropriate roles and status of women became the topic of discussion and target of reforms not only in the West but in other parts of the world as well. Moreover, female involvement in philanthropy, the abolitionist movement, and temperance organisations not only gave women essential experience and skills in organisation and activism, but also contributed to the formation of a substructure, often worldwide as in the case of the WCTU, that later organisations could make use of in their quest for expansion beyond the frontiers of the West. The diversity of the women’s movement at this time was clearly reflected in the many different campaigns undertaken by its members, as women’s opinions and activities were not only influenced by gender but also by class, religion and political ideology. Yet, there was significant unity among the middle and upper-class women, predominantly European and American, who dominated the developing international women’s movement in the late nineteenth century, as they believed in a distinct femaleness and women’s common subordination and, thus, the universality of sisterhood. These views came, during this period, to be shared by embryonic women’s movements elsewhere in the world, and, while not necessarily ‘new women’, supporters of the developing international women’s movement nevertheless benefited from debates on the ‘woman question’ that were intensifying outside the West at the turn of the twentieth century. The continued leadership of international women’s movements by Western women, however, reflected the international political realities of the time, and so just as Western men have subsequently been associated with ‘orientalist’ outlooks used to justify imperial ambitions on the grounds that Western nations were more advanced than the backward East, so too aspects of ‘feminist orientalism’ have been associated with these early international women’s organisations. 45

CHAPTER 3 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S ORGANISATIONS IN THE 1920S

Startling though it may seem, our suffrage movement has in truth girdled the earth and spread from arctic North to Antarctic South. It now counts among its auxiliaries those whose members represent the five great races of the world, Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Polynesian and Indian. Its membership embraces the five great religions: Christian, Hebrew, Buddist, Confucian and Mohammedan. No such movement among men has yet come into the world. It is something new: a phenomenon, this arising, uniting and marching forward together of a sex. (Address of the President, Carrie Chapman Catt, IWSA, 1923 Congress Report) Despite the all-important female suffrage victories in the aftermath of World War I, women’s activism did not come to an end. Instead many female activists in the West and elsewhere felt that further work was still needed to end other inequalities. This belief, coupled with a strong desire for a true and lasting peace, resulted in them showing a renewed, rather than reduced, commitment to international co-operation following the war. Organisational records reveal that, far from entering a decline, high degrees of optimism and confidence characterised the pursuit of international co-operation between women in the 1920s. On the one hand, those from so-called Western nations were anxious to expand their existing activities; on

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the other hand, so-called non-Western women seem to have been keen to become more actively involved. Even though the latter may have already developed contacts with international women’s organisations prior to the war, now, as this chapter will explore, they started actually attending conferences in greater numbers, as paid-up delegates representing their own national organisations. Accordingly, for these women in particular, the 1920s, rather than a postwar ‘downturn’, represented a ‘highpoint’ in terms of their experience of international co-operation and sisterhood.

The expansion of international women’s organisations in the 1920s International women’s organisations grew, and some even doubled their membership, in the 1920s, despite the interruption to their activities caused by World War I that meant that the International Alliance of Women (IAW) did not hold a conference for seven years and the International Council of Women (ICW) did not meet between 1914 and 1920. But rather than breaking existing bonds between women in different countries formed in the pre-war period, what we find is that the war served to unite them and renewed their resolve to work internationally. In particular, their determination to prevent future conflicts extended far beyond the practical co-operation of European and North American women, the dominant characteristic of pre-war international women’s organisations. The immediate postwar years, rather than exhibiting decline, witnessed a substantial growth in the number of national affiliations to international women’s organisations, for the first time including members from countries outside Europe and North America.1 The number of national councils2 affiliated to the ICW, for instance, rose from eight in 1899 to 38 in 1925. Following the 1920 conference in Kristiania (now Oslo) alone, 11 new national councils joined, with the majority from eastern Europe and South America. In 1923, the IAW (at this time still known as the IWSA) likewise accepted affiliations from countries outside western Europe and North America.3 In addition, Bermuda, Cuba, Peru, Puerto Rico, Turkey, 47

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Ceylon, the Dutch East Indies, Syria and Rhodesia all had societies federated between 1926 and 1929, and by the end of the decade it possessed 52 members, of which half had joined during the 1920s. Whereas affiliations to the IAW during the 1920s were drawn from many different regions, the majority of ICW national councils came from countries with a predominately Catholic population. Women there, it seems, could identify with the Christian ethos of this organisation, which was often displayed at conferences and in its publications. Many of these women were also active in Christian associations such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which, as Chapter 2 has highlighted, had laid the groundwork for the ICW and other international organisations by their work in the nineteenth century. Unlike the IAW, the ICW appeared to experience difficulties expanding beyond countries with a predominately Christian population. Indeed, the IAW came to enjoy a wider appeal than that of the ICW during the 1920s. Despite suffrage victories, predominately in Europe, it had decided to continue its work. At its first conference after the war, it resolved to carry on helping all women in the world to obtain the vote, and at the same time it broadened its agenda of equal rights for women. And it was in order to reflect these changes that it decided to alter its name to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship (IAWSEC or IAW for short) in 1926. Moreover, its work was divided into two sections, one for enfranchised and another for un-enfranchised countries, a divide drawn roughly between so-called ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ countries.4 This was a divide, however, that was complicated by the fact that women in Western Catholic countries still lacked the vote. The IAW also established committees to study specific problems, such as equal pay and nationality of married women, similar to the system already employed by the ICW. Younger organisations such as Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which had emerged during World War I, also expanded markedly over the course of the 1920s. By the end of the decade, it had acquired 26 affiliated countries, in comparison with the ICW’s 34 and the IAW’s 52. WILPF largely followed the same pattern of expansion as that of the ICW and the IAW. They all set out 48

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with memberships and affiliations drawn from predominately western Europe and North America, then moved into Australia, New Zealand and southern and eastern Europe and finally on to South America, Asia and the Middle East in the 1920s and 1930s.5 The slower growth of WILPF can partly be explained by the fact that it was formed later than both the ICW and the IAW and that, in contrast to the other organisations, it started with an international structure and then had to build national sections. It may also have been affected by its agenda, which was more radical and outspoken on issues such as peace, disarmament and colonialism than the other organisations. Whereas all these organisations enjoyed interest and support from the general public, WILPF was sometimes met by hostility in the form of anti-peace protests. But the public meetings held during all their conferences were, according to their reports, well attended by locals; they frequently emphasised the extent to which conferences received the greetings and support of governments, some of which even appointed official representatives to the IAW congresses. For example, a reception was held at the White House for the ICW in conjunction with its 1925 Washington conference, and two male members of the French Chamber of Deputies spoke in support of female suffrage at the IAW 1926 congress in Paris. At the same time, however, the 1924 WILPF Washington congress and the following tour of delegates from Washington to Chicago, known as the ‘Pax Special’, encountered protests. Opposition came from ‘patriotic’ organisations such as the America Legion, the Reserve Officers’ Association and the Daughters of the American Revolution, which maintained that WILPF was part of the international SocialistCommunist movement. In their view, WILPF had managed to get away with radicalism and, thus, deceived a large number of the very best women in the United States by using the ‘no more war’ slogan. But despite these protests, WILPF’s Washington congress, the ‘Pax Special’ and the Chicago summer school all went ahead as planned. Indeed, the latter attracted more than 1,000 people to its formal opening service. Yet, attacks on WILPF continued, and they were not only confined to the United States but also took place in Europe, for example at its 1929 congress in Prague.6 49

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The expansion of international women’s organisations meant that more countries were represented, and the number of delegates, especially from countries outside Europe and North America, rose at their conferences. Thirty-six countries were represented at the IAW’s first conference after the war in Geneva in 1920. For the first time, women from the so-called East attended. While ten delegates represented India, two represented Japan, which can be compared to an average of 12 delegates per nation. The conference in Rome in 1923 was even more ‘international’ than its predecessor: women from 43 different countries attended, including Egypt, China, India, Japan and Brazil. Seventeen new auxiliaries were admitted to the alliance, including women’s societies from Palestine, India, Japan and Egypt. In addition, hundreds of Rome’s citizens were reported to have flocked to the evening meetings. The IAW’s expansion continued at its subsequent conferences in Paris in 1926 and Berlin in 1929. Between 1923 and 1926, 14 new societies from 13 different countries were affiliated. Moreover, the size of the delegations from non-Western countries was larger at Paris than at earlier conferences: the Egyptian delegation comprised five women in comparison with three at Rome. Following Paris, a further seven societies were provisionally admitted, including societies from Ceylon, Syria, Rhodesia and the Dutch East Indies as well as a third society from Japan, with the result that 336 delegates subsequently attended the Berlin conference.7 Following its founding conference in 1915, WILPF organised a conference in conjunction with the peace talks in Paris in 1919, and then held conferences in Vienna (1921), Washington (1924), Dublin (1926) and Prague (1929). It also organised an international conference of women in the Hague in 1922, which attracted delegates from 111 international and national women’s organisations, as well as international summer schools, at which lectures were given by prominent WILPF members and academics on topics related to peace and disarmament and international co-operation. Thirty countries were represented at Vienna, including Japan, China, Mexico and Ukraine. In addition, some 300 women and men attended the first summer school, including people from China, India, Japan, Mexico and Ukraine. WILPF continued to expand at its conference in 50

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Washington in 1924, when four new national sections were admitted, including those of Haiti and Japan. Apart from the 85 delegates representing national sections, there were also fraternal delegates and visitors, including representatives from governments, organisations and universities as well as female visitors from different parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Thus, the 1924 conference proved to be as international as the conferences of the IAW described above. The second summer school, held in Chicago in conjunction with the 1924 conference, also enjoyed the participation of nonWestern women. One hundred and fifty delegates and eight fraternal delegates attended the conference in Dublin in 1926, and 20 out of 24 national sections were represented. However, both the Italians and the Ukrainians in Poland were prevented from attending by the fact that they could not obtain passports. At the Prague congress, 171 delegates from 26 countries attended, as did fraternal delegates and visitors from countries that lacked national sections. China was represented by three women and India by two, but the Japanese section was unable to send a delegation, though one of its members, Rosamond Clark, spoke on its behalf. As far as the ICW was concerned, it was a similar pattern: 28 affiliated national councils attended its Kristiana conference in 1920, while 35 national councils were represented at its 1925 conference.8 Despite the rapid expansion of these organisations in the aftermath of World War I, the conflict itself had left a legacy of some bitterness. For example there were difficulties behind the scenes of the 1920 IAW conference regarding the co-operation of the Belgian and French delegations with German members.9 On the other hand, the German National Council of Women (NCW) did not send any delegates to the ICW conference in 1920, as it felt that, since Germany was not accepted by the League of Nations, there was no basis for the internationalism supported by the organisation. Sending delegates to conferences entailed great expense for the national sections, however. In a letter to Lady Aberdeen, president of the ICW, in 1924, the Swedish Council complained about the financial difficulties brought about by the move of the 1925 conference across the Atlantic to the United States: 51

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Even with the very generous offer of hospitality and aid towards travelling expenses made by the U.S.A. we could send so few delegates (1 or 2), that our country would not be represented as we should [want] [. . .] it to be at so important a meeting as the quinquennial.10 Women representing the Swedish National Council of Women (NCW) even wrote to the Swedish King in 1924, asking for assistance, and, while there is no confirmation that they received any help from him, the Swedish NCW was eventually represented at the conference. According to ICW reports, the Norwegian government not only contributed generously towards the expenses incurred by the Norwegian NCW when the ICW conference was held in Kristiania in 1920, but also helped Anna Backer, Honorary Corresponding Secretary of the ICW, during her tenure of office. Not all national organisations could rely on assistance from their governments in this way. However, many did receive support from the international organisation itself or from another national organisation. For example, prior to the ICW’s conference in Washington, the US NCW made an offer of guaranteeing hospitality to all duly accredited delegates who desired it. It also contributed $20,000 towards delegates’ travelling expenses. Likewise, at WILPF’s international executive meeting held in Geneva in 1929, it was agreed that it would offer $100 (per person for a group of four) to Chinese women, with whom they had established contact following a trip there in 1928, and $200 to the Japanese section, so that both groups could attend the congress scheduled for later in the year in Prague.11 The growth of international women’s organisations and their commitment to international expansion was reflected in the regular publication of journals and increased correspondence to and from their various headquarters in the 1920s. The ICW Bulletin was distributed to members worldwide in the 1920s and had an average circulation of 2,000 copies by 1925. Like the ICW Bulletin, the number of subscriptions to the IWSA’s International Woman Suffrage News (IWSN) increased in the 1920s, from 739 between 1912 and 1913 to 1,046 in June 1920. This reflected the IAW’s expansion in 52

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non-Western countries, with little new interest generated in the West following the suffrage victories that had been won there in the aftermath of the war. WILPF’s journal Pax International increased from 7,500 copies in the United States and 2,500 copies in the rest of the world in 1925, to 8,500 and 4,000 copies respectively in 1926.12 These international journals undoubtedly played an important role in facilitating and easing contacts between members of the different national councils, sections and affiliations, and kept them up to date with developments within the organisations and many national sections, a factor that became especially important during what could be lengthy intervals between conferences. While news about, from and by Western women dominated both the Bulletin and the IWSN, there was increased interest in the non-West in the 1920s. Bending the rules The quest for international expansion also resulted, interestingly, in the noticeable loosening and bending of rules and constitutions in the 1920s. Flexibility in this respect was particularly apparent when organisations sought to encourage and admit new affiliations. Unlike WILPF, the ICW according to its constitution could only admit national councils from independent nations, which meant that the colonial ambitions of Western nations stood in the way of its expansion beyond Europe and North America. Despite this, it welcomed Palestine and India, both under British control, in 1925. In order to increase its membership, the IAW therefore deliberately amended its rules regarding the admission of new societies and in particular the rule regarding second societies at its 1923 conference in Rome, which meant that an additional society from a nation no longer needed to differ from the first in important policy, as it was recognised that different kinds of societies appealed to different women.13 International organisations in addition were prepared to admit societies that did not fully comply with the requirements set by their constitutions. For example, Lady Aberdeen welcomed Poland to the ICW in the combined annual reports for 1922 – 4, even though she admitted that some slight adjustment in its constitution would be 53

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desirable.14 Likewise, in the report of the WILPF congress in Vienna in 1921, it was announced that: Helped by the advice of Mrs. Nitobe [American wife of Inazo Nitobe, under-secretary general of the Secretariat of the League of Nations] we have been in relation with women in Japan and a group has been formed in Tokio [sic] which calls itself the ‘Women’s Association in Japan for International Friendship’. This group is not ready to go so far as our programme calls for and does not propose to ask, at any rate at present, to join us as a Section. It will, however, remain in contact with us by correspondence, which in practice may amount to much the same thing.15 Time and again during the 1920s, records highlight how far organisations were prepared either to change or, at least, to debate their objectives in order to appeal to more nations. As seen above, the IAW aimed to assist those who had not yet achieved the vote and, at the same time, it sought to hold on to its Western members by beginning to work for a broader agenda of equality for women. The object of WILPF was similarly discussed at its executive committee meeting in Paris in 1926. Here some national sections, including the American, British, Polish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, expressed opposition to the strong wording of the organisation’s objective that had been adopted at the Washington congress (1924), which stated that it opposed all wars, including ‘defensive war’, making it difficult for members to support the use of military sanctions by the League of Nations and the Geneva Convention. The Scandinavian sections put forward the need for WILPF to accept educated people who were interested in pacifism but not prepared to go as far as accepting the Geneva Convention.16 The debate continued in Pax, where some members argued for greater flexibility regarding new admissions, partly to be achieved by providing education on peace questions upon affiliation. Others, though, stressed the importance of keeping to WILPF’s original role of attracting women who were determined to fight for peace, 54

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internationalism and social justice under all circumstances. Strength in numbers, they believed, was an illusion, which came at the price of weakening its ideal and as such not differing much from the numerous other pacifist organisations, ‘which, at the moment of crisis, do nothing but keep silence or even support their governments!’17 The opponents included prominent members such as Dr Aletta Jacobs,18 one of the founders of WILPF. Another way of including more nations was through making honorary appointments. The report from the ICW’s 1925 conference in Washington mentions three honorary vice-presidents: Selma Hanum Riza from Turkey, Madame Lo Chong of China, resident in Singapore, and Miss Cornelia Sorabji from India, who all came from countries that lacked national councils affiliated to the ICW but who were said, in the conference report, to be working for the formation of these in their respective countries. However, this bending of the rules was not without its problems, for, at the same conference, it was decided that the title of ‘honorary vice-president’ was in the future to be reserved only for those who had done special service in the ICW, such as former officers. As a result, a new category, that of ‘honorary organiser’, was introduced instead for those who carried out propaganda and organisation in countries where national councils were in the process of being formed and who had previously been honorary vice-presidents.19 Attempts also took place at this time to make organisations more properly representative of their members and to restrict the predominance of any particular member association. For example, in 1926, the IAW increased the number of members on its board from 11 to 21. Likewise, at the WILPF congress in Prague in 1929, it was agreed to recommend an increase in the size of its executive. These measures reflected attempts to include more women from newly affiliated societies and from non-Western nations. Steps were taken to raise the number of nominations from the various national councils, as each of them was asked to prepare a list of suitable women in their own country from which nominations could be drawn. However, the decision to back an increase in officers did not always, in practice, mean supporting wider representation, as 55

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illustrated by correspondence between the NCW in the United States and Sweden in 1923. In this case, the former wished to see one of its members, a Mrs Philip North Moore, re-elected as ICW vicepresident, a move that the latter agreed to back. The Swedish NCW even proposed that an amendment should be made to the constitution to include six instead of five vice-presidents in order to facilitate a greater representation of American women.20 During this period, organisations such as the ICW sought to ease the financial burden of membership on smaller nations and those from the so-called East. Whereas the majority of national councils paid the annual fee of £400 in 1925, Ukraine, Greece, South Africa and Bulgaria paid less. In addition, in the early 1920s, the national councils of Ukraine, Mexico, Latvia, Chile and Cuba, all affiliated between 1920 and 1923, received the ICW Bulletin for free.21 Thus, in the 1920s international women’s organisations deployed an imaginative degree of flexibility with regard to their rules and constitutions in order to increase their memberships and to make their organisations more properly ‘representative’. These organisations had emerged in western Europe and North America, and their organisational culture, therefore, was rooted in that context. But this came under scrutiny when it appeared to be standing in the way of their desired expansion into other regions. However, whereas some slight bending of the rules may have gone unquestioned, major changes to the objectives of these organisations did not pass unchallenged. Indeed, there are indications to suggest that organisations were looking out for their own interests and those of the nations ‘closest’ to them, with the result that they were not always necessarily concerned with wider representation. All the same, these organisations did experience an unprecedented expansion during the 1920s, as for the first time they added members from countries in the non-Western world.

Co-operation between East and West The 1920s thus witnessed growing interest in the so-called East as well as in the level of co-operation between Eastern and Western 56

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women involved in international organisations. While this cooperation was demonstrated by the expansion of these organisations, it was also underlined by, and was reflected in, the increased space and importance given to relations between women from these regions at their international conferences and in their journals. Contemporary organisational records indicate that much emphasis was accordingly placed on the firsthand involvement of women from all over the world at these international gatherings. For instance, one of the evening public meetings at the IAW conference in Geneva in 1920 was specifically dedicated to the ‘Women of the East – Women from India and Japan’. Its 1923 conference in Rome reflected even greater participation by women representing the many non-Western societies that had become affiliated, and one of its meetings was duly dedicated to ‘women of all continents’.22 This gathering of women from all corners of the world also captured the imagination of the public. Officers and delegates alike seemed to be proud of this co-operation, taking a particular pride in the presence of the Egyptian delegation: We are especially proud to welcome to this Congress delegates from that wonderland of Egypt. In ancient days there were Egyptian queens and woman military leaders of great renown; why not heroines today, bearing aloft the standard of civil and political equality for modern Egyptian women? Bravo, Women of Egypt.23 In fact, a delegation of Egyptian women had been formed with the intention of attending the earlier 1920 Geneva conference, but the women concerned had apparently been prevented by their husbands from taking part. In 1923 this problem was avoided, as the Egyptian delegation on this occasion comprised a widow and two single women. Time and again IAW records from 1923 show the organisation laying stress on the emergence of what it termed feminism in the ‘East’, the participation of ‘Eastern’ women at its conference and, above all, future co-operation to secure suffrage and equality for women worldwide. ‘Feminism’ in this particular context seems to have meant, for IAW activists, an awareness of inequalities 57

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between women and men, the questioning of this, and a desire to improve women’s overall position in society.24 At the subsequent IAW conference in Paris in 1926, the programme included two meetings dedicated to ‘women of all nations’ and ‘women of all nations for peace’. The former included speakers from 38 countries, including India, Japan, Palestine and Uruguay, and the latter 12 different nations, including speakers from Japan and Peru. The first session was described in IAW literature as a ‘dramatic meeting of east and west’ that aroused the imagination of the Paris public. The board of officers included Dr Paulina Luisi from Uruguay and Huda Shaarawi from Egypt, the latter receiving a particularly warm reception at the conference. Margery Corbett Ashby, president of the IAW from 1923, talked of vigorous feminist activity in the Near East and praised Shaarawi for infusing new life into the Egyptian association, as well as for bringing about reforms in Egypt. In addition, the nominations for the board at the Paris conference demonstrated that, although the IAW remained dominated by Western women, non-Western members were put forward by both non-Western and Western representatives. For example, while Britain nominated Luisi and Caceres from Peru, Egypt nominated Luisi and Shaarawi. The many committees also included women from most of the member countries at the IAW 1929 Berlin conference. Turkey and Uruguay had representatives on all committees while Egypt, Palestine and Brazil were represented on a few. Shaarawi was also a special board member on the committee for peace and the League of Nations.25 Thus, at this IAW conference, women from non-Western nations were more integrated into the organisation, as most of them sent larger delegations, and were better represented on committees as well as on the board. It is interesting to note that, while Japan had three societies affiliated by the end of the decade, none of these had any representatives on either the IAW board or on any of its committees, unlike newcomers such as Turkey and Egypt. It may, of course, have been the distance from Europe that created obstacles to Japanese women being involved in committee work. Rosamund Clark, who brought greetings from the Japanese section to the WILPF congress 58

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in Prague in 1929, spoke of how difficult it was for Japanese women to be ‘world conscious’ when they were living ‘so far away’ (from Europe and North America). Japanese women and other non-Western women may well have also struggled more with the official languages than their Western counterparts. Indeed, the Berlin conference involved explicit discussions on the problem of language, especially the use of translations and interpreters.26 While concerned with equal rights, WILPF’s first priority lay with peace work. As with the IAW, the majority of the speakers at its conferences were European and North American; however, these events witnessed an increase in the level of participation of nonWestern women during the 1920s. For example, Muthammah Thillayam Palam from India and Hiro Ohashi from Japan both spoke at the mass meeting for young people, ‘Youth for Peace’, at the conference in Washington in 1924. At the Dublin congress in 1926, Tano Jodai, president of the Japanese section, contributed to the meetings on ‘Women and World Peace’ and ‘Economic Imperialism’. Jodai and J.B. Kin-yn-yu of China also lectured at the summer school held in conjunction with the conference. At the congress in Prague in 1929, Miss Paranjpye and Mrs Chattopadhyaya of India and Irene Ho Tung from China spoke during the session on the political and racial aspects of the settlement of internal disputes together with their international aspects.27 It was common practice at these conferences for a representative of each national section or country to make a brief speech or present a report on their own countries and their work. Like the IAW, WILPF was keen to underline its transnational expansion and co-operation at its conferences. For example, the report of Emily Greene Balch, WILPF secretary-treasurer, to the 1921 congress, highlighted the growth of the organisation, mentioning the many new affiliations, mainly in Europe, but also that relations and contacts had been established with women in Japan, China, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Syria, Fiji and Siam. All the non-Western women who participated in these conferences undoubtedly had to overcome barriers presented by factors such as language and distance. And despite the optimism surrounding the co-operation between women from different 59

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countries, the expansion of these organisations and the interest that they showed in the East in the 1920s, it is not surprising that their discourses remained firmly rooted in Western cultural traditions, and that they continued to be dominated by their earliest members. There remained real distinctions between women involved in international organisations, primarily between the old and new members. For example, whereas many of the older members had by now gained suffrage, experiencing significant progress in terms of women’s political emancipation, new members were often only just beginning to define the aims of their national organisations. The division of the IAW into two sections following the war – one for enfranchised and another for un-enfranchised countries – remained especially evident at its conferences, where separate meetings were organised for the two groups.28 In the early 1920s organisations argued strongly about how un-enfranchised women stood to profit from the experience acquired by the enfranchised. Study tours for women of disenfranchised countries to enfranchised countries were also suggested in order to allow them to collect firsthand information that could be used for propaganda purposes ‘back home’. Several enfranchised auxiliaries offered this service but it was only taken up by Switzerland. Focus was also placed on the difficulties ahead, as demonstrated by Crystal Macmillan, vice-president, to the conference in 1920, whose speech claimed that ‘By welcoming for the first time representative women of the East, the Alliance [had] recognised the difficult work that lies before it in helping to raise the status of the women of all races.’29 These organisations often emphasised how new members stood to benefit from the help given by old members. For instance, Carrie Chapman Catt proclaimed in her address to the 1923 IWSA conference that ‘the new organizations in India, Japan, China, Egypt and Palestine need the inspiration of the comradeship we have given each other’, while Stri Dharma (official organ of the Women’s Indian Association) had earlier announced that a lecture would be organised in Australia to discuss how women there could help their Indian sisters to achieve ‘advancement’ and ‘better conditions of life’. Yet, the attitude of Western women toward their Eastern counterparts could often be paradoxical. At the same time as perhaps 60

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viewing the so-called East as lagging behind in terms of developments there, Western women could equally evince admiration for the achievements of their Eastern counterparts. As Catt, for instance, argued: In Asia, the ancient Indian civilization with modern democratic aspirations has shamed more youthful nations in generous justice to its women, and has granted the vote in several provinces. Not only do we welcome delegates [to the IWSA’s congress in Rome 1923] for the second time from that far-away mystical country, but we receive a new auxiliary from Burmah, where tax-paying women have voted on equal terms with men for forty years.30 The contents of international women’s journals in the 1920s demonstrated a similar increase in interest in East– West cooperation. The ICW Bulletin included information from, and pieces on, India, Turkey and China in the 1920s together with material on South American nations such as Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Brazil as well as Egypt and Persia (Iran). Even though most of these pieces comprised just short notes, reporting on the progress made by women in those countries, they nevertheless demonstrated how far, and in what ways, the ICW was seeking to become international in the 1920s. While short news pieces from different countries and national sections seem, in the main, to have been written by the editors themselves (probably based on information sent in by a national section or taken from other journals and sources), longer articles were composed instead by individual members, and most items on non-Western women were produced by Western members who either lived or had travelled abroad. This is especially evident from the ICW Bulletin and the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) supplement to the IWSN, in which nearly all articles about non-Western women during the 1920s were written by Western women. The IWSN, on the other hand, gave a greater voice to non-Western women at this time. For example, it published letters from Japanese and Chinese women in 1921 and an article on Egypt in 61

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1923 by Huda Shaarawi. Moreover, many of the items from India in the early 1920s were written by Dorothy Jinarajadasa, an English woman married to a Sinhalese man, as well as taken from Stri Dharma. Of the so-called Eastern countries, India received the most coverage in both the ICW Bulletin and the IWSN, probably because of its close connection with Britain. Certainly these links were assisted by British women’s involvement in women’s organisations in India and also by Indian members’ command of the English language. Pax International was similarly distributed to many different countries in the 1920s: by 1929 its readers lived in 40 different countries. The policy of Pax International was to unite WILPF members by stressing in its articles the issues that the sections had in common rather than any differences between them.31 Thus, it, like the other journals, was deliberately used as a tool to bring together members from across the world. Patterns of correspondence between headquarters and national organisations also provide evidence to support the fact that there were increased levels of co-operation in the 1920s. The collection of Swedish NCW correspondence indicates that plenty of communication went on between the different national councils in the 1920s. However, the majority of the correspondence comprised letters from other Scandinavian, Finnish and, above all, German councils, which indicates a closer connection between these councils and, therefore, an element of regional co-operation in northern Europe. The tone of the letters between the leading officers of the ICW and those of the Swedish NCW implies that they knew each other well. This is especially demonstrated by a letter from Bertha Nordenson, president of the Swedish NCW, to Lady Aberdeen, in which she expressed her concern regarding the elections of the two new vicepresidents at the ICW’s conference in 1925: It seems very strange that Europe should be represented by seven Vice Presidents and only one place remain for all the great transoceanic, English speaking countries. We had hoped for a very different result when we moved for the change of the Constituiton [sic] from 5 Vice Presidents to 8. To tell the truth, 62

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dear Lady Aberdeen I see in these elections traces of French influence which make me anxious for the future. If the I.C.W. is to remain what it has been hitherto, an immense influence for furthering understanding and good-will between the women of the world and progress in Social questions, the lead must be taken by women of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic races. They are broadminded and not self-seeking. The women of the Latin races are, like their country-men, so extremely influenced by their sympathies and antipathies that their judgement is obscured thereby. I am sorry that the Board of Officers is to meet in Bucarest [sic]. The princess [. . .] is certainly a clever but also an ambitious woman, and extremely anxious that Roumania [sic], Czekoslovakia [sic] and the neighbouring countries supported by France should come to the fore. I think that, what has been going on in the League of Nations shows us how unscrupulously [sic] the Fre[n]ch are. To me the future harmonious development of the I.C.W. can only be gained by the leading influence remaining in Anglo-Saxon hands.32 In a handwritten reply, Aberdeen assured Nordenson that she was not far off in her letter from what had happened at the conference. Aberdeen herself had, apparently, also felt very unhappy, and suggested that they now had to be on their guard.33 This frank, private and unedited correspondence contrasts sharply with the professions of unity and friendship carried by official organisational publications at the time. Not only does it highlight how well Aberdeen and Nordenson knew each other but also that Swedish women were recognised as belonging to the ‘core’ countries of the ICW in the 1920s, unlike so-called ‘Latin’ and eastern European countries that they regarded as behind Anglo-Saxon and Nordic nations in terms of development. Thus, relations were complex, not only between socalled Western and Eastern women, but between various European women as well. This extract from Nordenson’s letter also highlights the fact that Swedish women supported the increase in the number of vice-presidents in order to see more women from countries close to them, in particular the English-speaking ones. 63

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Letters to the leaders of the Women’s Suffrage League of Japan, especially Fusae Ichikawa, the director, and to Tano Jodai, president of the Japanese WILPF, also reflect the enhanced interaction between non-Western and Western women taking place in the 1920s. These included a letter from Lady Aberdeen, in which she invited Jodai to Scotland in July 1926 (probably in conjunction with Jodai’s trip to the WILPF congress in Dublin), and suggested that she should visit the ICW head office in London. There she would be able to make her acquaintance with Elsie Zimmern, the ICW General Secretary, who would be able to update her about the work of the British National Council. Lady Aberdeen also included an issue of the Bulletin, and requested that Jodai keep her in touch with Japanese developments.34 Such correspondence suggests that Aberdeen used Jodai as a link with the women’s movement in Japan, especially as the ICW did not have a national council there at the time. Thus, while Aberdeen implies that Jodai might learn from the interaction with the ICW in London, her letter also indicates that she relied on Jodai for contact with and information about Japanese women. As with the Swedish NCW correspondence above, it provides insights into the complex interaction and relationships between women involved in international women’s organisations during the 1920s. Thus, a new emphasis was placed on co-operation and friendship between women from a wider range of different parts of the world, challenging in practical ways inequalities that, as earlier chapters have shown, had not been eradicated from early twentieth-century cross-cultural relationships.

The experiences and language of sisterhood Women from all over the world now congregated in greater numbers at international women’s conferences. Even though non-Western participants still constituted a minority with their delegations often comprising no more than just two women, their presence was significantly increased in comparison with the pre-war period, and contemporary conference reports are replete with references to the international unity and sisterhood symbolised by their involvement. 64

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While these organisations may well have been seeking to present a united front through the medium of their organisational records by downplaying any differences and disagreements among their members, at the same time their reports do display a heightened sense of optimism and belief in international co-operation, as demonstrated by the content of Catt’s address to the IAW conference in Rome in 1923: Women of all nations, races and religions are united together in the demand for individual freedom [. . .] We differ in many things, in race, religion and politics: but we are a unit in our demand for a woman’s share in all privileges, opportunities and responsibilities the world has to offer.35 Rupp and Taylor have maintained that women’s lack of political power continued to divide the sexes throughout the 1920s and, thus, that the identity of the international women’s movement was based on a sense of ‘we-ness’ as women.36 This bond was further eased by sharing similar backgrounds, since members tended to belong to the upper and middle classes, to be university educated and to be Christians or, in the case of some non-Western women, to have been in contact with Christian organisations such as the WCTU or educated in Christian schools. Therefore, the organisations under scrutiny here focused primarily on inequalities between women and men, in particular in terms of political rights and legislation, and not on any inequalities that may have divided women themselves. However, there were variations among international women’s organisations, as some were more conservative, such as the ICW, and others, such as the IAW and WILPF, were more radical. They also comprised women who subscribed to different ‘schools’ of female activism. For example, while some were more ‘equalitarian’ and predominately concerned with political rights, others fell into the category of so-called ‘new feminists’ who stressed women’s difference from men and promoted more ‘social’ issues such as charitable work.37 Even though the boundaries between these groups of feminists were not clear, differences were reflected in particular in disagreements over 65

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‘restrictive legislation’, which had the aim of ‘protecting’ women in, for example, the workplace by limiting their hours. Thus, women activists differed on whether women should be treated as equal or different to men. Opinions among these women also varied on questions of war and peace. For example, WILPF refused an invitation to co-operate with the ICW in organising the conference on the Prevention of the Causes of War at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, as it did not agree with the resolution passed by the ICW Board of Officers asking all speakers ‘to refrain from mentioning incidents of the last War by way of illustration, or any of the political controversies arising therefrom’.38 As the official line in these organisations’ publications and reports was to emphasise international unity and friendship, the standard view of international conferences was that they ‘brought folks together’ and that women present at them gained new strength and vision for the tasks ahead of them through the unity and common agreements on great issues. As seen above, women from both the West and the non-West were active delegates at these conferences, where they gave speeches, participated in committee work and were members on the boards. This meant that members of both groups were able to contribute to the kinds of international sisterhood being created by these organisations and experienced at their events. But conferences did not only provide opportunities for co-operation and interaction of women from different nations during the formal business meetings at the conference: they also provided all-important opportunities for them to socialise at receptions, dinners and excursions, usually in what was regarded as a relaxed atmosphere. Delegates likewise could take advantage of the opportunity to establish bonds and friendships on their, sometimes long, journeys to and from international conferences.39 Bosch and Kloosterman have described how this kind of friendship reinforced the sense of sisterhood experienced by the core group of women in the IAW.40 Indeed, one of four Swedish NCW delegates rated the importance of friendship more highly than the actual discussions and agreements on policies at international conference in her recollections of the ICW congress in 1920. Under 66

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these circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that the possibility of making friends was open to and experienced by women from outside this so-called core group as well. Yet, while contacts and friendships were no doubt formed across various national and regional borders at these conferences, the bonds between members from neighbouring countries were clearly eased by sharing similar cultures and sometimes languages. For example, while Matilda Widegren, Swedish representative at the 1929 WILPF congress, was set on making new acquaintances at this event, much of her time in practice was spent with her fellow Nordic delegates. Widegren maintains that these Nordic delegates, who all stayed near one another at the same hotel, developed excellent co-operation as well as friendships, making it possible for them to present a ‘united North’ at the conference.41 The emphasis on international sisterhood was further manifested in the decorations and clothes worn by the delegates themselves. Conference halls were frequently decorated with the flags from all the nations represented, performances were carried out by national groups, and delegates were often encouraged to wear their so-called native costumes.42 As pointed out by Rupp, emphasising difference was a vivid way of highlighting the international character of these organisations.43 National costume, it seems, was not only intended to enhance the international atmosphere at the conference but was also seen as a way of attracting the attention of the general public, as demonstrated at the ‘International Fancy Fair’ in the Hague in 1927 that was organised by Louise van Eeghen of the ICW: The Fancy Fair can be said to have been a brilliant social event, to which 29 countries have contributed. [. . .] Each stall showed the characteristic feature of the country and the national costumes worn by the sellers still further increased the picturesque impression of the whole.44 Moreover, as a visible sign of ‘international friendship’, speeches by WILPF delegates to a reception held in New York prior to the 1924 Washington congress were made in their native tongues. All of these organisations developed their own membership symbols, which 67

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allowed members from around the world to express their allegiances as well as their commitment to internationalism. Yet, while the organisations’ symbols emphasised unity, the different badges worn at conferences polarised participants. For example, at the 1935 IAW congress participants wore different coloured badges: officers whitegold, delegates blue, alternates orange, fraternal delegates green and associate members mauve.45 That women involved in women’s organisations and feminist activism at the beginning of the twentieth century often employed fictive kinship terms such as ‘mother/daughter’ and ‘sister’ to describe their interaction and relationships (as discussed in Chapter 1) was an important further manifestation of the international friendship and sisterhood that they sought to establish. As Ramusack’s work on British and Indian feminists has illustrated, terminology of the mother/daughter kind was already being used in relation to the bond between women activists of different nationalities.46 However, this kind of self-labelling along mother/ daughter lines hardly ever took place among the members of international women’s organisations, with the exception of the IAW’s Carrie Chapman Catt and Rosa Manus who did describe their relationship as that between a (step)mother and daughter,47 possibly their way of symbolising their close friendship despite the gap in their ages. On the other hand, the term ‘sister’ was frequently used by these organisations’ members at conferences, in organisational publications and in correspondence, usually with the aim of emphasising the closeness of the bond between them and the similarity of their experiences.48 It was particularly common for presidents of these organisations to start their addresses at conferences with ‘sisters’ and for members to use this terminology in greetings and correspondence. Thus, the language of ‘sisters’ fitted neatly into the official rhetoric of international unity and friendship promoted by these associations. Indeed, referring to themselves as ‘sisters’ suggested a close but above all less hierarchical relationship than that between existing mothers and daughters: as Ramusack’s work has shown in the context of south Asia, the daughters tended to be Indian and the mothers British.49 68

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Yet, the recorded words of the women associated with these organisations highlight the extent to which they, Western and nonWestern alike, often mediated the term ‘sister’ by preceding it with labels such as ‘Western’, ‘Eastern’, ‘European’, ‘Asian’, ‘American’, ‘Indian’ or ‘Arab’.50 While this was probably a way to identify oneself in relation to others or the origin of a member, as well as highlighting an organisation’s international span, such terms nonetheless carried their various cultural connotations. This pattern suggests that, though increased transnational co-operation between women from the so-called ‘East’ and ‘West’ had clearly managed to bring women of different nationalities closer together, it was not yet co-operation between people who necessarily always acknowledged each other as equals. Indeed, relations between different members continued to be influenced not only by their national origins and existing power dynamics between countries and regions but also by other factors such as the distinction between enfranchised and unenfranchised affiliates. Examining the reports from affiliated societies and from countries without auxiliaries that were given at conferences during this period provides new insights into how these groups of women related to one another and, thus, the complicated way in which they experienced the notion of ‘international sisterhood’. What is revealing is how, time and again, so-called Eastern women in particular referred to their own inexperience and how they stood to profit from the guidance of their more experienced Western counterparts. For example, Chinese visitors to the WILPF congress in Prague in 1929 were definitely encouraged by the opportunities for learning that the conference had accorded them: My friends, Miss Djang and Miss Tye, and myself are delighted to be here with you, the world’s women workers for the cause of Peace; we welcome this unique opportunity to discuss with you some of the problems of International Peace [. . .] We three are but immature students, ignorant of many things, and fit only to be here to learn from your wide experiences. During the last few days we have already gained 69

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much from being with you and we look forwards to extend this [sic] to a much larger scale.51 Mlle Youssouf, Turkish delegate to the WILPF congress in Washington in 1924, expressed a similar view: I am only a novice [. . .] we know nothing of pacifism in our country. Ours is a history of wars. I, for my part, do not believe in militarism, and I have come here to hear about peace, so that I can go back and instruct my countrywomen.52 Likewise, Suiying Lone Liang, fraternal delegate to the IAW congress in Berlin in 1929, showed an equally keen interest in cooperation. As she explained: I shall be the last person to say that the women of China have got all they wanted. All I would say is that they have made a splendid beginning and with courage, patience and hard work it is possible for us to attain the height as the women of other countries have done. In this connection may we, the women of China, count on your support and your helpful guidance in our future struggle for suffrage and equal citizenship?53 And Chinese delegate to the WILPF congress in 1929, Irene Ho Tung, finished her report on China with words echoing those of her Chinese counterparts: ‘I am but an immature student come here to learn from you, my elder sisters of the world’.54 Such reactions, together with the use of this sort of vocabulary, underlined how far many of the non-Western women concerned admired the progress being made by their Western counterparts and, as a consequence, that they were more than happy to learn from them. But describing themselves, for example, as ‘novices’ and ‘immature students’, requesting guidance from the more experienced Western women referred to by Ho Tung as her ‘elder sisters’, does hint at a less straightforward relationship compared with the one that is usually associated with, and communicated, by the term ‘sister’. Perhaps a 70

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more appropriate or accurate terminology – one that was used by some of the women themselves but which has been largely overlooked in the existing secondary literature – was their differentiation between, on the one hand, Western women as elder/big sisters or tutors, well qualified to offer a helping or guiding hand, and, on the other hand, their non-Western younger/little sisters or students. While this type of terminology has been used by Woollacott and Terborg-Penn, who have both employed the term ‘little coloured sisters’ to describe contemporary white Australian and US activists’ attitudes to indigenous and Caribbean women respectively, its application has not been fully considered in relation to women of other nationalities, and, in particular, with regard to members of international women’s organisations. Although women in international organisations, it seems, sometimes did use these labels, it is interesting to note here that big/little sister descriptions seem to have been more readily discussed, and perhaps adopted, by non-Western women in the ICW, the IAW and WILPF, as seen above, than by Western members, who tended to continue to refer to the former as simply ‘sisters’.55 For example, a letter to Chinese women from WILPF, sent prior to its mission to China in the late 1920s (see Chapter 6), addressed them as ‘sisters’ and ‘fellow-workers’.56 Yet, while employing the all-embracing term ‘sister’, celebrating the expansion of these organisations into the non-West and admiring the progress made by non-Western women, the tendency of Western women to expect their non-Western sisters to follow in their footsteps remained, an approach reflected in the contents of a report on the ‘future’ at the 1920 IAW congress: In the suffrage countries women will have many hard and bitter struggles before they secure their full enfranchisement, economic, social, and moral. For the women of the East the work of emancipation has hardly begun.57 Of course, it is not perhaps surprising that many Western women of these organisations believed that they could do much to assist their un-enfranchised ‘eastern’ members, encouraged as the former were by 71

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the success of their national women’s movements and in particular their suffrage victories at home. All the same, interactions were more complex than a simple West– East divide, and the boundaries of big sister/little sister relationships were likewise not always clear-cut. Divisions within the IAW, for instance, were complicated by the fact that the organisation included both enfranchised and un-enfranchised countries, and while the latter on the whole tended to be made up of Eastern countries, women in some of the so-called Western nations, such as France and Switzerland, who were both very active and influential in the Alliance, still lacked the vote. Any discussion of the language of sisterhood must also take into account how far the language employed in the reports of these organisations is unlikely anyway to have been strictly ‘neutral’. Like the official language used by these organisations’ leaders at conferences and in publications to emphasise their commitment to international unity and friendship, that of new non-Western members, too, was likely to have formed part of a similar agenda. Even though the above extracts clearly show that non-Western women admired and looked up to their Western ‘sisters’, it might be suggested that these members deliberately used a particular kind of vocabulary in their reports and speeches in order to encourage the international organisations concerned, and especially their Western members, to feel more positive or sympathetic towards them. Not only would this have enhanced non-Western members’ experiences of comradeship and sense of belonging to these organisations but it would also have meant that their national societies would be more likely to receive assistance, financial or otherwise, from their Western associates. While older members, who saw themselves as more experienced, tended to offer their personal advice to newcomers, they also donated money to help the cause of women around the world. For example, Indian women received $500 from a fund managed by Catt in 1921 to assist their work for suffrage.58 Moreover, to complicate the picture further, while some reports from non-Western affiliates acknowledged that progress had been made due to the co-operation taking place within these organisations, others – though far fewer in number – occasionally made use of the 72

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space provided to criticise colonialism and to address the persistence of Eastern stereotypes in the West. For example, Egypt’s report to the IAW in 1923 criticised Western imperialism and its impact on Egyptian women, in the process highlighting that some nonWestern women within these organisations did refuse to embrace a little sister role. Likewise, Indian women argued in the Indian report to the 1929 WILPF congress that ‘the present position of women in India as compared [. . .] with that of the western women is as bad as that of [. . .] Indian men compared with [. . .] western men’.59 Comments such as these that approached the position of women in the West in a more critical fashion have to be seen in the context of growing nationalist sentiments in places such as Egypt and India and these countries’ quest for national independence. But, with the exception of WILPF, women’s organisations remained silent on issues such as imperialism, a decision that was clearly influenced by their non-political stance but also by the fact that the topic seemed to have little relevance for Western women, who, as we have seen, continued to dominate these organisations. It is important, however, to point out that the tone of individual country reports varied greatly during this decade, indicating a certain level of fluidity with regard to the relationships between members, in particular between Western and non-Western. The primary aim of these reports was to provide an account of developments regarding women’s emancipation, and for WILPF also to outline peace activities. They contained, therefore, an element of competition thanks to their emphasis on ‘firsts’, the first female lawyer, doctor and so forth. Whereas some member nations announced extensive progress regarding changed and improved legislation, others had little to report, and this must have further reinforced the distinctions between national associations and contributed to the ‘little sister’ mentality adopted by some nonWestern women. In addition, non-Western women used reports as an opportunity to correct stereotypes and to explain and elaborate upon the status of women in their own countries. For example, the report from India to the IWSA in 1923 stated: ‘There is of course no “slavery” of women in India. Except among primitive jungle people women are not bought or sold.’60 Indeed, Indian members appeared eager to dispel 73

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misconceptions and to gain acceptance within international women’s organisations. Of the non-Western nations, India regularly compiled the most detailed reports (also in the IWSN), which underlined the complexity involved in the relations between non-Western women and international organisations and also highlighted internal tensions such as those between Hindu and Muslim women: One of the chief obstacles in the way of getting rid of purdah, is the women themselves. As it is only observed among Hindus by the upper class women, it is a sign of a certain social status. With the Mussulmans it is a matter of Religion, and a much more difficult matter.61 Tension between different religious groups was also demonstrated in the Palestine report to the IWSA conference in 1920: I speak here of the Jewish women and the Jewish women only. The Moslem and Christian Arab women are politically unborn, and are, especially among the Moslem population, treated as slaves and beasts of burden. [. . .] I understand, however, that these poor Arab sisters of ours are taking courage from their Jewish compatriots [. . .] and look to the Jewish women for inspiration.62 As these comments suggest, uneven relationships were not confined to Western and non-Western women. They also existed in relation to different groups within non-Western nations themselves. Under these circumstances, Hindu women in India and Jewish women in Palestine seem to have regarded themselves as more experienced partners in their interaction with Indian Muslim and Arab women respectively. Thus, in this respect, their attitudes seem to have resembled those of early Western liberal feminists, the leaders of these organisations, and to have shared their occasional lack of knowledge or awareness about the significance of differences among women based on class, race, religion and other variables. All the same, the international character and atmosphere of international women’s conferences in the 1920s would seem to have 74

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had a widespread personal impact on all the women present. Indeed, international conferences were eagerly anticipated. Whereas statistics from these conferences confirm the participation of women from many countries, the scant personal accounts of these events produced by women from the non-West make it difficult to get to grips fully with exactly how they were experienced by them in particular. However, a few did leave firsthand recollections. The impact of international conferences on those Japanese women who attended is demonstrated, for instance, by the following 1920 extract from the IWSN: I must thank you most heartily for all you have done for me and for our dear Japan. No need to tell you, I am sure, how I enjoyed that wonderful Congress in Geneva [IWSA 1920], and that certainly has opened a new world for us women here. After a careful conference with some of the leading women here, I am glad to tell you that Mrs. Kubushiro, the General Secretary of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Japan, has consented to take the lead in our suffrage work. We would like to have our Woman Suffrage Association of Japan affiliated into the International Alliance, and we shall be very happy to receive instructions in regard to affiliation fees, etc.63 Not only does this illustrate the reactions of individual Japanese women but also how such a gathering could affect the formation of women’s organisations back in Japan. This is further evident from the IWSN reports in 1922: The message carried from the Congress [IWSA 1920 Geneva] to the women of Japan by their delegate Mrs. C.T. Gauntlett [Japanese woman married to a British man], have [. . .] borne fruit and an organized woman suffrage movement is growing up in spite of the many obstacles that hamper Japanese women in political work. Mrs. Kubushiro, one of the most advanced and far-seeking of Japanese women, is coming this year to Europe and America to study the organization of the suffrage movement, and we hope she will be present at the Rome Congress next spring.64 75

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As these extracts highlight, both international conferences and the co-operation that they facilitated made a significant impression on activists in Japan and their efforts to develop women’s associations. The founders of suffrage societies seem to have been particularly inspired by developments in the West, and were keen to learn from them during this period. The decision by the Egyptian activist, Huda Shaarawi, to unveil herself in public following the IWSA conference in Rome in 1923 has been much commented upon in studies on women in the Middle East. Once she returned to Egypt after the conference, she removed her veil at Cairo railway station in front of the crowd of women who had come to meet her and the other Egyptian delegates, after which she never wore it again.65 Corbett Ashby, for instance, noted subsequently that ‘Mme Charaoui [sic] had come to the Rome Congress to find herself the only veiled woman, and, upon her return to Egypt [she] unveiled, which made the Egyptian king furious and resulted in her ban from the court.’66 Upon her return, Shaarawi also breathed new life into the association in Egypt. Interestingly, Shaarawi’s own recollections of the Rome conference published in IWSN in August 1923 do not mention the veil incident at all: The return home of the Egyptian delegation to the Rome Congress gave a great impetus to the women’s movement in Egypt. The Press devoted considerable attention to women’s questions, and public opinion is friendly. A public meeting of women was held by ‘El Ittihad El Nessa’I El Misri’, the Egyptian women’s union, and a great number of Egyptian ladies were present.67 Shaarawi, thus, clearly acknowledged the impact of the IWSA conference on the Egyptian women’s movement, but, while she may have mentioned her unveiling in other recollections, the reaction of wider Egyptian society to other women’s questions appears to have been of greater significance to her than the issue of the veil. Shaarawi’s focus draws attention once again to the possibility of distinctions between so-called Western and Eastern women, and in 76

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particular suggests the importance attached to clothing and appearance by the former, as this represented a crucial part of the discourse created in particular by colonial nations. This distinction can also be seen from the attention given to Mlle Youssouf and Miss Josefa Llano, delegates from Turkey and the Philippines to the 1924 WILPF congress, when the US press similarly focused on their physical appearances. While describing Llano as ‘dainty’, emphasis was placed on Youssouf’s ‘Western’ looks, her bobbed hair and French suit. In her notebook, Eva Upmark, the president of the Swedish NCW, scribbled down comments about other delegates at the ICW conference in 1920. Whereas some of her remarks revealed admiration for other delegates, in particular the Norwegians, the Americans and a Hungarian, others were less flattering. Her comments placed considerable emphasis on the delegates’ appearance. Although this probably constituted a way of remembering them for later on, her remark that the Chinese visitor, Lo Chong, ‘walked on real feet’68 nevertheless demonstrated a similar fascination to that of women from colonial nations, who were very conscious about any differences in appearance between so-called Eastern and Western women. The presence of ‘Eastern’ women at these conferences, in return, undoubtedly made an impact on their Western counterparts. As one particular report described it, ‘the Geneva Congress of 1920 will always be remembered as the first at which the women of the Far East were directly represented’.69 The Egyptian delegation to the IWSA Rome conference similarly received a lot of attention, as mentioned above. Indeed, a handwritten note among Margery Corbett Ashby’s papers has ‘Rome’ and ‘Charaoui’ written next to one another.70 It may be that Shaarawi made such a deep impression on Corbett Ashby at the Rome conference in 1923 that the latter came to equate Rome with the presence of ‘Charaoui’ there. *** In effect, these international gatherings provided forums where women from different countries came together, where links for 77

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further co-operation were established and where friendships across national borders were formed. Much was made about their international character and the unity of women worldwide in the fight for equality and peace that was fostered by these organisations. However, the fact remains that the ‘international sisterhood’ that all of this interaction represented was experienced somewhat differently depending on the perspective and context of the women involved. Relationships were influenced by existing and evolving power relations between countries and regions, in particular between coloniser and colonised and between the so-called ‘East’ and ‘West’. While women may have referred to each other as ‘sisters’, the reality was more complicated than this description or relationship initially implies. Hierarchies and asymmetries were reflected in the tendency of non-Western women in particular to regard themselves as little sisters within the international women’s movement, relying on the guidance of their more experienced Western elder sisters. Yet, these relations were flexible, adopted by some and rejected by others, and, thus, they reflected the unstable nature of the boundaries between sisters, whether big or little. In the aftermath of World War I, organisations such as the ICW, IAW and WILPF all expanded. Peace work provided a major driving force behind all of these organisations, which shared a growing interest in the non-West and a renewed desire to establish new affiliations where none had previously existed. Conferences took on a more visibly international character and became an ideal place in which to forge connections and establish friendships that crossed national borders and which also reinforced a shared belief that the similarities between women outweighed any differences separating them. Yet, the co-operation between these women was never really that of straightforward equal partners. These organisations were hierarchical and comprised women with diverse ideas and aims. However, as the majority of them, both in the West and particularly in the East, belonged to a small minority of educated upper and middle-class women, they frequently had more in common with each other than with women from other classes in their respective countries. This reality goes a long way towards explaining the 78

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relative ease with friendship, or sisterhood, was created between them, as they could disregard the different experiences, for example, of working-class women. Even though conferences of the period were far from universal, they were definitely international. For their members, the expansion of these organisations in the 1920s generated a positive outlook and belief in the worldwide co-operation of women through the creation of what might be described as an ‘international sisterhood’, a bond that was increasingly challenged in the 1930s.

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We declare the work for peace to be the most urgent task before the world to-day. We appeal, therefore, to every right-thinking person and, in particular to women, who pay the first cost of human life, to realise their responsibility and power. (‘Appeal Of Women To The World’s Statesmen’ signed by Ishbell Aberdeen and Temair (ICW), Jane Addams (WILFP), C.M. van Asch van Wyck (WYWCA), M.I. Corbett Ashby (IAWSEC), Clara Guthrie D’Arcis (WUWIC), and Winifred Cullis (IFUW), Pax International, 5/11 (1930)) The 1930s were characterised by political, economic and social instabilities: economic depression, the rise of fascism and political tensions in Europe, conflict in east Asia and growing nationalist movements in the non-Western world. Many countries were also affected by conservative political currents and, thus, experienced attacks on the rights already achieved by women in previous decades. All of this influenced the size, expansion, composition, agenda and activities of international women’s organisations as well as their ways of interaction. The seriousness of global politics dimmed the optimism and confidence of these organisations, something that, as Chapter 3 has shown, had characterised their work during the previous decade. Financial difficulties, political instabilities and

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anti-feminist sentiments in the 1930s meant that these organisations experienced slower expansion, and they even lost national sections. Moreover, conferences were held less often, reports became thinner and the workload for their understaffed headquarters grew heavier. At the same time, however, non-Western women were witnessing the extensive development and growth of their local women’s movements. Indeed, it could be said that this was the period when nonWestern women started to come into their own: they were becoming more influential in international women’s organisations, and, thus, the membership ‘balance’ within these began to ‘shift’. Ways of organising and co-operating were also changing, as the 1930s saw the increase of ‘superinternational’1 organisations, greater involvement with the League of Nations, talk of fusion between established associations and an increase in regional collaboration.

The instabilities of the 1930s Women’s organisations in Europe were particularly badly affected by the instabilities of the 1930s, as national sections of major international women’s organisations were lost in Italy, Germany and Austria. Associations in Spain and Czechoslovakia were likewise practically inoperative in the 1930s. The totalitarian regime in Italy closed down women’s societies and forbade women to attend conferences, while German branches were ordered to accede to unconditional submission to the Fu¨hrer, recognition of the special tasks assigned to women by the Nazi State (i.e., mainly social welfare), exclusion of Jewish members from the National Board of Officers as well as from the boards of all affiliated associations and local councils, and the imposed appointment of Nazi women to leading positions. As these demands by the Nazi government violated their principles and constitutions, some branches such as the German National Council of Women (NCW) decided to disband. However, Europe was not the only continent affected by totalitarian regimes and women’s societies affiliated to international women’s organisations were also dispersed or immobilised in Japan. In addition, events in Turkey, and the politics of its president Kemal 81

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Atatu¨rk, resulted in the immediate dissolution of the Union of Turkish Women following the 1935 International Alliance of Women (IAW) Istanbul conference, as the government there saw no need for women to organise separately once they had been granted what it viewed as equal rights to those of men.2 International women’s organisations also lost contact with societies in South America at this time and the NCW of Iceland was temporarily dissolved due to financial difficulties at the beginning of the 1930s. Indeed, many NCWs were unable to pay their membership fees to the International Council of Women (ICW). These difficult circumstances prompted organisations such as the IAW to exercise a degree of flexibility with regard to annual payments in order to hold on to its existing members, such as the Japan Women’s Suffrage League, which had failed to pay its annual fees for three consecutive years by 1938. As during the 1920s, national councils and federations in the 1930s continued to pay different annual fees, depending on the size of their organisation, ranging from £14 paid by the Swedish, Finnish, Chinese, Indian and South American NCWs to the fee of £400 for the NCW of the United States.3 It is interesting to note that while new national sections were affiliated, more affiliated member organisations were actually lost than gained during the 1930s: the number of nations affiliated to the IAW dropped from 52 at the end of the 1920s to 35 by the end of the 1930s. The membership of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) also decreased, albeit less dramatically, from 26 national sections at the end of the 1920s to 23 at the end of the 1930s. WILPF maintained that, despite their losses, their overall memberships had increased. The relative success of this particular organisation can partly be explained by its later formation in comparison with the ICW and the IAW, which meant that it did not really get properly under way until the late 1920s and 1930s. The increased focus on peace and disarmament questions in the 1930s is likely also to have contributed to the relative popularity of WILPF. Indeed, during WILPF’s work with the disarmament campaign, the Finnish section doubled in size and a big increase was also seen in Denmark. But the instabilities of the 1930s produced more 82

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conservative ideas about women’s roles in society and female activists had to struggle to maintain rights already achieved in previous decades. Women suffered setbacks, as attacks were mounted on female employment and women’s wages. With rising unemployment, women were the first to lose their jobs. Developments were particularly bad for German women, who did not have the right to a job if a man could be employed instead.4 Yet, at the same time as these organisations were losing sections in some parts of the world, they continued to expand albeit slowly into other regions, especially by continuing to add more societies from non-Western nations. This was particularly true for newer organisations such as WILPF,5 which did not have as many contacts in the non-West as the more established organisations such as the IAW that was increasing the number of its affiliations of second societies from ‘Eastern’ countries in the 1930s.6 Indeed, it is possible to detect an element of competition between these women’s organisations in their quest for international expansion. For example, the ICW was keen to increase its membership in Japan where the other organisations had already established a foothold. Its recruitment efforts finally paid off when Japan became fully affiliated in 1936. Following its 1930 ICW conference, steps were also taken to study the possibility of the representation of nonindependent nations, which resulted in the creation of NCWs in various non-self-governing territories, of which south-west Africa became the first to join in 1938. The ICW also continued to have ‘corresponding members’ and ‘honorary organisers’ in countries without an affiliated NCW.7 Thus, as during the 1920s, these organisations were prepared to bend their rules when necessary in order to extend their memberships. The instabilities of the 1930s also meant that meetings were held less often and fewer women were able to attend these international events. Whereas international conferences had normally been held every two to three years during the 1920s, organisations such as the IAW only held two congresses during the whole of the 1930s. Although a conference was planned for Athens in 1932, it never materialised and therefore six years passed between its 1929 Berlin 83

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congress and its next meeting in Istanbul in 1935.8 Moreover, while 26 national sections attended the 1929 WILPF congress in Prague, only 15 sections were represented in Zurich in 1934.9 Holding a congress meant extensive costs for the host country, funds that were especially difficult to obtain during the economic depression. Financial difficulties in the 1930s meant that these organisations had to trim their conference reports, which became markedly shorter, mainly including only resolutions, the constitution as amended and the reports of officers and secretaries.10 Even though the ICW, the IAW and WILPF continued to produce the Bulletin, IWSN and Pax International respectively, these shrank in size and struggled with falling subscriptions.11 It is important to note that the effects of the economic depression on these organisations were not felt uniformly. For instance, the ICW, unlike its counterparts, actually held twice as many conferences during the 1930s as in the 1920s,12 and although the ICW Bulletin struggled with subscriptions, its 1930s issues appear to have been more ‘weighty’ than those of the 1920s. At the same time, though, the ICW was conscious of the fact that, in its existing form, the Bulletin chiefly appealed to the ‘inner circle’ of its workers, failing to attract the interest of the ‘rank and file’ members, and it proposed changes to the journal to address this.13 Certainly the Bulletin was sent out to countries worldwide, but the majority of its readers lived in so-called Western countries. The challenging economic and political situation worldwide was similarly reflected in the correspondence between headquarters and national sections, but while ICW’s correspondence decreased in the 1930s, that of the IAW remained considerable, representing a growing burden for its understaffed headquarters during these troubled times. Like the content of these organisations’ journals, headquarters correspondence reflected the political and economic context of the time, including women’s increasing commitment to peace and disarmament and the importance given to co-operation with the League of Nations. Despite the political situation in Japan, for instance, the fact that correspondence to Tano Jodai, leader of the Japanese section of WILPF, and Fusae Ichikawa, the director of Women’s Suffrage League of Japan, continued throughout the 1930s, 84

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suggests that Japanese women were able to remain in contact with and involved in international women’s organisations. At the same time, it reveals that Jodai and other members of the Japanese section of WILPF were unable to attend any international congresses over the same period.14 This might suggest that the Japanese government was either not fully aware of or decided to turn a blind eye to women’s transnational connections. Unfortunately, available evidence does not allow any further conclusions about this. As in the 1920s, international women’s organisations continued to attract public recognition in the 1930s. International conferences were still supported by governments and the official establishment since representatives of the hosting state attended opening meetings and provided entertainment. For example, the Crown Princess of Sweden was present at the 1933 ICW meeting in Stockholm and during the 1935 IAW congress in Istanbul some of the board were guests of the Turkish president, Kemal Atatu¨rk. International conferences also received greetings from many dignitaries and leading women, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the US President, and Sophia Zagloul, wife of Sad Zagloul, leader of the ruling Egyptian Wafd Party. Prestigious prizes awarded to leading members of these organisations in the 1930s also confirmed public recognition. While many of these were awarded for peace work, others included the Bryn Mawr College prize awarded to Jane Addams in 1931 and the Idun Prize in Stockholm given to Matilda Widegren, leader of the Swedish section of WILPF. Three members of the ICW Executive, Mrs Cadbury (convenor of the Peace Committee), Mrs Moss (president of the NCW of Australia) and Miss Winnifred Kydd (president of the NCW of Canada) were all made Dame Commander of the British Empire on the occasion of the 69th birthday of the British King.15 International conferences also received substantial press coverage. The closely related questions of peace and disarmament were high on the agendas of international women’s organisations in the 1930s. This new emphasis on peace did unsettle some members, the former president of the IAW, Carrie Chapman Catt, for instance, declaring in a letter to Rosa Manus in 1935: 85

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I feel a sense of disappointment whenever I think of the absence of progress concerning the enfranchisement of women in Switzerland and the rather slow progress being made in France. I do not mind other countries so much. I would think that the Alliance might very well come to an end now were it not for the possibility it has to do some good in the peace movement.16 Indeed, as Miller has pointed out, the IAW’s increased focus on peace work and social reform meant that female activists, who were previously associated with it, were now attracted to new equal rights organisations. Likewise, WILPF’s increased focus on peace work displeased a section of its members who wanted to see greater emphasis remain on women’s rights. At the same time, other international women’s organisations widened their agendas in the 1930s. For instance, the ICW was concerned with such varied problems as those of nutrition, the place of women in the administration of broadcasting and in drawing up radio programmes, children’s libraries, a more equable distribution of the world’s resources and the technical training of crippled children alongside its work with issues such as slavery, prostitution, nationality of married women and equal working conditions for women and men. Despite changes to the IAW’s agenda, it remained the most obviously committed to women’s equality of the three, as it continued to work for suffrage as well as the civil status of women, equal moral standards, the protection of maternity rights and the legal status of women. The two different conceptions of ‘equality’ within these organisations continued to generate disagreements and different views on issues such as protective legislation for women workers, and the civil status and nationality of women in the 1930s. What they had in common, however, was that they regarded their transnational co-operation as crucial in this period. Women, they believed, had a special ‘talent’ for international co-operation and working for peace and disarmament. International women’s organisations also dealt with the economic crisis. For instance, the big conference on ‘Our Common Cause – Civilization’ organised by the NCW of the United States in Chicago in 1933 paid special attention to economic problems.17 86

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Thus, while the troubled 1930s meant that the rate of expansion of international women’s organisations slowed down, they all remained keen to pursue and grow their activities internationally.

‘Shifting balances’ As more women from non-Western nations joined international women’s organisations in the 1930s, the compositions of these bodies changed. Although affiliations from beyond Europe and North America had begun to alter the ‘balance’ within them during the 1920s, the shift became more pronounced in the 1930s. At this time delegations from non-Western countries became larger in size, their members played more conspicuous roles at international conferences, and the boards and committees of these organisations became more representative. For the first time, conferences were held outside Europe and North America and their publications gave enhanced space to news from and about women from the non-West. Indeed, while many Western women were faced with anti-feminist currents, many ‘Eastern’ women seemed to be experiencing ‘progress’: their political consciousness had been raised not only through their activism in women’s movements but also by participation in concurrent nationalist struggles. International women’s organisations may have been losing members, primarily in Europe, but, as mentioned earlier, they expanded in the non-West. In particular, national sections from ‘Eastern’ countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Japan were added to the ICW and WILPF. Similarly, the IAW had second societies affiliated from Syria, India and Palestine as well as a new section from Iran. The inclusion of a second society from Palestine meant the inclusion of Arab women, as the earlier Palestinian society had solely comprised Jewish women. Many ‘Eastern’ societies were expanding at this time and therefore were able to send larger delegations to international conferences. Increased numbers of non-Western women attended the ICW conferences in Vienna (1930) and Paris (1934), including delegations and visitors from India, Palestine, China, Peru and Turkey. Meetings of the ICW executives were also more 87

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obviously representative, with, for instance, 27 countries present at its 1933 gathering in Stockholm, including India, Peru, Brazil and China. Even though the 1939 IAW congress in Copenhagen witnessed limited participation from many countries (apart from the host country, its Scandinavian neighbours and Britain), it included representation from the Dutch East Indies, Egypt, Palestine and Transjordan. But, despite this relatively good non-Western turnout, Rosa Manus (a senior IAW member) was greatly disappointed by the absence of an American delegation for the first time in the organisation’s history,18 and reflected on the congress: I for myself am not so convinced that we did rightly and that there is still a reason for the Alliance to go on with so many countries not attending. One can hardly call it international nowadays but on the other hand it is in some way [of] keeping contacts with the women of the other countries, seeing there were so many present all the same (34 countries).19 So while the number of countries represented at conferences had decreased for most of these organisations since the ‘highpoints’ that they had achieved in the 1920s, the attendance and representation of non-Western women rose noticeably in the 1930s. Yet, as Manus’s comments suggest, the presence of some members (in this case the Americans) were still valued more highly than that of others. The location of conferences in the ‘East’ itself – the 1935 IAW congress in Istanbul and the 1936 ICW joint conference with the Indian NCW in Calcutta – contributed to this greater involvement of non-Western women and also introduced these events to the Turkish and Indian general public who apparently attended in their thousands. The largest delegations to the Istanbul congress came from Middle Eastern and eastern European countries and, for the first time, the Indian delegation included Muslim women.20 Not only were delegations from non-Western nations becoming larger during this period, but also their members were becoming more active at conferences. Whereas their participation in the 1920s had often been restricted to the sessions on ‘East –West co-operation’, 88

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they now contributed more generally to proceedings throughout the 1930s. The location of conferences in the ‘East’ and the higher levels of participation by ‘Eastern’ women also created opportunities to examine topics that specifically affected women from those areas. For instance, at Calcutta, alongside subjects of concern to women more generally, emphasis was laid on issues that affected many Indian women such as rural welfare, housing, health and maternal and infant mortality. Indian women also saw the conference as an opportunity to dispel stereotypes about India and Indian women prevalent in the West. Indeed, the Calcutta conference was intended to strengthen ties between women in India and other countries. Similarly the 1935 IAW Istanbul congress was meant to reinforce co-operation between East and West, and in line with this adopted a resolution that welcomed ‘the co-operation of the women of all parts of the world’ and expressed ‘the wish that the women of the East and of the West [should] be linked by ties which will grow closer and consequently serve the interests of universal peace’. It also included a session dedicated to ‘East and West in Cooperation’, which included many speakers from the non-West.21 As in the 1920s, friendship between women from different places was regarded as especially important by these organisations in the 1930s. Lady Aberdeen, for instance, remarked about the Calcutta conference in the ICW Bulletin: ‘it is in these personal contacts between women of the East and West and the North and the South that the idea of the I.C.W. finds its best means of promotion and development’.22 Similarly, Miss Woodsmall’s speech to the Istanbul congress emphasised how fitting it was to hold a conference in a city that physically linked Europe and Asia, symbolising the closer connection that was being achieved between the East and the West in this era.23 As during the previous decade, emphasis on co-operation and the ‘acting’ out of regional/national differences (through national costume, songs and display of flags) at conferences served to symbolise the international character of these organisations. This was something of which the Japanese delegate, Shidzue Ishimoto, attending the 1933 ICW conference in Chicago, seemed fully aware: 89

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Always for public lectures and for formal dinners I wore my native costume. It seemed to create the best atmosphere for friendship. Since I wore western costume at other times I often felt as exotic in my native dress as I doubtless looked to others. However, I felt utterly at home in it during a convention at Chicago, which I attended. This had been called by the National Council of Women, and women from many foreign lands were present to give it an international flavour. Some of these guests were, like myself, in native apparel. Thus I had the pleasure of feeling rather more dignified than exotic as I sat beside Selma Ekrem of Turkey, for example, who wore her fascinating native dress. She is the author of that important book on Turkish women, Unveiled. I was deeply impressed by her skill in handling the English language, by her directness of expression, and by her knowledge. But I did the best I could to represent my race too. Since the general theme set by this conference was ‘Our Common Cause – Civilization’, the speeches all revolved around the idea of women in a changing world. And since they were delivered by such forceful women as Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Jane Addams, and Margaret Bondfield of England, I derived from them a stronger determination than ever to face the modern world courageously and as intelligently as possible.24 It is interesting to note Ishimoto’s claim that she wore native clothes as it ‘seemed to create the best atmosphere for international friendship’, her comments reinforcing the extent to which notions of ‘difference’ actually contributed to, and even underpinned, this cooperation. Ishimoto’s writings suggest that she was ready to take on, or rather perform, the part of the ‘Eastern’ woman (as it was then seen by the majority of Western women), and was happy to place a great deal of attention on clothing and general appearance. She distinguished herself from the other delegates, placing herself in the ‘non-Western’ camp together with Selma Ekrem from Turkey, and was clearly conscious that their presence was designed in part to endow the gathering with greater international credibility. Indeed, as 90

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her words indicate, Ishimoto’s appreciation of Ekrem was linked to the fact that she deflected some attention away from Ishimoto herself. Ishimoto’s detailed account of her experiences at the conferences differs from the many descriptions of non-Western women at these events produced by Western women in earlier periods. Her reflections also appear more sincere than the many glowing accounts of international conferences produced by non-Western women that were published in these organisations’ journals. At the same time, her comments also reveal a degree of insecurity regarding language ability, as evidenced in her admiration for Ekrem’s command of English. But it is interesting to note that such insecurities were not restricted to ‘Eastern’ women but were also experienced by ‘Western’ members. For example, Swedish women asked English-speaking colleagues to help them ‘polish up’ their English prior to meetings. Indeed, communication was made more difficult for women whose native languages were not English, French or German, the official languages of these organisations. In 1930 Spanish was also adopted as a semi-official language by the ICW because it had eight NCWs in Latin America and WILPF translated their own history, A Venture in Internationalism 1915 – 1938 by Emily G. Balch, into Spanish in 1939; it was circulated among women’s and peace organisations as well as individual women in Latin America.25 Thus, over the course of the 1930s, the ‘balance’ was slowly shifting, as non-Western women became more represented and, above all, relatively more vocal within international women’s organisations. Not only did these organisations expand further into the non-West, but non-Western delegations to conferences also became larger and non-Western women became more integrated with a larger number of them serving on committees and, occasionally, boards. By the middle of the decade, IAW committees had Japanese, Middle Eastern, south Asian and Latin American members. Likewise, all of the ICW standing committees included women from nonWestern nations. But whereas so-called Western nations were represented by a different member on each of these committees, the relatively small size of ‘Eastern’ sections meant that only a handful of women represented their nation on all of the committees. For 91

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instance, three women from China, two from Palestine, and one from India represented their NCWs on every ICW committee. Cornelia Sorabji, Indian delegate to the 1930 ICW conference, remarked on how hard India’s small delegation had to work, though, for her, the effort was worth it as the opinion of Indian delegates had been sought in most committees. The IAW board was the most representative, with the Egyptian Huda Shaarawi its fourth vice-president and Latife Bekir from Turkey, Bertha Lutz of Brazil and Dhanvanthi Rama Rau all members in 1935. Nevertheless, in 1936, two women from nonWestern parts of the world, Mrs Maneklal Premchard from India and Mrs Newman of South Africa, were co-opted as vice-presidents by the ICW, which also had an honorary vice-secretary from Indo-China (Mlle Suzanne Karpeles). WILPF, in contrast, lacked any representation of non-Western women on their boards throughout the 1930s. However, by the end of the 1930s the IAW board only included one non-Western woman – Shaarawi – and non-Western women’s representatives on ICW standing committees included only those from Argentina and South Africa.26 Thus, while international co-operation moved beyond mere symbolism in the 1930s, these organisations continued to be dominated in organisational terms by women from the West. Advancements made by non-Western women within their own societies attracted admiration from the Western members of international women’s organisations. In 1933, the ICW Bulletin referred to the Chinese, Japanese and Indian delegates at its 1933 Chicago conference as the ‘wise women of the East’, in honour of the social responsibility of Indian women and because of Japanese delegate Ishimoto’s outspokenness against the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. The ICW was particularly appreciative of the efforts to secure the equality of women in India being carried out by the AllIndia Women’s Conference. When Lady Tata, member of the executive committee of the Indian NCW, died unexpectedly in 1931, the ICW expressed great sadness and loss, as it had regarded her as a future leading member of the organisation. Likewise, the collection of letters sent to the Japanese activist Tano Jodai suggests that Western women felt close to, and thought highly of, her and her 92

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colleague Tsune Gauntlett. Indeed, Margery Corbett Ashby and Edith Pye (WILPF British section) identified Gauntlett and Miss Hayashi as the leaders and initiative-takers of the deputation of women at the London Naval Conference in 1930, and felt encouraged by their ‘faith and enthusiasm’.27 While this praise by Western women of their non-Western counterparts demonstrates improved relationships and greater understanding, when it appeared in official reports and journals its purpose was also to highlight the extent of international friendship and unity among its members. Moreover, sometimes the focus on developments in the non-West tended to be used by Western women to draw attention to ‘less developed’ nations overtaking their own on equality issues precisely in order to ‘shame’ their own countries and, thus, to increase pressure for further advances at home. For instance, in 1934, the Bulletin stressed that a revolution in women’s conditions was taking place in Turkey in stark contrast to the restrictions and limitations on women’s activities outside the home that were still being advocated and put into practice by many countries in the West that had previously boasted about being ‘progressive’.28 This discussion of the nature of gender relations and in particular women’s status as a way of measuring the ‘advancement’ or ‘backwardness’ of a society, thus echoed in some ways Western discourses that viewed Western countries as more ‘advanced’. At the same time, Western women’s admiration for nonWestern women, especially when expressed in personal letters that, unlike official accounts, were not subject to any process of official editing, suggests that a move was taking place away from the kinds of ‘feminist orientalist’ views that had been expressed in earlier years. Yet, the activities of international women’s organisations also highlight the extent to which Western women continued to be rather ignorant of conditions beyond Europe and North America and surprised at the achievements of their non-Western ‘sisters’. Indeed, international conferences seem to have worked as an eye-opener. For instance, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury claimed that she had no idea prior to the ICW Calcutta conference that so much social work was being 93

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done in India, and it was only once she was there that she realised how deeply concerned Indian women were with reforms.29 This belief that there was a gap in terms of their achievements between Western and Eastern women persisted throughout the 1930s, with the former still tending to assume that the latter would eventually learn from them and follow in their footsteps. Even though conference reports repeatedly stressed that women wherever they lived were faced with similar problems, these reports also presumed the continued existence of sharp differences between different parts of the world. For example, although working for similar aims in terms of securing equal rights in public life, women in Europe and America believed that they had already achieved many of the goals for which ‘oriental’ women still seemed to be struggling. Thus, these organisations continued to operate on the understanding that Eastern countries were ‘backward’ vis-a`-vis the West, with the former’s ‘oriental past’ blamed in large measure for any remaining obstacles to women’s advancement.30 Not surprisingly, they still emphasised how much non-Western women stood to gain by interaction with the West. As Elisabeth Zellweger of Switzerland commented, regarding the assumed impact of the Calcutta conference on Indian women: To Indian women, it [the Conference] was a source of inspiration. For the first time they realised that in their uphill work of attaining equal rights with men, in bettering the lot of womanhood in India, they were not alone but that the women of the world were with and behind them. They learnt the value of international co-operation for a common purpose. It will teach them to cultivate the spirit of internationalism.31 The assumption that non-Western women stood to profit from adopting ‘Western’ ways can also be seen from the preoccupation with dress as an indication of ‘progress’, leading many Western members to view ‘unveiling’ as a consciousness-raising exercise for Muslim women, and some could even take credit for when the veil was abandoned. The Bulletin, for instance, claimed that the Hungarian 94

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bride-to-be of the Albanian ruler was behind the reforms on the veil there in the late 1930s. Likewise, a report on the status of women in the Near East from this period claimed that progress in Persia (Iran) had been slower than elsewhere in the region precisely because there had been less direct contact with Western nations.32 Non-Western women from countries as varied as Brazil, the Dutch East Indies, China and Jamaica acknowledged their appreciation of the help and guidance of international women’s organisations and regarded co-operation between the East and West as important. While a young Jamaican graduate of African origin accordingly described the women of Africa as the ‘little sisters’ in the women’s movement and appealed to their ‘big sisters’ for help at the 1935 IAW congress, the Indian activist Sorabji expressed frustration over the unpreparedness of the NCW of India at the 1930 ICW conference, and another Indian delegate, Lady Tata, likewise claimed that the achievements of the Indian NCW were small in comparison with those of others as their work was hampered by ignorance, traditions and lack of education.33 At the same time, others during the 1930s increasingly challenged the dominant roles played by Western women in international women’s organisations and Western nations in the world more generally. In their view, non-Western women were no longer as new to feminist issues as they previously had been, and were taking an active part in international women’s organisations. Increasingly, these alternative voices were beginning to make themselves heard, and to challenge the model of progress associated with Western women. Accordingly, the Indian delegates to the 1935 IAW congress appealed for ‘western co-operation [. . .] not [to] be tainted with ideas of racial superiority or patronage’.34 One of the Indian delegates, Hamid Ali, also emphasised the importance of preserving their native dress, as ‘it is a Hallmark of the individuality of each nation. Sartorial imitation to our mind is a sign of acceptance of an inferior position which Europe is only too ready to impose in Asia and Africa.’35 Similarly, a Syrian delegate at the same congress similarly warned that ‘while a single nation is oppressed, all sacrifices for peace will be of no avail. No amount of effort on your part will ever achieve your high aims while imperialism reigns in any corner of the world.’36 95

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By the end of the decade, the level of opposition and disappointment of non-Western women had noticeably increased. At the 1939 IAW congress, for instance, Shaarawi spoke about how organisations needed to take a stand against prejudices originating in race, nationality, religion and sex, in order for successful peace work collaboration between East and West to take place. As a representative of the supposed ‘Orient’, Shaarawi also discussed the importance of establishing new kinds of relations between colonies and their ‘mother countries’, and as an Egyptian and a representative of Arab women she protested against the transgressions taking place against some countries in that region. At the same congress, Shrimati Kamala Devi from India, while emphasising the non-violent character of the Indian struggle for independence, declared that it was the quest and struggle for colonies that lay at the base of all modern wars. Indeed, as others have highlighted, matters came to a head at an IAW board meeting in 1939 when Shaarawi pointed out in response to a call for protest against anti-Semitism that Muslims also suffered mistreatment and that Arab women resented IAW inaction on their behalf. Shaarawi even threatened to resign from the board when her proposal for a limit on Jewish immigration to Palestine was ruled out.37 Rosa Manus described this incident in correspondence with Catt: The Palestinian women got so heated up that it was really terrible. One of the Indian Women got up and said this was out of order and that the Indian women did not talk about their Indian politics and that it was wrong to do so. Finally the Egyptian resolution was put to the vote and was of course voted down with a great majority, so then the three Egyptian Delegates walked out.38 Manus acknowledged in her letter that this represented a delicate matter for their British president, Corbett Ashby, as Palestine was under British mandate, but she was adamant that politics had no place in the Alliance.39 What is also interesting is the extent to which this incident also revealed divisions among non-Western 96

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women themselves, with Indian delegates subsequently criticising Shaarawi for her outburst. Such divisions, however, were rarely acknowledged in public. For instance, correspondence in the collection of the Japanese Suffrage Movement links the resignation of the Peruvian NCW from the ICW in 1937 to its disappointment with the Dubrovnik conference of the previous year.40 In a letter to the president of the ICW, Baroness Boe¨l, the Peruvian Council outlined three reasons for its decision to resign: it was treated without courtesy by some of the delegates; the ICW failed to remain true to its principle of political neutrality with members torn by the political situation in Europe; and it was disappointed over the elections of officers: The elections at Dubrovnik and of the co-opting of vicepresidents has shown that the International Council of Women lacks a truly international spirit, since it is obviously dominated by British-Nordic-Slav majority which does not seem to consider the interest and the legitimate wishes of the councils belonging to the Latin races. We desire to add in this connection that we regret the omission of the Argentine Council from the co-opting even more than that of ours, for the Argentine Council, due to its many years of successful work, has given an example to all those of South America, and has a far greater right than that of Peru to be represented on the Board.41 The fact that there appears to be no account of any of these ‘incidents’ in any of the official publications of either the ICW or the IAW suggests that these organisations were reluctant to acknowledge in public any internal conflicts.42 Indeed, as seen above, these organisations deliberately gave prominence to international unity and friendship, with Aberdeen claiming in her farewell speech as ICW president in 1936 that: ‘International friendships seem to possess a peculiar property of strength and inspiration. [. . .] It is [in] the deep meaning of these bonds, and the high purpose which unites us, that lies the secret of our strength as an organisation.’43 97

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International friendship was clearly something that many women greatly appreciated, and many recollections from international conferences in the 1930s suggest that these organisations gained strength from the personal contacts made at conferences. As Cornelia Sorabji of India recalled after the 1930 ICW conference: ‘and now we are scattered to the ends of the earth, again: and the Quinquennial Conference is a Dream dreamt in a dream City. But with the friendships we have brought away, we can pinch ourselves away at will.’44 Likewise, van Veen from France could not remember ‘any time when there was such a delightful friendly feeling amongst the delegates and every one we met told us how much they had enjoyed their stay at Stockholm [1933 ICW Executive meeting]’.45 But, though international friendship and sisterhood remained high on the agenda, the ways in which it was experienced and manifested were influenced by the political and economic context of the 1930s. The optimism surrounding transnational co-operation that had been so obvious in the 1920s had waned to a great extent by the end of the 1930s, as international unity was challenged by widespread economic and political instabilities. Moreover, the shifting balance experienced by these organisations at this time, with the incorporation of more non-Western countries, meant that there was more chance of real differences between women from different cultural and religious backgrounds coming to the fore. Thus, Bosch and Kloosterman’s argument – that the replacement of symbolic difference for real differences between women was something that the old IAW activists were not yet ready for in the 1920s – actually appears to be more relevant to the 1930s and this decade’s conflicts over allegiances to internationalism or nationalism.46 The same conclusions are also reflected in the attitudes of Western women within the ICW at this time, in particular their continued belief in the relative advancements of Western societies in relation to those elsewhere in the world. WILPF, on the other hand, was more accommodating of differences, due to its support for antiimperialism and its more radical stance on inequalities. The views of many non-Western women were increasingly shaped by their dual battle against colonialism and the patriarchal culture of their 98

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societies at this time, and this was a concern that was reflected in the increase of regional organisations and conferences in the 1930s.

‘Organising afresh’ Deteriorating international relations during the 1930s directed international women’s organisations more firmly towards peace work and, in particular, the question of disarmament. This activity resulted in new ways of interaction: greater collaboration between organisations and talk of fusions, the widening of regional cooperation, and in particular increased liaison with the League of Nations. So, while these organisations had co-operated with each other in the past, their commitment to peace and disarmament in the 1930s had the effect of uniting them further. They increasingly left their ‘separate’ conferences, and joined each other. At the same time, they entered more fully into the international arena provided by the League of Nations. In 1930, six women’s international organisations joined forces and presented an ‘Appeal Of Women To The World’s Statesmen’ to the League of Nations, declaring women’s anxiety for the future and the urgent need for peace work. The same year, a delegation of American, British, French and Japanese women urged substantial reduction in naval armaments at the London Naval Conference.47 This upsurge in cross-organisational co-operation was clearly demonstrated by the disarmament campaign initiated by WILPF in the early 1930s, when WILPF began a petition that was translated into 18 languages, published and discussed around the world.48 The campaign was subsequently taken over by the Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International Organisations (DCWIO), formed in 1931 as a special committee of the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations (LCWIO),49 and composed of 14 international organisations and one powerful national federal organisation.50 The petition was combined with similar efforts carried out by other organisations and enjoyed the backing of prominent peace activist such as Gandhi. Mary Dingham, from the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and president of the 99

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DCWIO, and WILPF were also keen to see the representation of labour women on the disarmament committee. At the Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932, millions of signatures of women and men from around the world were presented by the representatives of women’s organisations from 56 countries. Japan alone contributed 173,000 signatures and impressive quantities were also obtained in England, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Czechoslovakia. Apart from greater co-operation and the formation of ‘superinternational’ organisations, there was talk of fusion between some of these associations. The ICW proposed an amalgamation to the IAW; however, this was rejected by the latter, which argued the importance of its separate continuation in the face of rising antifeminism. There was also discussion of a merger between the IWSN and the Bulletin.51 Not surprisingly, peace and disarmament work was prioritised by WILPF in the 1930s: the theme of its 1932 congress was ‘World Disarmament or World Disaster’. But, the other organisations also showed a greater interest in this subject than they had done previously, with the 1935 IAW congress’s peace meeting attended by some 2,000 young people. However, while the ICW Bulletin and the IWSN did contain occasional articles on peace work and women’s commitment to disarmament, WILPF’s Pax was almost completely devoted to these affairs. WILPF’s commitment to peace was reflected in the correspondence to Tano Jodai, president of the Japanese section, as many of the letters sent to her in the 1930s touched on the situation in China and the difficult time for women working for peace in Japan.52 Towards the end of the 1930s, as the political situation deteriorated further, the peace work of these organisations assumed a more practical dimension as they began to assist refugees and the IAW adopted a resolution on refugees at its 1939 congress. These organisations all believed that women had a special contribution to make to peace, justice and tolerance. At the 1932 Disarmament Conference, Dingman stressed that their greatest determination to work for peace came to them as mothers, for women wanted to ensure that their children’s lives would be free from war.53 According to the IAW’s 1939 declaration of principles: ‘The 100

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barbarism of war, torture and famine threatens to engulf the world. It is for the woman’s movement to awaken and strengthen sanity, compassion, wisdom and foresight, which are the gifts of womanhood.’54 Women’s work for peace and disarmament during the 1930s received public recognition, and individual women were publicly honoured in a range of ways. Catt was awarded a prize of $5,000 by The Pictorial Review in 1930 for her work towards international disarmament, and received the American Hebrew Medal in 1933 for establishing the Protest Committee of Non-Jewish Women against the Persecution of Jews in Germany the same year. She was also celebrated by many friends in the United States in 1936 during the ‘jubilee year of public service’ and received congratulations from President Roosevelt at the White House, who praised her for her work for women and peace. In December 1931, WILPF president, Jane Addams, received the ultimate accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize.55 Women’s efforts in relation to disarmament and peace also received extensive press attention, with the New York Herald Tribune on 4 February 1932 highlighting the extent to which ‘[w]omen occupied the center of the stage at the League of Nations disarmament conference today’.56 Corbett Ashby’s appointment as a substitute member of the British delegation, in particular, received extensive coverage in the press.57 But, despite all this press interest, many histories of the League of Nations fail to mention the contributions made by women to the disarmament campaign and its 1932 conference. Some statesmen of the period also suggested that women were somewhat naive in their quest for peace. While the British Prime Minister at the time, Ramsay MacDonald, claimed to be ‘specially interested in [the ICW’s] work for peace’, he also commented: I often wonder if women really know what has yet to be done in this before we can get what we want. The nations have not changed and the assumptions and preparations which made that War inevitable still possesses [sic] our minds and thoughts.58 101

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Moreover, apart from the attention given to women’s participation in the disarmament conference, WILPF did not receive the same public backing as the other organisations at this time, and, as van Voris has pointed out, member organisations of the conference on ‘the Cause and Cure of War’ in the early 1930s came under attack from ‘superpatriots’ in the United States: at the same time, US business and professional women were often targeted as ‘Red’ and unpatriotic.59 Women involved in this campaigning believed that they had a special contribution to make to peace questions, but these were delicate matters, which caused disagreements between and within organisations. Leading ICW members initially hesitated over whether or not to join the DCWIO since its constitution prevented the organisation from giving its view on international disarmament. Yet, the fact that the ICW did eventually join highlights the degree of flexibility employed by the organisations at this time. WILPF was always bolder and declared at its 1937 congress that it sought a ‘New International Order’, one that needed to be different from the existing situation characterised by disorder and chaos, and one in which not only individuals but also states would behave according to moral laws. However, WILPF women could also disagree among themselves on the matter of what action to take: while some members wanted to make bold statements, others preferred taking more prudent steps. Foster argues that the German and French sections, whose members were feeling the brunt of Nazi politics more directly and at an earlier time than those in Britain, Scandinavia and North America, favoured intense action through an alliance with radical movements. So, even though WILPF managed to avoid a split, the organisation was weakened by internal disagreement.60 The Women’s Peace Crusade, a British umbrella organisation that included the British section of WILPF and other associations affiliated to other international women’s organisations,61 was also faced with divisions based on whether or not to take political action, since, as Kathleen Courtney reflected, if ‘we do decide to take it [political action], we shall reduce the number of organisations who co-operate with us’.62 Others were also disappointed by the failures of the disarmament conferences and in 1935 Corbett Ashby resigned 102

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from the British committee, claiming that: ‘My two years as UK substitute delegate to this conference were the most miserable of my life.’63 Towards the end of the 1930s, disappointment over the lack of an ‘international spirit’ within WILPF was described by a contributor to Pax, who argued that even though there was no shortage of international organisations and congresses, the spirit of international ‘preparedness’ was hollow and ‘degraded to national interests’ as compared with 20 to 30 years before.64 These organisations did not only use the international platform provided by the League of Nations to work for peace and disarmament, but they also took advantage of it to lobby for change on so-called ‘women’s rights’ issues. Although this work had started in the 1920s, it intensified greatly in the 1930s. According to Miller, this decision to turn to the League of Nations and the international arena that it provided was made by women’s organisations to counter regressive changes that were taking place at a national level in many countries. In other words, women’s groups often used the peace theme during this period to strengthen their equal rights campaign by arguing that full equality for women would unleash a powerful social force for the cause of peace and disarmament. They recognised that the League provided opportunities for their work precisely because it gave them access to a wider international audience: importantly, any resolution passed there, they believed, would automatically acquire international impact thanks to the involvement of governments from around the world. That women’s organisations could sometimes take credit for League decisions was demonstrated by the IAW’s claim in its 1935 congress report that the League’s recent condemnation of the regulation of vice as an exceptional measure against women represented an amazing victory for itself.65 The impact of this campaigning was reflected in the early 1930s in the establishment of the Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality by the League of Nations in direct response to pressure from women’s organisations, in particular ‘superinternational’ bodies such as the LCWIO.66 Geneva, the headquarters of the League, became an important meeting place for these organisations, many of 103

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which had established offices in the city. The League was itself keen to encourage more involvement by women in its work, as reflected in its resolution of 1931. It also sent representatives to international women’s conferences.67 Indeed, as Miller’s work has demonstrated, at a time when the League of Nation’s own popularity was declining, these were attempts on its part to bolster support.68 However, as Rupp has pointed out, members of international women’s organisations differed on their view of the League; some were supporters and others were critics. While the ICW was the most enthusiastic, WILPF remained the most critical (although the latter organisation still included League supporters such as the British section).69 Even the IAW seemed positive and included references to supporting peace and the League of Nations in its Declaration of Principles at its 1935 congress.70 The 1930s witnessed continuing efforts on the part of women’s organisations to secure an Equal Rights Treaty via the League. Lobbying for this had begun in the mid-1920s, reflecting their belief in the common problems facing women worldwide. By the late 1930s it had turned into a vigorous campaign to demand a convention in which the civil, political and legal status of women would be based on the equality of the sexes. In preparation for the convention, the League accordingly established a committee of experts in 1937, following a proposal by the president of the Swedish NCW, Kerstin Hesselgren. This committee, on which women constituted the majority, was charged with studying the national laws on which the status of women was based. However, the success of this campaign, like others, was, according to Miller, again hampered by tensions between women created by differences in their conceptions of equality, and whether equality was to be achieved by giving women the same rights as men or by taking into account women’s differences. Indeed, the Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality turned out to be short lived due to the serious differences between international women’s groups on nationality – some women supported equal nationality and others independent nationality.71 Such frictions, however, did not dampen the belief of many of these women that their organisations were important, 104

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something which was reflected, for instance, in the IAW’s hope that the League of Nations would devote a section of its library to the literature and bibliography of the women’s movement since this was ‘one of the most striking features of contemporary social history’.72 Thus, as the 1930s progressed, the agendas of these international women’s organisations appeared to become more alike. While peace had been a unifying force in the 1920s, it became considerably more urgent in the 1930s due to the serious world situation. Similarities between the programmes of these organisations allowed for greater collaboration and raised the significance of ‘superinternational’ associations. Even though these organisations had started to work with the League of Nations in the 1920s, this co-operation intensified during the 1930s, largely because the League provided them with a new international platform from which their concerns over peace questions as well as women’s rights could reach a larger audience. *** The events of the 1930s dimmed the optimism and confidence on show during the previous decade. Even when these organisations carried on growing, by the end of the decade they had lost more sections than they had gained. Moreover, international conferences were, on the whole, held less frequently, conference reports were kept to a minimum and journals struggled to survive. Yet this was the decade in which international women’s organisations actually become more representative, broadened their agendas and found new ways of co-operating. While many European women were faced with antifeminist currents and suffered a backlash against the advances achieved earlier, many ‘Eastern’ women were experiencing higher levels of emancipation during the 1930s. This was linked, in some countries, to their participation in nationalist struggles that assisted the growth of feminist movements, with women gaining both legitimate public space and all-important political experience. The knock-on effect of these developments was that non-Western women not only entered international organisations in greater numbers in the 1930s, but they also became better integrated. Non-Western 105

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women were no longer the novices that they had been within international women’s organisations and accordingly displayed greater confidence. Even though some non-Western women continued to value the guidance provided by Western women, others affirmed their own identity more strongly and questioned Western dominance and the West’s model of equality. International women’s organisations also interacted in new ways in the 1930s, as co-operation between different organisations and the League of Nations increased. The League provided these organisations with an international platform, not only for peace work but also for women’s rights, where any decisions potentially had a wide reach. And despite the difficulties, these organisations remained fully committed to international friendship and sisterhood, gaining confidence and strength from women’s ability to carry on with transnational co-operation during these troubled times.

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CHAPTER 5 THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN

We are not a body of educationalists discussing educational problems; nor are we a body of women discussing feminist problems. These already exist and do fine work, but we are first and foremost a body of trained and thinking people of many different nationalities, who desire to approach certain problems from the point of view, so far as frail human nature can achieve this, of humanity as a whole, rather than that of individuals, professors, sex, class or even nations.1 These were the ambitious words of the International Federation of University Women’s (IFUW or the Federation, as it was often known) president, Professor Caroline Spurgeon, delivered at the opening meeting of its third conference in Kristiania, now Oslo, in 1924.2 The IFUW, founded in 1919, set out to work for international cooperation among educated women the world over. Education for girls and women, both in terms of availability and content, had received much attention in the nineteenth century, and, although often not the central concern for most international women’s organisations in the interwar decades, it nevertheless remained on their agendas. Yet, IFUW’s roles and contributions to the transnational women’s movement have been largely overlooked. Established when the

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transnational women’s movement was expanding, the IFUW sought an identity and role of its own. Nevertheless, it had much in common with other international women’s organisations, all of which were working for improvements to women’s lives. Scant attention has also been paid to the importance of higher education in general for women’s transnational co-operation in the interwar period. Not only was it from the small group of predominately educated upper- and middle-class women that the members of international women’s organisations at this time came, non-Western students in the West also aided the development of national branches in their home countries.

Origin and aims The IFUW was founded in 1919 by American, Canadian and British university women who believed in the importance of bringing educated women from around the world together and the furthering of women’s interests within academia. Its early years were characterised by ambitious goals and a belief in its unique contribution to transnational co-operation and friendship. However, while the Federation certainly had its own agenda, its work nevertheless had much in common with other international women’s organisations in the interwar period. The founders of the IFUW were Virginia Gildersleeve and Caroline Spurgeon. Gildersleeve, an American and Dean of Barnard College in New York, and Spurgeon, the first woman professor in an English university and active at Bedford College in London, first met in 1918 in the United States. That year, Spurgeon arrived in the United States as part of a British Universities Mission,3 which set out to develop closer ties between universities in North America and Britain. Gildersleeve, in her position as chair of the International Committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, welcomed the British mission, and it was during an evening spent discussing World War I that Spurgeon suggested that: ‘We should have an international association of university women so that we at least shall have done all we can to prevent another such catastrophe.’4 110

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Gildersleeve agreed to mobilise the Association of Collegiate Alumna in the United States and Rose Sidgwick, history lecturer at Birmingham University and also part of the British Mission, agreed that they should talk to the British Federation of University Women (BFUW) on their return. However, Sidgwick died from influenza before the mission left the United States and it became Spurgeon’s task to rally the British Federation. In 1919, the BFUW invited the Association of Collegiate Alumnae as well as a group of university women from Canada to work together to form the IFUW. The first meeting was held in 1919 at Bedford College in London. Gildersleeve carried the message from the American Association and alumnae associations of all the main American colleges for women, which all favoured the establishment of an International Federation. The constitution adopted at the IFUW’s inaugural conference in London in 1920 stated that its purpose was to promote understanding and friendship between the university women of the nations of the world and thereby to further their interests and develop between their countries sympathy and mutual helpfulness.5 The media coverage of the conference reiterated the IFUW’s commitment to ‘international friendship’. For instance, a Yorkshire newspaper highlighted Gildersleeve’s speech, which emphasised that the Federation’s objective was to bring together university women from around the world through travelling fellowships, international exchange of professors, lecturers and students and to establish clubs in every university town in the world enabling university women to meet. The Federation’s underlying objective was world peace, something that would be achieved by building understanding and trust between women of different nationalities. The IFUW shared its focus on peace with other international women’s organisations, all of which showed renewed determination to work internationally following World War I. The IFUW, however, tried to construct its own distinct identity. For instance, as Gildersleeve made clear, the IFUW did not wish to be seen as a separatist or ultra-feminist organisation, and stressed instead the importance of women and men working together. Neither did it want to copy or interfere with organisations already involved in international educational 111

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activities.6 Through issuing statements such as these, the IFUW distanced itself from educational associations as well as other international women’s organisations, in particular the IAW, which openly regarded itself as a ‘feminist’ organisation. As Forster has pointed out, the concern of many women during this period not to be seen as ‘feminist’ was linked to the worry about being viewed as ‘antimen’. At the same time, many women involved in women’s movements sought better relationships with men and a better deal for both sexes.7 Indeed, some nations were initially hesitant about the idea of a separate university federation for women.8 Like other international women’s organisations at this time, however, the IFUW’s bond was based primarily on women’s common struggle for emancipation, which often involved highlighting women’s difference from men. Spurgeon echoed this perception in her address to the IFUW conference in 1924: ‘We are a body of women. This, I believe, in the present state of evolution with regard to the position of women, is a great bond and a great power [. . .] It is clear that women have a certain community of interest.’9 But, in addition to emphasising difference from men, the IFUW, with its membership dependent on a university degree, also importantly differentiated between women. The IFUW’s priority was to work for the betterment of university women as a group, since, according to Gildersleeve, it wanted to give women a chance to participate fully in society.10 In the words of one delegate to its 1924 Kristiania conference, the gathering was made up of ‘women of a hundred different occupations, and with a hundred different backgrounds, though all were university-bred’,11 and, indeed, this common background, interests and ideas helped to ease their attendance there, particularly in the case of those who had never previously travelled abroad.12 Yet, the relative ease with which these women established a common purpose and identity was not only influenced by shared gender and education background. Indeed, Snider has shown that a university education was not the only prerequisite for membership of some national branches, which also practised racial and religious exclusion. For example, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) did not allow black women as members, and the Hungarian and 112

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Romanian affiliations likewise excluded potential members based on race and religion. These restrictive practices did not result in any significant protests or even discussions, until the German branch began to exclude Jewish women in the 1930s, when membership policies of individual national sections become hotly debated by the IFUW.13 At the beginning of the twentieth century, it is clear that university women strongly believed in the importance of learning from one another, and they ‘looked to each other for the definition of the professional woman, and for the skills necessary for conducting a professional life . . . [and] served as mentors and role models for one another’.14 In their view, they were members of a special female ‘fraternity’, and it is precisely this sense of fellowship, or unity, that persuaded many to become involved in the IFUW. The Federation itself placed great emphasis on the way in which a university education led women to share traditions and ideals and to speak a common language:15 ‘we should be branded together – the most intelligent women in the world, because all the university women in the world are to be in this Federation’.16 This common experience was ‘something invaluable [. . .] best [. . .] described as the understanding mind, the dispassionate impersonal mind, balanced and slow to judge’.17 Moreover, it believed that it was especially well suited to its task since it regarded ‘associations of scholars and teachers’ as ‘immune from the suspicion which may be aroused by other combinations. Scholarship is essentially humane and international, and that is not invariably the case with politics or commerce.’18 Thus, the IFUW did not hesitate to demonstrate its belief in its own superiority vis-a`-vis others who lacked a degree and/ or were engaged in other activities and fields of work. Although emphasising similarities between university-educated women, distinctions were still felt by some of the IFUW’s members. For example, the wearing of national academic dress at the opening meeting of the 1924 conference led Swedish delegate Naima Sahlbom to remark that ‘the simple white student hat [in Sweden] [. . .] is a modest symbol among the Anglo-Saxon, decorative red robes and “square” hats’.19 Thus, while delegates wearing academic 113

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dress was a way to demonstrate the international character of the IFUW, in a similar fashion to how national costumes were worn at the congresses of the International Council of Women (ICW), International Alliance of Women (IAW) and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and to emphasise the unity among its university-educated members, the practice also drew attention to differences between countries and their academic traditions. The IFUW’s activities did not go unnoticed. Its work, for instance, was acknowledged by the British and US governments of the day, with the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, describing it as ‘a real source of strength to Great Britain [. . .] in pursuing the policy of friendship between the nations’.20 The wider public also showed interest in the Federation, and its early conferences were attended by several hundred guests and monitored by press from around the world. Not surprisingly, the IFUW also received backing from women’s colleges. Smith College, under the leadership of President William Allen Neilson, for instance, donated money to the IFUW throughout the 1920s and 1930s.21 Indeed, it seems that the IFUW attracted more interest and support from the public than other organisations at the time. One reason for this might be that its emphasis on international friendship achieved through educational exchange was less controversial than issues such as suffrage, women’s rights and anti-colonialism, which had come to be openly promoted by other organisations during the same period. But while its commitment to international friendship was repeatedly emphasised during the early years of the IFUW, a closer look at its overall agenda reveals many other similarities to other international women’s organisations. For instance, it claimed that, although it had its own special field of action, it was able to cooperate with other organisations. Thus, it was one of the seven members, including the ICW, World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and WILPF, on the Joint Standing Committee of Women’s International Organisations formed in the mid-1920s. It was also a member of other ‘superinternational’ coalitions such as the Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality, the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations and the Peace 114

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and Disarmament Committee, mentioned earlier in Chapter 4. These memberships differentiated the IFUW from many of the other ‘single’ issue women’s organisations established at the time. Like the IAW, the ICW, WILPF and other members of these committees, it became involved in debates about the emancipation of women in general. As the 1920 conference speech by Miss Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, emphasised, concerns such as suffrage, women’s absolute liberty to study and work, equal pay for equal work, full political rights and responsibilities, and the reward of merit as well as a right to family life, were all important to it. Subsequently, this importance was reflected in the establishment of four committees in 1924 dealing with ‘Intellectual Co-operation’, ‘Careers for Women in Industry, Trade and Finance’, ‘Exchange of Information regarding Secondary Education’ and ‘International Congresses’ respectively. The IFUW’s 1924 conference, with its theme of ‘The Place of University Women in the World’s Work’, underlined this broader agenda, as did speeches by Gildersleeve, and also by Margaret Corbett Ashby, president of the IAW, who tackled the vexed question of how to increase opportunities for university women in political work.22 In general, there was consensus with Lady Rhonda’s view that ‘until women were in a position to become equal partners and shareholders in commercial concerns, the present conditions could not be changed’.23 By 1929 a committee had been established to consider ‘Careers for Women in Industry, Commerce and Finance’ as well as one on the issue of the ‘Nationalities of Married Women’.24 Interesting parallels can be drawn with the AAUW, which, as Levine has shown, while rejecting the label of ‘feminism’, in practice pursued an equal rights agenda, convinced that education provided the key to equality.25 During the 1930s, disarmament and peace questions also came to be included as part of the IFUW’s agenda. In particular, it valued its co-operation with the League of Nations and that organisation’s commitment to ‘internationalism’. However, it was less outspoken on disarmament (or equal rights) than other women’s organisations but claimed instead to be working for ‘humanity’, and it, therefore, remained an ‘observer’ on the disarmament committee in the 1930s. 115

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All the same, some of the national federations did carry out their own disarmament propaganda as well as take active measures on women’s questions such as the right of married women to work. Likewise, while some national federations such as the Norwegian Association regarded public action as outside of its sphere, others such as the Indian Federation worked actively lobbying for suffrage rights, a ‘Children’s Bill’ and prison visits for women, while the British Federation supported equal franchise, employment for married women and co-operated with the National Council of Women (NCW) and the Six Point Group (that was working for the improvement of the legal position of women and children and for equal pay in the civil service and the teaching profession).26 This evidence suggests that the IFUW’s national federations enjoyed a fair degree of freedom as far as pursuing issues that were of especial importance to women in their respective countries was concerned. Nevertheless, these widening agendas did not pass unquestioned or unchallenged, with, for instance, some members of the BFUW supporting the broadening of its activities, while others thought that it was too active in matters not strictly concerned with university women. Likewise, the members of the AAUW were divided over whether to include the question of contraception on its agenda in the 1930s. Thus, the IFUW and its national federations incorporated a wide range of women, who differed in their approach to ‘equality’, but were united in their commitment to peace.27 The IFUW’s self-proclaimed ‘difference’, both from other women’s organisations and from those of educationalists, was challenged from within the organisation at the end of the 1920s. At Geneva in 1929, when the conference theme was the ‘Aims and Record of the International Federation of University Women’, Theodora Bosanquet, its secretary, highlighted the fact that so-called ‘feminist’ questions, such as the position of women in public services and professions and the nationality of married women, had come before the IFUW. These issues, she argued, did affect the Federation’s members even if some of the latter thought that they were best left to other women’s organisations, and she stressed how useful it would be to know ‘whether the emphasis is to be laid on university or on 116

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university women’.28 This debate, and the distinctions that it drew, highlights the extent to which the IFUW was, in practice, composed of women with various views, and suggests that its earlier distancing from ‘feminism’ (in similar fashion to the ICW’s avoidance of a clearcut stance on female suffrage) was its way of appealing to a wider cross-section of women, albeit with the correct educational qualifications. Feminism had become increasingly unpopular in the aftermath of World War I,29 and, under these circumstances, the IFUW’s focus on ‘education’ helped to make it more acceptable in many parts of the world as compared with the other, more ostensibly ‘feminist’, women’s organisations with which it nevertheless shared its commitment to women’s rights: its emphasis on ‘education’ was an effective way to achieve women’s rights more generally. Levine’s argument that the AAUW pursued feminism in its own way, as it was set apart from other American women’s organisations by its central focus on education,30 is supported by the IFUW and its relations with other international women’s organisations at this time. Indeed, hostility towards expanding women’s rights in many European countries during the 1930s caused concern for the IFUW as well. At its 1936 conference, President Johanna Westerdyk spoke on the difficult situation for women and the hostility that had developed towards women who claimed the right to higher education: in her view, the blame lay with men since ‘universities were the product of the masculine mentality’.31 By the late 1930s, even Gildersleeve, who had earlier proclaimed herself not to be ‘ultra feminist’ or ‘separatist’, described men as the ‘softies’ of higher education in an address to the IFUW at Savannah, Georgia: The male university presidents and professors are mostly sentimentalists. I base that on an observation of university and college board meetings over a period of many years. When some important decision is to be made, the men are more often swayed by emotion than women. The coeducational institutions seem to have a lordly male complex. Women generally are accorded second place – like vice-president of their class, assistant to the editor of the college publication, or 117

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second-string cheer leader. Our organization is out to promote the status of university women of the world – and right now they need promoting badly. We need more women geniuses, like Madame Curie, and we must catch the gals young to get them.32 As Gordon has pointed out, Gildersleeve belonged to a new generation of academic administrators who fought for women’s rights at universities. However, in contrast to many of the founders of women’s colleges in the nineteenth century who had argued that education could enhance domesticity, Gildersleeve campaigned for the admission of women to Columbia’s professional schools (medicine, law and journalism), favoured careers for women graduates and worked for better conditions for working mothers.33 Like other international women’s organisations, the IFUW was affected by the difficult political and economic situation of the 1930s. For example, Frau Matthias, an ardent Nazi chosen by Hitler, was appointed as the new president of the German Federation of the IFUW in 1934. This ‘reorganised’ German section that excluded Jewish women, as mentioned above, posed a problem to the IFUW, which did not wish to include it as a member. Moreover, as the 1936 IFUW conference had been planned to take place in Germany, the IFUW also needed to convince its German Federation that it should delay hosting a conference. It did this by emphasising that the German section was not able to organise a conference worthy of its country under the existing circumstances, in particular in view of the significant decline in its membership. In similar fashion to German branches of other international women’s organisations, the IFUW refused to comply with the new rules established by the Nazi state and its affiliate there was eventually dissolved by the German authorities.34 The IFUW, like other organisations, was also forced to hold conferences and council meetings less often during the 1930s due to the financial uncertainty. But, although IFUW national federations dropped from 36 in 1933 to 34 by 1939, it claimed that its overall membership had increased. National federations continued to pay 118

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their subscriptions satisfactorily, which meant that the IFUW’s income even increased slightly during these years.35 The similarities between the IFUW and other international women’s organisations are further demonstrated by the fact that their memberships were predominately drawn from the same group of educated upper and middle-class women and, therefore, often overlapped considerably. Many of the prominent members of other international women’s organisations were also members of IFUW as well as their own national associations for university women. For example, the president of the IAW from 1923, Margaret Corbett Ashby, and the president of WILPF, Jane Addams, were both part of the IFUW. Moreover, prominent national leaders such as the Indian Miss Tata and Cornelia Sorabji were involved in both the ICW and the IFUW. The Japanese section of WILPF was based at the Japan Women’s University in Tokyo, where most of its leading members were working: of these members, Mrs Inouye had proposed the formation of a Japanese Federation of university women in 1922, and Tano Jodai was an ICW Honorary Organiser in 1930.36 Yet, despite these overlapping concerns and memberships, the IFUW’s day-to-day agenda was specifically aimed at assisting university women, in particular with the challenge facing them of how to reconcile a career and family life. Moreover, its focus and commitment to international exchanges between students and teachers and the establishment of clubhouses differentiated it from other organisations. The privileges of IFUW membership included fellowships for research, exchange posts for secondary school teachers, assistance for individual travellers and the establishment of clubhouses. It also promoted exchanges of librarians, museum curators and archivists.37 The American Association took the lead in the establishment of international clubhouses, and by 1923 had already set them up in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Paris, with further clubs planned for Rome, Athens and Peking. The purpose of the American University Women’s Paris Club was thus to provide a residence for American university women ‘attending Sorbonne, the Colle`ge de France and other academic institutions of high standing and to bring them in touch with French life and thought and with university men and 119

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women of other nations’.38 The Fellowship fund was introduced at the 1924 conference, and provided scholarships raised by all the IFUW’s national associations for post-graduate study in another country than the student’s own. The BFUW was the first federation to establish this award in 1922, which went to archaeologist Dr Hanna Rydh of Sweden. But it should be noted that the fellowship programme of the oldest national university association, the AAUW (whose origins went back to 1882) was well established by the 1920s and had already benefited hundreds of American and foreign women by the time that it offered a similar fellowship to that of the BFUW in 1923. Associations in other countries soon followed suit. Following the 1924 conference, American university women also established another award, the Scandinavian Fellowship, in recognition of the hospitality of Scandinavian women at the Kristiania conference. These scholarships, apart from being important to the women who needed to go abroad to pursue their research,39 promoted the IFUW’s central objective of developing ‘understanding and friendship between university women of different countries and furthering their interests’.40 The IFUW was not alone in its concern with education. It has been argued by McDermid that, while the developing feminist movement in the nineteenth century had demanded equal educational opportunities and thus educational reform, by the first half of the twentieth century the feminist movement had moved from education to suffrage.41 This was certainly true for self-proclaimed ‘feminist’ organisations such as the IAW, which lacked any committee dedicated to education in the interwar period, though it did remain committed to educating ‘women for their task as citizens and to further their influence in public life’.42 Other international women’s organisations, however, were concerned with education questions at this time. The ICW, for instance, maintained a standing committee on education throughout the interwar period, and one of the first activities of the National Council of Chile was to campaign to obtain a Law on Compulsory Primary Education. In similar fashion, the International Congress in Chicago in 1933 included a round table discussion on education, and while WILPF’s committee on education had been abolished by 1924, it too had committees on co-operation 120

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with young people and its summer school.43 WILPF was also opposed to military education in schools and worried about the ‘nationalistic’ teaching of history. For this reason, its national sections carried out peace work in schools, with, for example, the Norwegian section giving lectures to teachers and lobbying to have peace questions and the work of the League of Nations included in the curriculum in primary and teacher training schools there.44 Militarism was also a cause for concern for the Women’s Association in Japan for International Friendship, which organised a conference for teachers in the early 1920s at which it sought to gain access to the texts in school books in order to abolish pieces of an ‘aggressive national spirit’.45 Jodai, leader of the Japanese section of WILPF, saw education as the solution to the problem of how to achieve peace, and argued at the 1926 congress that it was essential ‘to put international education into the schools, by further improvement of text books and the training in internationalism’.46 Indeed, WILPF aimed to introduce its principles of creating ‘international relations of mutual co-operation and good-will in which all wars shall be impossible’ and ‘the establishment of political, social and moral equality between men and women’ into all systems of education.47 Thus, while suffrage (and peace) certainly became the main concern for some women’s organisations during the interwar years, they did not lose sight of the importance of tackling the question of female educational opportunity. The uneven development of education in different parts of the world and the backlash against women’s rights that took place in the 1930s meant that education continued to be a priority for many. However, though some organisations, like the IAW and WILPF, were interested in education for reasons connected with citizenship and peace,48 others wanted to improve women’s access and quality of education and, in the case of the IFUW, to improve the status of university women specifically. The IFUW may have set out to distance itself from feminism and to find its own, distinct, role in the international women’s movement at this time, but it is clear that its agenda shared many similarities, and common preoccupations, with those of other associations, including the ICW, the IAW and WILPF. 121

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‘Truly international’ Like other organisations, the IFUW set itself the aim of being international and encompassing fully all its national federations in its work. During the early 1920s, the leaders of the IFUW, like those of other international women’s organisations, were optimistic about its growth. New federations were announced at its conferences and it was proud of its expansion, having grown from the initial two organisations to 31 by 1929.49 The IFUW was also pleased by the attendance at its conferences, and described its 1922 meeting in Paris, which was attended by several hundred women ‘literally from all over the world’ as one ‘most unique in the history of international meetings [with] French and English with all shades of accents [. . .] the official languages heard at the conference’.50 The IFUW largely followed the same pattern of expansion as that of the ICW, the IAW and WILPF. It too set out with members and affiliations drawn from predominately western Europe and North America, then moved into Australia, New Zealand and Southern and Eastern Europe and finally into South America, Asia and the Middle East over the course of the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, its quick expansion can partly be explained by its later formation in comparison with the ICW and the IAW, which meant that, like WILPF, it did not really get under way until the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was also assisted by the fact that national associations already existed in some countries prior to its formation and its focus on education might have made it seem ‘safe’ during what were antifeminist times. But despite its rapid growth and even though women from the non-West attended IFUW conferences, few of its members came from outside Europe and North America in the interwar period. Not only was a university degree a prerequisite for membership, a university woman could only be admitted to the IFUW through a national federation in her own country. Thus, the IFUW opportunities for expansion were in practice limited by the fact that university education for women had yet to be developed, or even accepted, in many non-Western countries and the number of women who had received a higher education there remained low. Spurgeon 122

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herself admitted that the international work of the IFUW was made difficult by the limited number of university women in most countries.51 The development of higher education for women was clearly uneven. For example, according to the 1923 edition of The Journal of the American Association of University Women, each year more women graduated from US universities than then existed as alumnae in the whole of the rest of the 17 countries of the IFUW put together. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, as with other international organisations, a large proportion of the IFUW membership came from English-speaking countries, and its conferences were dominated by the American and British Associations.52 Developments within countries also varied. For instance, the Palestinian Association’s report to the 1932 IFUW conference emphasised that even though the country had hundreds of potential members, these were predominately Jewish. According to the same report, there was not a single Muslim university-educated woman in the country. Thus, in comparison with the ICW, WILPF and especially the IAW, IFUW expansion into the non-West was relatively slow, and by the time the 1930s had ended associations from this part of the world only consisted of those in Argentina (1938), Brazil (1931), Egypt (1931), India (1921), Mexico (1927), Palestine (1932), South Africa (1923) and Uruguay (1938). Moreover, the Egyptian, Palestinian and Indian organisations were largely represented by foreign (Western) university women, in particular the British. Likewise, the membership of the AAUW’s branch in Japan consisted of only American and British women and those Japanese women who had studied abroad. This was in no way unique to non-Western national branches of the IFUW. For example, Littell-Lamb describes the Chinese YWCA in the 1920s as a ‘SinoWestern’ hybrid because of the number and prominence of Western secretaries and their frequent compliance with Western imperialism.53 Yet, IFUW’s membership restrictions clearly slowed down its growth in this part of the world. Indeed, by the end of the 1930s, the IFUW had no non-Western women on its board and only one non-Western woman on any of its committees (Mrs Mohl from Palestine).54 The IFUW was especially disappointed about the lack of members from the Soviet Union, Latin America, Turkey and what it described 123

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as the ‘Orient’, areas of the world in which it was well aware that other organisations already had members, and attempts were thus made to form associations in those regions.55 Like the ICW, the IAW and WILPF, the IFUW’s quest for international expansion resulted in it bending its rules in the interwar period. Suggestions were made at the IFUW’s 1929 conference that a committee should be set up to study how to include groups of university women who were unable to form a national federation. For instance, a group of university women in Egypt, comprising foreign female graduates of other countries, were not eligible to join the IFUW as long as they lacked a graduate from Egypt who could form the nucleus of such a national organisation. Indeed, following a proposal by the British Federation, the IFUW amended its constitution so that in countries that lacked national federations, women with suitable academic qualifications could, in exceptional cases, be invited to be corresponding members. The greatest degree of compromise was seen at international conferences where women from the so-called ‘East’ were allowed to represent their native country without a national section having first been affiliated. For example, at the IFUW’s first conference in London, Michi Karwai, an American graduate (and active in the YWCA), was asked to speak about Japan. This practice continued at the IFUW’s subsequent conferences; in Paris in 1922 Japanese university women were represented by a Mrs Fujisawa, and at Kristiania in 1924 Chinese university women were represented by Grace Yang, even though both Japan and China lacked the necessary national federations.56 The small representation of non-Western women can be demonstrated by the way the IFUW publicised the involvement of its Chinese visitor, Grace Yang, at the 1924 conference. Yang had been educated in the United States, and, in addition to being involved in higher education issues, had also worked as the secretary for the YWCA in Tientsin. She herself testified to the difficulties of setting up national federations in the non-West, and explained that the problem in her own country was due to the fairly recent opening up of colleges and universities to women, which meant that there were, as yet, few university women in China. Her report on the situation in 124

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China and her announcement that an association of university women there was to join the IFUW in the near future pleased other delegates, who passed a resolution sending their greetings to their Chinese friends as well as expressing the wish that these would soon be incorporated into the IFUW. Articles expressed amazement at Yang’s six-week long journey to be present at the conference. Moreover, the lingering influence of colonial discourse on international women’s organisations meant that Yang’s appearance drew much comment, in particular her small stature: people were repeatedly curious about this ‘little’ Chinese woman, just as they were about non-Western women delegates and visitors to IAW, ICW and WILPF conferences. To a great extent, Yang became the symbol and representative of an ‘exotic’ and faraway country about which most of those present probably knew very little. Her presence caught the imagination of delegates and wider society alike, and played its part in strengthening belief in international friendship between women.57 However, the disproportional attention given to Yang also indicates how ‘un-international’ the IFUW really was at the beginning of the 1920s. Indeed, having achieved little success in Asia by the 1930s, the IFUW turned instead to holding meetings in conjunction with the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference and considered establishing a branch office somewhere in the Pacific area.58 Despite the IFUW’s undeniable difficulties in expanding outside the West, its rhetoric demonstrated its commitment to international expansion and a fairer distribution of ‘power’ among its members. Gildersleeve claimed that it had no desire to force ideas on any nation but believed that countries would learn from each other. She went so far as to apologise on behalf of the British Federation and the American Association for their predominance at the first conference and declared that they wished women from other than Englishspeaking countries to take an active part in all its activities. Furthermore, Gildersleeve’s memoirs state that she and her colleagues wanted the IFUW to be truly international, something that, she recognised, could not be achieved if one nation, the United States, dominated the organisation. The Americans therefore agreed that its association, or any other, should not be granted more than five votes 125

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at any conference. Gildersleeve also claimed that, despite the fact that nearly all the funds came from the United States, members there never tried to dominate the IFUW, as highlighted by the request by the chief of the American Association to her members at the 1924 conference that they should allow their official leaders do the talking for them, as they, as a group, would otherwise swamp the meetings. Gildersleeve was equally determined that the presidency should circulate rapidly among the member countries and wished it to be in other hands than those of English-speaking federations. Therefore, although re-nominated in 1926, she chose not to stand again and was replaced by the former vice-president Dr Ellen Gleditsch from Norway. In addition, the IFUW also decided to increase its vicepresidents from one to three at its conference in 1924, presumably to achieve greater representation. The fact that a revision of the voting system was proposed by the smaller associations following the discrepancies that developed between ‘financial contributions on the one hand and voting on the other’, suggests that the size and financial contribution of an individual member organisation did have an impact in the interwar period.59 The IFUW’s belief in the existence of a bond between university women wherever they lived in the world meant that, in its view, these women faced similar problems. At the same time, the IFUW claimed that the progress of ‘Eastern women’ was being helped by the experience of their friends from other countries and the comparatively large proportion of foreign university women working as teachers, doctors, and so forth in the ‘East’, who were contributing to the forming of associations there. For example, Mrs Macmillan, a member of the American Association at the Union Medical College in Peking, wrote to Gildersleeve asking for advice as to the formation of a Chinese branch in 1922, expressing the view that it could not be run by the Chinese themselves. The IFUW shared the attitude that ‘Eastern’ women stood to learn from the West with other international women’s organisations at the time, but although Western women located in the ‘East’ could sometimes contribute to the process of ‘enlightening’ the Western public by challenging stereotypical images of ‘Eastern’ women in the country where they 126

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worked, the idea that nations should learn from one another, as expressed by Gildersleeve in 1923, failed to transpire. All the same, non-Western women such as Yang and the Brazilian Cavalcauti seem to have been generally grateful for the assistance and support of their colleagues in the West.60 The IFUW throughout this period was dominated by a few countries, in particular the United States. Being the largest meant that the American Association had greater funds at its disposal and was therefore able to undertake the responsibility of purchasing and running clubhouses, endowing scholarships and developing educational activities.61 Although reports from the different countries confirmed a unity of aim between the associations, they nonetheless highlighted differences between the position of, and opportunities for, university women in various parts of the world. Like other international women’s organisations, therefore, the IFUW sought to expand its membership around the world in the interwar period. It wished to move away from being dominated by Englishspeaking countries and accordingly it introduced a range of measures to achieve this in regard to voting, its presidency and national spokespersons at its conferences. But, though the IFUW’s expansion in the interwar period was impressive, its growth in the non-West was markedly slower than other international women’s organisations, especially in comparison with the IAW. It may have believed that it was ‘unique’ in bringing women of many different nationalities together in the 1920s; however, other organisations proved themselves to be more ‘international’. Despite its ambitious aims, it was also less representative than its counterparts, as it failed to incorporate fully women from the non-West into its organisational structures at this time. In many ways, it was hampered by the logic of its own rationale.

International students and international women’s organisations The movement of non-Western women, especially east Asian, to the West for educational purposes at the beginning of the twentieth 127

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century benefited all the major international women’s organisations, as their expansion in the so-called ‘East’ in the interwar period tended to rely on women who had been educated in the West to play a key role in the establishment of national branches in their native country. Yet, despite the encouragement of international exchanges of students being one of the IFUW’s main activities during the 1920s and 1930s, few non-Western women were assisted by its scholarships and instead they had to rely on funding from other organisations, their governments or families. One very important reason for going abroad as far as these women were concerned was the lack of educational opportunities in their own societies in the early twentieth century. As in the West, the opening up of higher education for women and the establishment of higher educational institutions for women in the ‘East’ had often met with protests. Even though both the access to and quality of university education did improve for women in many parts of the world, hostility towards women who claimed the right to higher education persisted. Access to Western education, however, was not always straightforward. As Ye has argued, the cost of study in the United States went far beyond the economic capacities of most Chinese families, who had to rely on government funding or other forms of financial aid.62 Indeed, as mentioned earlier, one of the IFUW’s main activities during the interwar period was to encourage international exchanges of students, and Spurgeon had made this very clear in her address at the IFUW’s inaugural conference in 1920: Encouraging and making it easy for university graduates to spend a year of study in a university in another country than their own. There is no surer way of making friends than to work and play together. Each of these students who goes to another country forms there a little circle of friends, gains inside knowledge of the points of view, the conditions, the temperament, the history of another great people, and in consequence, that student will affect everyone that she meets in after life when she returns to her own land.63 128

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Apart from contributing to the establishment of friendship between women worldwide, international exchanges, it was hoped, would also contribute to the promotion of scientific advancements and sharing of knowledge internationally. IFUW fellowships and those offered by its national associations were highly competitive, as large numbers of suitable candidates applied for them. For example, the scholarship offered by the Swedish Federation between 1937 and 1939 received applications from Finnish, American, Dutch, Austrian, British, Yugoslavian and French women, and the AAUW was only able to fund 11 of the 150 that applied for its fellowships in 1929.64 No IFUW fellowship, however, was awarded to any non-Western woman between 1920 and 1934. Exchanges to countries and regions that were not yet members of the IFUW, such as east Asia, were also excluded. Nevertheless, the international movement of students was greatly helped by national federations and other organisations such as the YWCA. As the number of scholarships was clearly limited, the British Federation even acknowledged that it was more difficult for foreign students to obtain scholarships awarded by individual British universities and that there were very few offered only to international students. As a result, many students were self-funded, the vast majority coming from well-to-do families, with many of them either being Christians or having attended Christian schools. Very often it was the parents’ generation who encouraged these young women to be educated abroad. For instance, all the children in the prominent Chinese Soong family, which included Mrs Chiang Kaishek (before marriage Mayling Soong), had been sent abroad to study by their father, who was a wealthy Christian businessman. Likewise, Japanese members of WILPF were keen to send their daughters to study abroad. And Renuka Ray (ne´e Mukarjee), active in the All-India Women’s Conference and prominent social worker in India, stated in her autobiography that she had greatly benefited from her parents’ plans for her to be educated in England.65 While higher education was the main goal, an education in the West also meant finding out more about the West and the possibility of encountering the women’s movements there. Indeed, foreign students in London during the early twentieth century were likely to 129

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have come into contact with associations such as the London Graduates’ Union for Women’s Suffrage and the University of London War and Peace Society. Bedford College students, for instance, were exposed to the IFUW, as it held both its first meeting and its first conference on its premises. According to Ye, while Chinese female students in the United States probably first encountered feminism back in China, their feminist convictions were greatly strengthened during their time abroad. Miss Shidachi is one such Japanese student who testified to having been influenced by her time studying in the West. As a student at the University of London, she spent six years in the city, where, she claimed in a 1920 interview for the International Woman Suffrage News, she had been inspired by the progress of women in the West and become committed to working for change upon her return to Japan.66 Likewise, Chinese Grace Yang reflected on the importance on Chinese women educated abroad: ‘Chinese women who have spent several years in America or Europe are naturally the ones to whom we turn in our quest for knowledge, and the conclusions arrived at by these women in regard to our civilization are extremely vital in many ways.’67 Thus, time in the West had a profound individual impact on many of these ‘Eastern’ students, something on which Mrs Herman C.E. Liu, Chinese delegate at the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1928, commented: It is really interesting to notice that returned girl students carry some characteristics of that certain race with whom they have come into close contact. Returned students from America usually become doctors, social workers. A great many of them marry and become better home-makers. Returned girl students from England are practically all teachers and usually stay single; from France they are usually ‘free in their thinking’; while from Russia they are revolutionists, and, many, communists too!68 These pioneering ‘Eastern’ women who had been educated in the West were in effect courted by international women’s organisations, 130

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with their journals reporting, for instance, that one of the first practising Chinese woman lawyers in Shanghai (Soume´ Chen), the first woman professor at an Egyptian university (Zeinab Kamel) and the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Turkey (Safie Abi) were graduates of the Sorbonne, University of London and a German university respectively.69 Likewise, Dr Pierra Hoon, a Siamese (Thai) student at the Sorbonne, received attention as an ‘ardent feminist’, committed to the organisation of women and improvements of their position in her home country.70 Pleasure, together with a certain amount of pride, was undoubtedly taken in the impact that such women could make. Edith Pye, member of the British section of WILPF, remarked in the wake of the organisation’s mission to China in 1928 that: ‘America has made it possible to send considerable number of Chinese women to college in the United States, and these women have been a great influence in the growth of the women’s movement.’71 Pye’s comment clearly reflects her experiences in China, where the vast majority of women whom she encountered had been educated in the West, in particular the leaders and members of local women’s organisations. One of the most interesting meetings for Pye and her travel companion Camille Drevet was when they were invited for tea at the Euro– American Returned Students Club in Canton. In many ways, Pye’s reactions suggest that she, like other Western women of the time, trusted in the inherent superiority of Western societies and, thus, the value of Chinese women studying in and learning from the West. The YWCA, similarly, maintained the importance of Western countries lending a hand by receiving Japanese women into their own colleges, made necessary by the slow development of higher education in Japan.72 All the above examples highlight the emphasis placed by international women’s organisations on non-Western students learning from the West, not only in training for a profession but also to acquaint themselves with the women’s movements there. Indeed, when countries lacked national federations, they were often represented by one of their nationals who was studying locally or near to where a conference was held. For example, the fraternal representative of Transjordanian and Arab Women at the IAW 131

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1939 conference, Miss Abul Huda, was a student at Oxford University, and a Miss Wong, a Chinese student of medicine at Michigan, was present at the IFUW’s 1922 conference. Similarly, national branches located far from a conference could also be represented by one of their nationals studying in that country. So, the WILPF Japanese branch was represented by Japanese students (and also daughters of Japanese WILPF members) in the United States at its conference in Washington in 1924, one of whom was a Matsuyo Takizawa studying at Columbia University in New York.73 The encounter between these students and Western feminism, and their contact with women involved in international women’s organisations or activism, could on their return to their native country result in them playing an important role in both established women’s organisations and in the setting up of new national branches. A good example of this is Chinese Ding Shuching, who became interested in the World YWCA on her first trip to the United States in 1919. Following a meeting with World and American YWCA leaders during a second trip there for graduate study in 1924, she was appointed general secretary of the Chinese branch in 1926. The World YWCA leaders respected Shuching’s intellectual capabilities, devotion to Christianity and fluent English. Likewise, Japanese Baroness Ishimoto was introduced to American feminists and the causes close to their hearts while on her visits to the United States. In 1919, she travelled there with her husband, and enrolled in a YWCA training school to take a secretarial course and to learn English. During the trip she met Margaret Sanger, leader of the birth control movement, in which she herself became involved later, and during a second trip in 1924 she came into contact with many American feminists, including Carrie Chapman Catt and Harriet Stanton Blatch, which, apparently, made her appreciate their long battle for enfranchisement.74 Many other individual examples exist from this period of leaders and members of branches in the ‘East’ who had been educated in the West. Japanese Michi Karwai, one of the vice-presidents of the World YWCA in the early 1920s and also active in the IFUW, WILPF and the IAW, was a graduate of Bryn Mawr. Tano Jodai, president of the 132

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Japanese section of WILPF, carried out graduate work at the University of Michigan in the mid-1920s. Most of the Japanese delegates to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1930 had been educated in the United States. Hu Binxia, who had studied on a scholarship at Wellesley College from 1907 to 1913, Mrs Hung, who was educated at Columbia University, Soume´ Chen, graduate of the Sorbonne, and Mrs Herman Liu (formerly Miss Frances Wong) who held a graduate degree from Northwestern University in the United States, all became leading activists in China’s women’s movements. Indian women leaders such as Renuka Ray, Hansa Mehta and Lady Tata were also educated in the West. Mehta and Tata both sat on the executive of the NCW of India; Mehta was also the vice-president of the All-India Women’s Conference, which was affiliated to the IAW in the mid-1930s; while Tata was involved in the Indian Federation of the IFUW.75 Another well-known example was the Indian activist Cornelia Sorabji, who was ‘the first woman to study law at Oxford University, the first to be allowed to take law examinations there and the first woman to be admitted to the bar and to plead court cases in India or Great Britain’.76 The international movement of students also affected South America, where, for instance, the president of the NCW in Chile (Lebarca De Hewett), professor of psychology at the National University, had studied for her doctor’s degree at Columbia University and also at the Sorbonne and several members of the Mexican section of WILPF likewise held degrees from American universities.77 Further sources of Western influence in countries such as China were the Protestant mission schools operated by foreigners, which allowed women to access a Western-style education without the need to travel abroad. Financially, it made increasing sense to establish colleges abroad rather than educating non-Western women in the West, since, as a pamphlet from Ginling College put it, ‘seven girls [could be] educated in China at the cost of one in America’. Other American colleges abroad, such as one in Iran, were also attracting increasing numbers of female students during the same period.78 But, despite the positive accounts of this international movement, there is evidence to suggest that some ‘Eastern’ women were worried 133

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about the effect that being educated in the West had on students. Irene Ho Tung, Chinese delegate to the 1929 WILPF congress, echoed this concern in her report to the meeting: Every year, thousands of our students come to study in your countries, and we feel that this alone will do much good in the matter of international understanding. We appreciate much of what you have done for them, and we can only hope that they will do justice to the training you have given them. But while giving them every facility to know all your good points, you should also be broadminded enough to point out to them your own weaknesses and inadequacies. Develop in them the true attitude of constructive criticism and do not allow them to persuade themselves that only what you have in your countries are good. Even if you do not know what are the conditions in their countries, make them realise that only very little can be carried over from one country to another, though it is invaluable to be able to see the situation in each country with clarity.79 She also expressed her disappointment that, for all the lectures and peace conferences that had taken place, there had been little noticeable improvement in the way in which the West portrayed foreigners, who were often depicted as ‘villains’ in the cinema and the theatre, made worse by out-of-date and erroneous textbooks at schools.80 This kind of reaction indicates that, while perhaps small in number, there were ‘Eastern’ women such as Ho who expressed anxiety about the ‘Westernisation’ of students abroad, the loss of identity and belief in their own cultural values, and the tendency for Western culture to be portrayed as ‘superior’. All the same, the Chinese government of the time valued the education of Chinese students abroad, even during the difficult circumstances of the late 1930s when China was experiencing Japanese occupation: ‘The Chinese Government, while facing difficult times, is deeply conscious of the necessity of providing opportunities for the training of the coming generation and despite the reluctance of many students 134

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to leave China during the present crisis, it is the desire of the Government and the leaders that they should continue their studies as originally planned.’81 This was perhaps not strange bearing in mind that the wife of the then Chinese leader, Chiang Kaishek, had been educated abroad herself. Once a national section had been set up in the non-West, this did not mean that trips by its leaders to the West ceased. They continued to visit, especially the United States and England, in order to learn from what were perceived to be the more experienced or developed organisations there. Fusae Ichikawa, leader of the Woman’s Suffrage League of Japan, visited an American Suffrage Organisation and its branches in 1928. Lady Aberdeen (president of the ICW) suggested that Tano Jodai, in conjunction with her presence at the 1926 WILPF congress in Dublin, should visit the ICWoffice in London in order to see the workings of the British NCW. Similarly, the Chinese secretary of the YWCA, Shi Baochen, came to New York in 1937 for a year of study and internship with the American YWCA, while Japanese social workers visited Jane Addams in Chicago to learn from her work in that city.82 Thus, the movement of ‘Eastern’ women to the West for purposes connected with education proved to be crucial in relation to the establishment of contacts and recruitment for most international women’s organisations during the interwar period. They were exposed to Western culture and likely to come into contact with feminist movements there. These ‘Westernised’ Eastern women, fluent in Western languages and with firsthand familiarity with Western culture and female activism, represented ideal recruits for international women’s organisations as these expanded around the world. Indeed, most of the leaders of national branches in nonWestern countries came from this minority of elite educated women, who provided a very efficient link to the East as they were often active in more than one association. *** The IFUW was formed by North American and British women in the aftermath of World War I to foster international co-operation 135

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among university women, and it quickly expanded during the fertile years for the growth of female education in the West that followed. Despite the IFUW’s claim to be different from other organisations, in particular maintaining that it was not ‘feminist’, it had much in common with other international women’s organisations of the period. For, while ‘education’ was the specific issue around which the IFUW organised, education proved crucial to all these organisations and their constituency of upper and middle-class women. All the same, the IFUW arguably received wider public recognition than other international women’s organisations at this time, for, despite the fact that its overall agenda, like those of others, placed enormous emphasis on the emancipation of women, its apparent ‘public’ distancing from ‘feminism’ and focus on ‘education’ meant that it gained broader acceptance and support. On the other hand, the IFUW was different from others in that it did work specifically for one group of women – those with a university education – and it was the only international women’s organisation for which a university degree was a prerequisite for membership. Although this shared qualification strengthened the bonds between its members, it also hampered the organisation’s expansion into places, primarily outside the West, where the growth of higher education for women was taking place more slowly. And so, despite the IFUW’s grand aims of international expansion and friendships, of being ‘inclusive’ and not being dominated by its English-speaking federations, it remained arguably the least international of the major international women’s organisations at this time. Some of its national branches also practised exclusions on racial and religious grounds. Moreover, even though one of the IFUW’s main objectives was to encourage the international exchange of students, its contribution in this respect proved limited. While ‘Eastern’ women educated in the West proved to be ideal recruits for international women’s organisations such as the IFUW, it would seem that the interaction involved was yet again not one between equals. Despite emphasising international friendship and that everyone involved would learn from each other, the task of ‘instruction’ largely fell on early members, who tended to be Western, and the ‘learning’ was reserved for latecomers, who tended to be from the East. 136

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I could not but be captivated by the grandeur and beauty of the country, the sky and the vast expanses, the birds and flowers, the colour and peace, and I am very grateful for the invitation which brought such store of beauty to my mind and the greater interest of a social consciousness awakening and manifesting itself through a sister ‘council of women’. (‘My Visit to South Africa’ by H. Franklin, ICW, Bulletin, IV/8 (1926)) International travel, and the exchange and interaction fostered by it, played a central role in the expansion of international women’s organisations: in both practical and symbolic ways it underpinned their aim of establishing worldwide co-operation, friendship and ‘sisterhood’. But although they did operate in all directions, trips, especially officially endorsed ones, were mainly carried out by North American and western European women travelling to other parts of the world. The travelling itself can be divided into three stages or phases: firstly ‘fact-finding’, secondly ‘recruitment’ and finally ‘support’. Early, fact-finding, travel, which stretched back to World War I, was usually

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undertaken by officers of these organisations to find out about the situation of women and women’s movements elsewhere in the world and to make all-important initial contacts. As the twentieth century progressed, travelling came to be used as a deliberate strategy by international women’s organisations not only to propagate their causes, such as suffrage, women’s rights and peace, but also to recruit new members. Travel during this second phase was aimed at establishing networks that would result in more countries being affiliated to their associations. Once the pace of recruitment began to slow down, however, travelling did continue but was now used to a much greater extent to ‘support’ the work of national sections around the world, by boosting the efforts of newly formed affiliations, especially in countries located far from headquarters in the West, and by arranging national exchanges between older members. However, these three ‘stages’ were not fixed or separated chronologically. Instead, they often overlapped, influenced as they were by other factors such as the age of an organisation, its ideology and, above all, the destination of the trip itself, all of which had implications for how the female travellers involved subsequently described the women whom they visited to their home audiences.

‘Fact-finding’ Early ‘fact-finding’ travel by members of the International Council of Women (ICW) and the International Alliance of Women (IAW), a large proportion of it carried out before World War I, shared similarities with the journeys of European women in the nineteenth century who sought to gain knowledge and experience of other countries and cultures through the collection of sociological, botanical, medical and political ‘facts’. Their trips often took the form of so-called ‘world tours’, during which senior members within these organisations travelled extensively in order to find out about developments elsewhere. Their aim of introducing and involving other women in their own feminist movements, by helping organise associations that could be affiliated to their networks,1 however, had little success at this time. 138

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The best-known ‘world tour’ that dates from this period and set the pattern that later travellers followed was carried out by IAW president Carrie Chapman Catt (American) and senior member Aletta Jacobs (Dutch) between 1911 and 1913. In all, their travels encompassed South Africa, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Ceylon, India, Burma, the East Indies, the Philippines, China, Korea and Japan. This tour represented the IAW’s first effort to expand beyond the West, and so represents the organisation’s earliest interaction with Middle Eastern women in particular.2 In effect, the IAW officers concerned were entering ‘unknown’ territories, yet they did so supported by the worldwide network of missionaries and representatives already established by organisations such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). World tours of this kind were inevitably expensive, as travellers needed money for the fares and week-long journeys on board ships, as well as to cover their extended stays in different countries. Thus, Jacobs financed her trip by writing regular travel articles for a Dutch newspaper, while Catt produced articles on their journey that were published in IAW’s Jus Suffragii (later IWSN) as well as The Woman Citizen.3 On their return, both women reported on the tour at the IAW’s 1913 congress in Budapest, where they described the progress of women’s movements in the countries that they had visited. Not surprisingly, enormous emphasis was laid on the apparent success of their trip. Such an assessment was later reinforced by the 1944 biography by Grey Peck of Catt’s life and career. According to Catt and Jacobs and as reported by Grey Peck, the two women had managed to affiliate a Chinese suffragist society to the IAW during their stay in China. Furthermore, according to Grey Peck’s biography, Catt clearly admired Chinese women who, she believed, had learned how to organise and conduct propaganda through their participation in the revolutionary movement that had recently helped to bring about the downfall of China’s Qing rulers. The newly established revolutionary government in China included six women, and Catt credited Chinese feminists, of whom she had never heard before the trip, as abreast of, if not exactly leading the way in, the feminist movement.4 Similarly, Catt confessed to being impressed to 139

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find an active feminist movement in Egypt that was in the process of being stimulated by the anti-British nationalist movement developing momentum there after World War I. Upper-class Egyptian women, as she had discovered for herself, were actively working for women’s rights, publishing articles urging educational and economic justice for women and speaking up for women’s rights in public, for example lecturing at the new University of Cairo. In India, Catt and Jacobs also learned of other ‘emancipated’ women such as the Maharanee of Baroda who encouraged female involvement in education and business, Miss Kumudini Mitra of Bengal who published a women’s newspaper, and Miss Cornelia Sorabji who had been admitted to the bar and was practising law, something denied to woman in England at the time. Catt recorded, perhaps with a hint of surprise, that Mrs S.G. Ranaday, a Hindu reformer whom they had met at a women’s club, ‘is as much of a feminist as I am’.5 Indeed, on her return home, Catt recognised that the trip had changed her, declaring: Once I was a regular jingo but that was before I had visited other countries. I had thought America had a monopoly on all that stands for progress, but I had a sad awakening [. . .] we have got much more than we gave – an experience so upsetting to all our preconceived notions that is it difficult to estimate its influence upon us. I sincerely pray that some degree of blessing this trip has been to me may be given to others, and especially that I may be able to convey to others the intensified conviction that the Cause of women cannot wait.6 This extract suggests that Catt remained confident about her contribution to the ‘cause of women’ worldwide. While the trip appeared to have challenged the preconceived ideas that Catt and Jacobs shared about the ‘East’ and, in particular, about ‘Eastern’ women, this did not mean that they necessarily abandoned their belief that women were better off in Western societies. Though Catt and Jacobs came from countries with different experiences of empire, they exhibited pretty similar attitudes to the ‘East’ in the main. 140

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Like earlier European women travellers in the nineteenth century who had used customs such as polygamy and the harem in order to highlight the oppression of ‘Eastern’ women,7 both Catt and Jacobs while on tour discovered things about the position of women in the ‘East’ that still upset them. Catt in particular was especially disturbed by the use of the veil, which she had thought was a religious requirement until she had learned from the politicised sister of the mayor of Jerusalem that there was nothing in the Quran to compel Muslim women to wear it, and, indeed, in her view the custom seemed harder to break down than religious commands. She was likewise startled, as she put it, by the variety of attitudes and the extent to which these challenged her pre-existing ideas, but she was equally surprised to find that those Arab women whom she met in Jerusalem, and who expressed, as she saw it, ‘advanced’ ideas, were completely unaware of the existence of similar thinking elsewhere.8 Her confidence in her mission was further reflected in her reaction to Japanese feminists, whom she described as restrained, shy, innocent and in awe of their government, claiming that she had ‘had to work hard to persuade the hesitant [Japanese] ladies to take what they considered a plunge into great waters, but they finally capitulated’.9 Catt also spoke at the 1913 congress with indignation about the enforced prostitution that she had encountered during her trip. Likewise she highlighted the fact that Chinese women, upon whom both she and Jacobs had looked with a greater degree of respect as compared with other Asian women, did not escape being ridiculed for their dress in the Cantonese parliament. And while Catt and Jacobs clearly admired the progress being made by the non-Western women whom they had encountered on their tour, their travel experiences, according to Grey Peck, seem primarily to have confirmed the role of leadership taken by Western women, whether from North America or from Europe, within the international women’s movement. Indeed, as their reports indicated, both of these IAW officers regarded Western societies in general and the progress made by women within them as the norm, or starting point, for change in other parts of the world. Like women travellers before them, Catt and Jacobs’ descriptions of other countries and women 141

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there were presented only in terms of how different these places were in relation to the West, difference that perhaps not surprisingly was portrayed as ‘strange’. Since most female activists in the West at this time assessed women’s standing and equality on the basis of how much access women had to the public sphere, they attached especial significance, for instance, to issues such as the use of the veil and sexual segregation in Muslim societies, but at the same time, it would seem, tended to overlook Muslim women’s own interpretation of their status and so missed the extent of the social influence that these women possessed in practice.10 Catt summarised the trip on behalf of herself and her fellow traveller Jacobs as follows: We have made suffrage speeches to audiences on four continents: America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and on the ships of three oceans. Our audiences have included the followers of every main religion, Christian and Jew, Mohammedan, Hindu, Parsee, Buddhist, Confucian, and Shinto, Malay, Polynesian, Mongolian. We have left the seeds of revolution behind us, and the hope of liberty in many souls.11 Such comments suggest that their attitudes towards those whom they came across on their travels to the ‘East’ were very much influenced by the international standing of their own countries, the United States and the Netherlands. The fact that Jacobs too was influenced by prevailing Western discourses was reflected, for instance, in her belief that the Dutch had succeeded in improving the situation in their colonies, a comment mediated perhaps by her desire to compare her own country’s experience of empire in relation to that of the British.12 Historians have argued that the whole notion of empire during this period, whether informal or formal, was based on ideologies of superiority, which created power imbalances between colonisers and colonised: according to Cook, for instance, ‘equipped with a host of justifications – divine dispensation, survival of the fittest, arid patriotism, civilizing mission – Westerners occupied and ruled over an unprecedented portion of the world’.13 For many women from the 142

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West, such as Catt and Jacobs, who were involved in international organisations, this prevailing discourse translated into a steadfast and genuinely held belief that they had a duty to pass on the lessons that they had already learnt to other women in other places. In this they were not alone for, as Burton has argued, many middle-class British feminists at the time saw their role as saving their unfortunate Eastern sisters.14 As in the nineteenth century, perceptions of the non-West acquired by women thanks to travel, although far from uniform, were informed by ideas connected with the whole business of Western ‘civilising missions’. So even though tours such as those undertaken by Catt and Jacobs just before World War I challenged a number of preconceived ideas about the ‘East’, they failed to lead to any serious questioning of the cultural foundations of the IAW and the methods employed to realise its goals. It could also be argued that a similar form of ‘empowerment’ to that experienced by some nineteenth-century European women travellers, whose status had been based on ‘race’ and class rather than sex within the Empire, reinforced their confidence in their various missions and in themselves as leaders. However, one significant distinction was that well-known nineteenth-century female travellers such as Mary Kingsley, despite their own personal liberation in the course of their travels and as a result of their publications, did not champion women’s rights in their home countries.15 Catt and Jacobs, along with their fellow IAW members, remained stalwart from the outset in their pursuit of improved rights for women wherever they lived. Nevertheless, the encounters produced by trips of this kind were complex and influenced by the fact that the colonial encounter itself was not homogenous. Apart from the differences between direct and indirect colonialism, colonial powers varied in their approach towards their colonies. Non-Western countries were also perceived differently at various times during the colonial period, and this too influenced the relationships and interaction between women. Moreover, the experiences of women travellers representing international women’s organisations meeting with colonised women are likely to have differed from that of other Western women such as the spouses and daughters of colonising officials, nurses, missionaries and independent 143

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travellers, since their travel was specifically motivated by the pursuit of their goal of ‘international sisterhood’. Thus, the well-established argument that travelling constituted a liberating experience for women, by offering them an escape from the constraints of domestic life at home as well as giving them access to the public sphere through their travel writings,16 is not necessarily applicable in the case of women involved in organisations such as the IAW, as their political activities at home had often already established them as independent and important figures. And unlike the vast majority of nineteenthcentury women travellers, some members of the international women’s movements spoke out against Empire.

‘Recruitment’ International travel proved crucial to the expansion of international women’s organisations, as it allowed these organisations to interact with feminists in other countries and to draw associations from around the world into their networks. The ICW, IAW, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) were all established in the West and later expanded around the world. While recruitment by these organisations commenced at different times and followed different patterns, the 1920s witnessed unprecedented expansion by all of them in many directions. Unlike earlier factfinding ‘world tours’, therefore, trips during the 1920s tended to be aimed more specifically at recruiting new non-Western members. Efforts were made to turn contacts achieved during the earlier period into more formal associations, which could be affiliated to these organisations. Interestingly, it did not make a great deal of difference in terms of responses where in the West the individual traveller came from – what was more significant was the particular organisation that she was representing. Some of the most extensive recruitment tours in the 1920s included the 1922 world trip of Jane Addams (American), WILPF president; WILPF’s mission to China (1927–8); that of ICW activist Louise van Eeghen (Dutch) to South America (1925–6); and Catt’s 144

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travels to Latin America as well as different parts of Europe (1922–3). However, recruitment travel did not always take the form of such grand round-the-world tours by senior members, since these organisations actively encouraged all their members to travel on the grounds that independent travel by members would improve links between countries at no financial cost to the organisations themselves.17 Indeed, the ICW was keen to recruit women, who had both money and time, to travel on its behalf. As it argued in the early 1920s, ‘such Patrons, far from being just ornamental members of our International Council, can become most helpful ambassadresses for us, if they will attend our meetings and keep in touch with our work’.18 And despite the individual personal costs involved, it is evident that travelling by members of these organisations was widespread. For example, all but two of the national federations of the IFUW reported on receptions and other entertainments provided for foreign members, who had visited them either individually or in a group, in the period leading up to the 1932 conference.19 Travels outside the West The IAW, ICW and WILPF all took a great interest in South America in the 1920s and the 1930s, as they regarded this continent as one in which they particularly could, and needed to, expand their activities and membership. The fact that countries there were located in relative close proximity to the United States, and were therefore easily reached, together with South America’s cultural familiarity to women coming from the West, meant that there was much effort expended in this geographical direction. By the early 1920s, for instance, Catt had identified that the IAW was particularly weak there and she arranged an all-American conference to be held in Baltimore in 1922, at which she met the Brazilian Bertha Lutz, who was later to become prominent within the IAW. Subsequently, during the 1920s, all three organisations sent groups of prominent women on ‘recruitment tours’ to this region. For instance, Catt together with Rosa Manus (Dutch), of the IAW, visited in 1922, accompanied by two Americans, Anita van Lennep (who had lived in South America and spoke Spanish fluently) and Elizabeth Babcock. 145

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Their itinerary included six countries, chosen because they had the largest populations, most stable governments and were regarded as the most ‘progressive’.20 As these women travellers were guided by their organisational affiliations, their over-riding focus was on suffrage, the main aim for which the association worked: according to Grey Peck, Catt’s reason for travelling to South America was: to get a general idea of feminism throughout the continent, to strengthen the woman suffrage movement where it was in existence, and to start organisations in those countries, in so far as she was able to visit them, which had sent delegates to the Baltimore conference.21 This suggests that, even when engaged primarily in recruitment, international women’s organisations continued to include an element of investigative ‘fact-finding’ in their travel during the 1920s, a process that reaffirmed at least for some of them that non-Western women still required their assistance. However, as initial connections had already been made, Catt’s tour was directed more towards strengthening existing contacts with women in the region, starting organisations and assisting those that already existed. Both Uruguay and Argentina, for instance, had societies affiliated to the IAW by 1920 and, following Bertha Lutz’s return from the Baltimore conference, she had formed a Brazilian suffrage association together with other local feminists. But, in the view of the IAW, these Latin American women still lacked a common programme.22 Thus, Catt and Manus travelled with the express purpose of organising them into more unified national groups, and accordingly delivered numerous addresses to this effect at meetings across the continent. Indeed, the trip attracted a lot of attention and Catt received a public welcome from the governments in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. Together with the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Women officers she was invited to the Brazilian Senate, the first time that women had been asked to visit, and while in Uruguay she was considered a guest of the nation as its government paid for her hotel and placed two cars at her disposal. 146

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The receipt of such a welcome wherever she went undoubtedly reinforced Catt’s belief in the purpose of the IAWas well as boosting her confidence in her contribution as its leader. Women around the world could follow the trip, thanks to what Catt wrote about her journey as well as her findings in The Woman Citizen. Catt regarded most South American governments as supportive of the enfranchisement of women, and claimed that all the countries, albeit to varying degrees and with the exception of Peru, demonstrated ‘progressive views’ regarding the social status of women, something that was especially evident in the field of education. Catt claimed that there was less feminist sentiment and education and far greater class division in Peru than elsewhere in South America, while the refusal of Peruvian aristocratic upper-class women to co-operate with women of other races also meant that it was difficult to unite women and to start a national organisation there. Catt also acknowledged the particular difficulties faced by women in South America, such as the influence over their lives exerted by institutions such as the Catholic Church. In reality, however, it would seem that the effectiveness of the IAW recruitment trip to South America was heavily influenced by local political differences. For instance, while countries that were described as ‘progressive’, such as Brazil, had managed to affiliate a women’s society to the IAW by 1923, ‘conservative’ Peru failed to become affiliated until 1926.23 Catt’s overall assessment of South America was a largely positive one: in her words, ‘the women of South America are marching as straight to their liberation as those of any other continent, although the march is slow, and like all movements in Latin lands, the trail leading on is not clearly defined’.24 Yet, despite all her talk of ‘progressive’ governments, it is clear from Catt’s report and from her later address to the 1923 Rome congress that, in her view, South America unfortunately still lagged behind other continents: it was, according to her, ‘the only one where no woman votes, yet it is a continent of republics many of which have celebrated their centenary of independence’.25 Thus, Catt’s thoughts on South American women, along with her interaction with them, were largely determined by their political rights (or lack of them), since securing female suffrage remained the main objective for the IAW and for her as its leader. 147

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Catt’s South American trip also reflected the fact that, like earlier ‘fact-finding’ travel, those involved in ‘recruitment’ travel outside Western Europe and North America, on the one hand, could be fulsome in their praise of women’s progress in some countries, yet on the other hand still regard these parts of the world as relatively backward. However, whereas the former was made up primarily of missions to unknown places, travel for the purpose of recruitment was focused on developing all-important existing connections and on widening these organisations’ membership beyond their starting points in the West. It is evident from Catt’s later account of her tour that she believed that her visit to South America had directly influenced the advancement of its women, which was probably what IAW members supporting her journey expected to hear and so helped to justify the not inconsiderable expense involved in its quest for international expansion. Again, the emphasis of travel recollections, like those of Catt, was largely on how and what Western women could teach women elsewhere, drawing on what they had learnt from their own earlier experiences back home. This kind of interaction reflected both the unevenness of social and political developments in different parts of the world and the fact that different roles were involved in the reality of international sisterhood during this period, with Western women offering teacher-like assistance to their less well-organised and frequently still disenfranchised sisters. The ICW enjoyed greater popularity than the IAW in South America in the 1920s, and this relative success can be directly related, at least in part, to the effectiveness of its recruitment trips to the region at this time. The application of the National Council of Women (NCW) in Guatemala, for instance, was brought to the headquarters of the ICW in person by Mrs Murray Shepherd, who had recently visited that country. In 1925, the ICW sent one of its senior members, Louise van Eeghen, honorary corresponding secretary, accompanied by Baroness van Tuyell, to South America. As had been the case during Catt’s IAW tour, this trip combined ‘recruitment’ and ‘support’, as the pair visited Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru, where they already had affiliated members, and Bolivia and Brazil, where they helped to form new ones. En route they also promoted the ICW Bulletin, in 148

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which their experiences in South America were reported, and they added many new subscribers in the region to its lists.26 The relative effectiveness of the ICW in South America, as compared with organisations elsewhere, was most likely linked to its reputation for being the most ‘conservative’ international women’s association at the time. Its Christian ethos, often displayed at conferences and in its publications, eased its interaction with local Catholic women and meant that ICW representatives were able to relate well with the women with whom they came into contact. Christian organisations such as the WCTU and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) were already firmly established in the region, and many women involved in them also became active in the ICW. The ICW’s more restrained approach to securing women’s rights, in particular suffrage, helped to ease its acceptability in a part of the world where all women still lacked the vote. Despite their differences, however, the ICW and the IAW co-operated on their journeys. For example, Catt had been asked by the ICW president, Lady Aberdeen, to bring back a report of the condition and activities of the South American ICW branches. She likewise had addressed a public meeting at the headquarters of the Chilean NCW.27 Both organisations seem to have relied on each other for connections in South America, a place more distant and less familiar to them than North America and western Europe. Having been established later than the ICW and the IAW, WILPF was smaller and lacked any sections in South America in the early 1920s. Like the other organisations, however, it was keen to export its activities to the region and thus sent two of its representatives, Miss Baber and Miss Woods (American) to Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil in 1924. Heloise Brainerd (American) likewise visited six countries there (as well as Haiti and Panama) at the end of the 1930s. But while these trips created some interest, WILPF had little success in forming peace organisations. It did, however, set up a Committee on Latin American Contacts, headed by Ellen Brinton, who compiled a list from various sources of leading women in each of the Latin American countries and entered into correspondence with many of them. 149

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Together with Dr Wilhelmina Williams (widely known for her work in the region) and Dr Crooks, Brinton undertook to develop a Pan-American committee of WILPF, which was to include one representative from each of the American countries. At the time, it was hoped that this would lead to the development of a number of national sections in the region. Yet, despite such efforts, WILPF proved unable to expand its organisation significantly in South America during the interwar years: indeed, its Mexican section, which had grown directly out of an earlier visit there by WILPF members, remained its sole affiliate by the end of the 1920s, in comparison with the IAW and the ICW, which by then had four and seven affiliated South American nations respectively. While it would seem that regional success in this respect hinged on how women locally perceived the relevance of the objectives of each organisation, still WILPF views of South American women remained positive. Brainerd, mentioned above, may have admitted that the tangible results of her trip for WILPF were few, but she also claimed to have met, as she described them, many splendid women and intelligent pacifists on her journey.28 Thus, while the evidence is sparse, the reactions of travelling WILPF members to South American women generally appeared to have been more favourably inclined than those expressed by the IAW. During the 1920s, representatives of international women’s organisations visited east Asia with increased frequency in order to expand their memberships there. In contrast to South America, where we have seen that the ICW and the IAW were the main actors, it was WILPF that took the closest interest in this part of the world. Thus, Jane Addams undertook a well-publicised world tour in 1922 that incorporated China, India, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Addams may have on occasion been unpopular in her home country – the United States – but she found herself well received in Japan. Indeed, an Osaka newspaper sponsored her lectures and, wherever she went, the Japanese public proved positive in its reception. Ward D’Itri has argued that this trip established Addams’ prominence in east Asia, as demonstrated by her later election to the presidency of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association when it was founded in Hawaii in 1928. Japanese women were not WILPF members at the time of 150

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Addams’ visit; however, they became affiliated to the organisation soon afterwards in 1924. As with South America, however, the effectiveness of Addams’ travel to Japan in 1922 was closely linked to the political climate there at the time. Its apparent success can partly be attributed to the relatively liberal outlook of the 1920s Taisho era, which provided space for debates on women’s rights as well as on peace issues. Thus, Addams visited Japan at the right time. Unlike earlier travel accounts by members of the ICW and the IAW, Addams only had positive reports of ‘Eastern women’ to communicate, something that may also have reflected WILPF’s established antiimperialist stance as well as its readiness to speak out against the policies of Western nations in regions such as east Asia.29 Organisational affiliations, thus, again appear to have been more influential in shaping Western women’s attitudes to non-Western women than their individual nationalities. WILPF’s major undertaking in east Asia in the 1920s was its mission to China and Indochina between 1927 and 1928. The decision to send representatives there was taken at the meeting of the International Executive in 1927 following a proposal from the Irish section. The Irish women’s idea for a mission stemmed from a visit to Ireland by a delegation of British women in 1920, which had been shown to have a positive impact on the relations between the two. Therefore they proposed something similar for east Asia in the hope that a WILPF mission to China could find a way for women to help and take a part in the important task of ‘unifying the people of the East and the West’ in order to work for ‘a better civilisation’. At a more immediate level, WILPF also wanted to establish contacts and develop interest in WILPF activities in the region.30 Two women, Edith Pye from England, a nurse and Quaker, and Camille Drevet from France, acting secretary for the French section, editor of the French feminist paper La Voix des Femmes, and a journalist and teacher who had never visited east Asia before, were chosen as the WILPF delegates. Drevet remarked on being selected: ‘I am very happy and profoundly touched to be your delegate to the women of Asia. I shall go to them with an open mind and with a heart reaching out to their hearts and minds. I want to see and understand everything and bring it back to you.’31 151

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The China mission was the biggest in WILPF’s history, and, thus, required considerable preparation. Contacts were needed in China and so it appealed to its members to get in touch with local Chinese people in order both to introduce the mission and to acquire names and information about China for the delegates. National sections were also asked to make this ‘peace mission’ as widely known as they could in their own countries by attracting newspaper coverage and speaking about it at meetings. As already mentioned, this kind of travel was expensive, and so WILPF also had to raise substantial funds. Contributions from national sections, above all the United States and Britain, individual donations, as well as the entire savings from the Headquarter Reserve Fund, eventually made the China mission possible.32 Prior to Pye and Drevet’s departure, the organisation sent the following message to Chinese women: We women of the West desire to establish closer contacts with you, women of the East, so that we may share with one another whatever knowledge and inspiration we may each have won from life. We are therefore arranging to send to you two messengers, members of our organisation.33 The first stop of the WILPF delegation was Port Said, from where Pye’s first letter to WILPF’s paper Pax International was sent. The purpose behind WILPF’s decision to publish letters from both Pye and Drevet during their east Asia journey in its organisational newspaper, Pax, was to enable its members in different parts of the world, who had made the tour possible through their financial support, to follow their delegates’ every move. In her first letter, Pye wrote about their journey on board the Cap St Jacques, which she described as a simple and friendly boat. She also remarked that others on board had expressed interest in their mission. During the first stage of their journey, Pye and Drevet were accompanied and assisted by Mr Duong van Giao, an Indochinese man who had attended the WILPF Summer School in 1927. Once the WILPF officers reached Saigon, they were met by a delegation of people representing all parties and some women. However, there did not seem to be any 152

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organised groups of women in the part of the country that they visited.34 Thus, the absence of pre-existing contacts here meant that, like earlier ‘world tours’, this mission perhaps still contained an element of ‘fact-finding’, linked in part to WILPF’s later establishment, which meant that, unlike its older counterparts, it was still involved in this initial stage of travel by the late 1920s. In China, Pye and Drevet were joined by Mrs Grover Clark, the third WILPF delegate who was from the United States but resident in China and a fluent speaker of Chinese. In Shanghai, they met prominent individuals such as the new Nationalist leader, Chiang Kaishek, Mrs Chiang Kaishek and Mrs H.H. Kung (both sisters of the widow of the former Nationalist leader Sun Yat Sen), Dr Margaret Lin, president of the Chinese Women’s Temperance Union, and Miss Wu, the matron of the Chinese Red Cross Hospital, as well as a group of ten leading Chinese women. Pye claimed that doors opened in all directions to them in China, as they were not only introduced to politicians and prominent people but also shown around the cities. For example, in Shanghai, they visited two schools, the McTyeire School and the Fu Yan University. While the former was under American management and had 300 girl pupils, who mainly belonged to Chinese aristocratic families, the latter was a Chinese institution where they had the opportunity to give their message to about 300 young men.35 Pye remarked about the McTyeire School pupils that many would ‘certainly [. . .] be leaders in the women’s movement in the future’,36 reinforcing the extent to which importance was attached to a Western-style education by international women’s organisations. After their visit, the principal of the school received a letter written by the girls addressed ‘To our Sisters in the West’,37 suggesting that the visit of the WILPF delegation had made a distinct impression on these young female Chinese minds. After Shanghai the delegation went on to Nanking, about which Drevet wrote in Pax: We were continually in touch with the women of the Kuomintang [. . .] These active and friendly ladies told us all 153

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about their plans. [. . .] They asked us a thousand questions about the position of women in the west. With them we visited schools, colleges and universities [. . .] All spoke with deep feeling about our visit which is a great encouragement to them.38 On their visit they also planted ‘peace trees’ in memory of their visit near the tomb of Sun Yat Sen, intended to remain ‘forever a living symbol of [their] mission to China and of the union of the women of China with women of other countries’.39 The WILPF delegation then proceeded to Peking (Beijing), where they attended a dinner party at the very high-class Chinese home of a Mrs and Mr Hsuing Hsi Ling40 and also met with about 20 Chinese YWCA members at a private gathering. Pye and Drevet later found out that these women were viewed as ‘reactionary’ by the students, underlining both the extent to which China had acquired a diverse women’s movement by the 1920s and that Pye and Drevet had been able to meet with various groups. This meeting also demonstrated that, like the IAW and ICW tours to South America, WILPF benefited from the international network and assistance provided by organisations such as the YWCA. Martial law in Peking, however, meant that the delegation had fewer opportunities to meet Chinese women and young people here than in Shanghai and Nanking, again reinforcing the extent to which the effectiveness of such trips depended on local political developments.41 Moving on to Canton, they were greeted by Miss Yan Isit Law, the Chinese secretary of the YWCA and also dean of the women at Linghan University. Their busy schedule included many meetings with the wives of the Chinese professors as well as a few foreign wives, women students and the International Women’s Club and the Euro – American Returned Students Club (where Miss Law was vicepresident). The YWCA also organised a tea party in honour of the WILPF delegation and an evening celebration dinner was given by the Women’s Movement General Alliance, International Women’s Club, Girls Normal School of Kwantung, Women’s Department of the Provincial Kuomintang, YWCA and Lingnan University. Moreover, on International Women’s Day (8 March), Pye and Drevet 154

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spoke at an open-air meeting to which every foreign woman, representing around eight nationalities, in Canton had been especially invited. There were about 1,000 to 1,200 women in the audience as well as between 200 and 300 men. The event was organised by the Women’s Department of the Kuomintang and the delegation’s speeches were translated into the local language. The WILPF officers, however, did not meet any communist women, since by this time the Nationalist Party had ended its alliance with the CCP. Like the women in Nanking, Cantonese women expressed pleasure at receiving a delegation from WILPF, and Pye and Drevet regarded them as ‘very much awake from a feminist point of view’. Indeed, Pye reported that some of these Chinese women had shown an interest in starting a Chinese branch of WILPF immediately, but they had subsequently agreed, on her advice, to wait in order to learn more about the organisation once it was explained to them that the pacifist position applied internally as well as internationally.42 The ongoing political conflict in China between the Nationalists and the Communists effectively prevented Chinese women from taking the stand on pacifism required by membership of WILPF and, therefore, the mission was unable to form a Chinese branch. However, it did establish contacts and generate a wider interest in WILPF in China than had previously been the case. Thus, the mission regarded itself as having accomplished its goal of building all-important bridges between Western and Eastern women. Like travel by the IAW to China, descriptions of Chinese women in WILPF literature were largely positive. It seems that these Chinese women’s attitudes to, and work for, sweeping transformations of their society (during the turbulent time following the fall of the Qing dynasty) appealed to both the IAW and WILPF, whose own ideologies similarly included comprehensive ideas with regard to female equality and political change respectively. However, as with their counterparts in other organisations, officers continued to emphasise the importance of the encouragement that Western women could provide as well as what they deemed to be the positive effects of Westernisation on Chinese women’s lives: 155

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Watching the groups of women, their hair short, western fashion, or neatly coiled, but mostly free of the annoyance of a hat, walking together in the street, shopping, chatting at corners, or riding in rickshaws, it is difficult to believe that not so long ago, they were never seen out of doors.43 It was clearly more of a challenge for Western women to visit nonWestern countries such as China, for, despite the undoubted hospitality that they encountered there, it remained largely unknown and unfamiliar as compared with continents such as South America. Here, however, they were not alone, for Chinese women from the cities reportedly found it just as challenging to visit the Chinese countryside. Miss Yang, visitor at the IFUW 1924 conference and travelling secretary for the YWCA, for instance, maintained that, due to China’s many dialects, she too had gone to places in her own country where no one had understood her, forcing her sometimes to speak in English and to be interpreted into the local Chinese dialect.44 Factors such as these meant that Western visitors were restricted to the main cities and so their interaction with the local population was inevitably limited to Westernised urban elites and expatriates. Following their visit to China, Pye and Drevet proceeded to visit Japan, where they were met in Kobe by a friend of Mrs Nitobe, the American wife of Dr Inazo Nitobe, former under-secretary general of the Secretariat of the League of Nations. In Tokyo, they were likewise greeted by Tano Jodai and Mrs Inoue, the secretary and president of WILPF’s Japanese section, who were themselves accompanied by a whole group from the League as well as journalists and photographers. During their time in Tokyo, Pye and Drevet stayed with Dr and Mrs Nitobe, where they met members of the Japanese section as well as several people from university and pacifist circles. The Japanese section’s ordinary business was postponed at its executive meeting due to the visit of the WILPF delegation, and Pye updated her audience about their meetings with Chinese women, whose desire to get in touch with their Japanese sisters was received with much interest. Pye took the opportunity to encourage the 156

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Japanese section to send literature, to write and perhaps to consider sending over some of their members to visit their Chinese counterparts. Thus, as Japanese women were the only members of WILPF in the region, it could be argued that Western officers delegated to them the role of tutoring Chinese women. Interesting parallels can be drawn with the NCW of Argentina (affiliated to the ICW in 1908), which was entrusted with assisting the setting up of councils elsewhere in South America.45 Like Addams’ trip, Pye and Drevet’s visit to Japan took place during the Taisho era, known for its relatively liberal social and political outlook, a factor that must have had an impact on the amount of interest paid to the WILPF delegation. Of course, it is also likely that the positive reception that Chinese and Japanese women extended to the WILPF delegation was influenced by the organisation’s anti-imperialist outlook combined with its emphasis on peace that probably resonated positively in a region that was experiencing growing international tension. Back in the United States, the WILPF delegation was in high demand, not only by local branches of the League but also by the general public: it received a high level of coverage in the press and the officers concerned were required to speak at many public meetings. This popularity at home had a lot to do with Pye and Drevet’s firsthand experience of east Asia, which meant that they were seen by American sympathisers as authorities on the region and the state of the women’s movements there. They were later invited to talk about their experiences at public meetings in Europe, with the first such gathering held in London at the Friends’ Meeting House and presided over by Mrs Chen, who had earlier welcomed the delegation when they had arrived in Shanghai. Even a few years after the trip, in 1930, Drevet was invited to speak about her trip to China at a meeting of the Swedish section in Stockholm. The WILPF delegation to Indochina and China between 1927 and 1928 did not result in any affiliations; however, it received a lot of attention in China. While Addams described the mission as very successful in her address to the 1929 WILPF congress, Pye acknowledged in her report to that gathering that it had not actually accomplished any tangible results. However, she did point out that the Chinese press had been full of 157

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positive accounts of WILPF and that Chinese women welcomed them very warmly.46 Thus, the mission regarded itself as a success as far as reinforcing valuable contacts with Chinese women was concerned, and this was reflected in the fact that three young Chinese women, Siao Mei-Djang, Tzi Dzi Irene Ho and Siao Tye, were present at the 1929 congress, where they expressed their appreciation of the visit by WILPF to China and the link consequently formed with Chinese women. In their words: We in China have always been glad to have visitors, but when they come, as did Miss Pye and Madame Drevet, with sincere motives of friendship and goodwill, we feel that all our efforts at hospitality were inadequate to express our genuine appreciation. We therefore hope that your Delegates, and people such as they, will come again often, whether officially or unofficially, and reinforce such links of human friendship.47 Drevet and Pye were keen to emphasise how hard Chinese women were working for social betterment and China’s intense desire for unity. Following a request by Chinese women, lobbying efforts were made by WILPF’s European members to stop the inflow of arms to China, which fed the civil war there, as well as to obtain effective international action on the consumption of opium that was deemed to be having such detrimental effects on Chinese society.48 The British section, which had been responsible for raising funds to cover the expense of one of the WILPF delegates to China, was particularly interested in Pye’s reports on the Chinese situation and sent a resolution to its own government, urging ‘impartiality in the civil war, the withdrawal of war ships from Chinese waters, and the abandonment of extra-territoriality and control of taxation’.49 Thus, in this respect, WILPF’s mission to China differed from earlier travels, both those of independent women and those carried out on behalf of international organisations. In particular, its antiimperialist stance influenced its attitude towards Chinese women and probably contributed to its popularity in east Asia at this time. Like 158

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Chinese women, the Japanese section felt that the visit by the European delegates had drawn them closer to the West and had acted as a catalyst in relation to their own work for peace.50 Some progress along similar lines was also achieved in Indochina, as Drevet announced in Pax in 1930 that she had received copies of a very interesting magazine, the Phu Nu Tan Van, run by women there. It [the magazine] wants to help the women to get acquainted with international life. It will try to keep them posted about the activities of the W.I.L. and the efforts women are making everywhere to create a new world.51 And although lacking a national section in China, WILPF made use of the network established during its 1927 – 8 ‘peace mission’. For example, at the WILPF international executive meeting in Geneva in 1929, Miss Sheepshank (secretary) read out a report from a member, Mrs Hull, who had visited China and met women whose names she had obtained from Pye and Drevet. Hull had also apparently done the same thing in Japan. WILPF efforts in east Asia persisted throughout the 1930s, despite the fact that these were often hampered by the political and economic unrest in the region. Indeed, contacts did become sporadic during this period, as illustrated by the May 1937 issue of Pax, which reported that WILPF had asked one of its US members, who was about to visit China and Japan, to try to get in touch with its members in Japan and Chinese women on its behalf.52 Similar so-called ‘peace missions’ were also carried out to other countries and regions by WILPF in the interwar period. Although constituting an opportunity for the organisation to recruit new members, these trips aimed to discover more about the situation in particular areas but sought as well to provide neutral assistance in those places experiencing, or affected by past, conflicts. Thus, these missions combined ‘fact-finding’, ‘recruitment’ and ‘support’. This activity was organised by the Peace Committee, which had been established at the 1921 Vienna congress following a proposal from the Swedish section. The idea had emerged in the aftermath of the trip by Mrs Silfverbrand and Miss Widegren in the summer of 1920 to the destroyed provinces of France and Austria, where they had 159

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witnessed terrible border hatred and suffering among the population. In the spring of 1922, Matilda Widegren visited Geneva, Zu¨rich and Wiesbaden on behalf of the peace mission. In the same year, Elin Wa¨gner, also Swedish, and Miss Marian Fox went to the occupied area of the Rhine and reported on their investigations at the 1922 Hague Conference. Wa¨gner also studied peace work in France and visited the Ruhr district, an area that attracted continued attention from the peace commission the following year when further investigations were carried out there by Lady Annesley of England, Ester Beskow from Sweden and Lydia Smith from the US section. The WILPF peace mission, however, experienced difficulties in carrying out its work across Europe in the early 1930s, due to the economic depression and political instabilities. All the same, in the summer of 1934 Dr Naima Sahlbom and Mrs Greta Engkvist, of Sweden, were able to visit Lithuania and Latvia.53 Recruitment tours, organised along similar lines to WILPF’s mission to China, were also carried out to colonies and to places under the direct control of Western powers. For example, a visit by Mrs Alys Russell to Egypt in the early 1930s was credited by the IFUW with having directly triggered the setting up of a local federation of university women. Moreover, Mrs Pethick-Lawrence, one of the founders of WILPF, spent several months in South Africa in 1930, trying to organise a national section there. Wherever she went, she reported that she was asked to speak to large meetings and on the radio. A prominent local newspaper, The Johannesburg Star, describing her as a famous figure in the militant suffrage movement in Britain prior to World War I, even devoting two columns to one of her speeches. In its view, she had made a stirring appeal to South African women, themselves about to be enfranchised, to direct their energies toward achieving world peace. WILPF judged the Pethick-Lawrence trip to be a success as it subsequently received new requests from South Africa for copies of Pax as well as for more general information on how to organise a section and local groups.54 As with South America, the presence of relatively large numbers of women of Western origins made it easier for organisations to make contact and rally support here. 160

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Europe Recruitment travel in the 1920s, however, was not just confined to so-called ‘world tours’ to the non-West but was also still being carried out within Europe, primarily to eastern and southern Europe where women’s organisations were still in the process of expanding their associations during this decade. However, while the ICW and the IAW were well established in most parts of Europe, WILPF, since it had been founded later, remained particularly active in terms of recruitment drives, for instance in the Baltic region where its efforts to win over new members often fell into the hands of national sections such as that of Sweden. For instance, trips by Widegren to Estonia and Latvia in 1925, and by Dr Sahlbom and Mrs Engkvist to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland in the early 1930s, resulted in useful new contacts and interest in co-operating with the Swedish section. However, political dictatorships in Latvia and Estonia created difficulties and put a stop to a possible joint conference between these northern European countries. Thus, even though the 1932 congress reported that the trips by officers from Sweden and Finland had given new support to the Baltic sections, their success again ultimately hinged on local political developments. WILPF regarded peace work in these countries as crucial, as tensions between European countries and the Soviet federation were growing at this time. Efforts were also carried out by Drevet in the Baltic states, and were reflected in a large number of apparently appreciative letters received by the WILPF headquarters. The attendance of WILPF officer, Gertrud Baer, at the east European Conference also focused more attention on WILPF in that region, and both Estonia and Lithuania sent delegates to its 1929 congress, although they were still not affiliated by this time. WILPF had plans for trips to countries such as the Soviet Union in order to make their work known there, while a trip there (and to central Asia) was carried out by the IAW’s Josephine Schain (American, and also active in the IFUW) in 1935. Her objective was to investigate the experiments in mass education and to view the effects of the government’s commitment to the equal status of men and women.55 While this trip can be placed into the ‘fact-finding’ category, Schain, unlike 161

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many women travellers of previous decades, spoke admiringly of the changes taken place in the USSR. Her trip also differed from the ones mentioned above, as it does not seem to have been endorsed by either the IAW or the IFUW, and was, thus, essentially a privately organised tour inspired by her personal interest in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the impact of communism. The proximity of the Baltic states to organisational headquarters in western Europe and North America, of course, meant that their officers could carry out more frequent visits to that region than, for example, to either South America or east Asia. Much closer to home, they constituted a largely familiar environment to Western visitors, something that probably resulted in women there being portrayed rather differently from women belonging to the more unfamiliar ‘East’.

‘Support’ The interaction between travelling members of international women’s organisation and the women whom they encountered, as previous sections have highlighted, did not necessarily follow a uniform pattern. However, the fact that ‘recruitment’ journeys mainly travelled in the direction of the West to the non-West, with Western women usually helping non-Western women to organise and establish associations that could be affiliated to the various international women’s organisations, must have affected the nature of the relationships established in this way. Even when trips succeeded in challenging existing perceptions of non-Western women and their lives, Western women carried on expecting their non-Western counterparts to conform to their standards in order to be permitted to join their organisations. Since Western women had been founders and first members of these organisations, their values and patterns of interaction had been established as the norm. Once these organisations had expanded into other continents and recruitment had started to slow down, the travelling carried out by officers came to be used as a way of strengthening the associations by supporting their national sections. But, whereas interaction between older members took the form of exchanges, travel by officers to recently 162

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affiliated sections, which usually tended to be located in the East, was more in the way of offering support. Indeed, officers of all the international women’s organisations travelled widely for these supportive purposes in the 1920s and the 1930s. In the early 1920s, senior ICW members Avril de SainteCroix and Ogilvie Gordon visited several councils in central Europe and the Austrian Council respectively. In 1925 Mrs Franklin, newly elected president of the British NCW, reported on her visit to the South African NCW in the ICW Bulletin. The following year, the Palestinian NCW was visited both by members from the British NCW and by Miss Forchhammer, from the Danish NCW, who also visited Greece. Also in 1926 the Mexican National Council reported on a visit by a Mrs Moore. In addition, van Eeghen’s tour of South America from 1925 to 1926 and WILPF’s China mission in 1927 included visits to the NCW in Peru and the Japanese section of the League respectively. In 1927, Lady Aberdeen and Miss van Eeghen visited several eastern European countries, including Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania. In Bulgaria, they were joined by Mrs Sanford (Canadian), who had visited the country in 1911 and spoke of being glad to be reunited with old friends such as Mme Malinoff, honorary president of the Bulgarian NCW. But while this interaction with eastern European women can be described as that between friends, Mrs Franklin on her South African visit displayed a distinctly advisory approach towards the women whom she met there.56 For though she praised the hospitality in South Africa and the efficiency of Mrs Arbuthuot, the president of the local NCW, she viewed South African society as lagging behind Britain and thus saw her role as primarily helping South African women to organise themselves, taking credit, for instance, for starting ‘a Women’s Institute in Bulawayo which may be of great value’.57 As a British woman, Franklin’s interaction with her South African counterparts is likely to have been influenced by South Africa being a dominion within Britain’s empire, which meant that progress there was not necessarily detached from developments closer to home. The fact that both sets of women shared common goals was reflected in her hope that her visit would sow ‘seed which may bear fruit for good 163

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in the home and school, and contribute something in the training of the future citizens of our Empire towards happiness and service’.58 Extracts such as this also suggest the continued influence of the philanthropic purpose of travel, seen in the nineteenth century and characterised by its emphasis on the improvement of others.59 The visited councils themselves were certainly very vocal in their appreciation of these trips. Distant and newly formed national councils often appealed for visits from international officers, as such visits made these associations feel both more valued as members of, and connected to, the ICW. However, as Lady Aberdeen reported in the annual ICW report of 1922– 4, she had been forced to decline invitations from South America, South Africa and Australia, as it was too difficult for the president to leave the headquarters, especially during the build-up to an international conference. The expense of travel also sometimes prevented the ICW from sending delegations abroad. Nevertheless, visits were possible when members covered their own expenses, as in the case of van Eeghen’s South American tour mentioned above. Moreover, the political instabilities of the 1930s created further obstacles to travel by women representing international organisations.60 Like the ICW, the IAW travelled to strengthen the ties of the Alliance through personal contacts.61 During her final year as IAW president (1922– 3), Catt, accompanied by Manus, went not only to South America, but also on a tour through Europe. Catt wanted to visit Europe in order to see the result of the enfranchisement of women and her itinerary included the major cities of Rome, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Berlin and London. While planning the forthcoming conference in Rome, she witnessed first hand the entry of Mussolini’s Fascists into Rome and commented that it ‘boded no good to women’.62 However, Catt was impressed by the advances made by women in Austria, whose parliament contained 11 women members. At the same time, she was struck by the poverty and hardship in both Austria and Hungary and was also distressed by the growing anti-Semitism in the latter. van Voris has argued that travelling with her Jewish companion, Manus, made Catt more sensitive to the difficult situation faced by Jews in Europe. 164

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In Budapest, the IAW officers attended a dinner given by white-collar class women and also met with Anna Ketty, the only woman member of the Hungarian Parliament. In Czechoslovakia, Catt joined up with her friends, Maria Tumova´ and Frantiska Plaminkova, the latter an influential member of the City Council of Prague and prominent member of the IAW. She also had lunch with President Masaryk and his daughter Alice. In Berlin, Catt addressed the Reichstag, the first time a foreigner had been invited to speak there. Back in London she attended the IAW executive board meeting as well as a joint session by the Alliance and the ICW to plan their future co-operation.63 While Catt’s trip through Europe was intended to assess the aftermath of World War I and the impact of the enfranchisement of women, it was thus also clearly about renewing old friendships and planning for the future of the IAW. Europe may have been located far from the United States, but it was made familiar for American women by shared cultural similarities, in contrast to places in the non-Western world that still appeared relatively distant and unknown. Since Catt’s itinerary included visits to many of the IAW’s earliest affiliations, she tended to be personally acquainted with the women with whom she came into contact. Margery Corbett Ashby (British), Catt’s successor as president of the IAW, similarly undertook a number of tours outside the West. She first went to Egypt as early as 1923, following an invitation from the leading female activist there, Huda Shaarawi. Among the events organised by Shaarawi in honour of Corbett Ashby was a public luncheon that was attended by government ministers, and which Corbett Ashby maintained was the first time that Egyptian women appeared at such an occasion.64 A decade or so later Corbett Ashby travelled eastwards again when she undertook a trip in 1935, accompanied by fellow British woman Maude Royden, first to India and then to the Middle East. In India the women’s busy schedule included attending the conference of the All-India Women’s Conference in Karachi, various dinners and excursions as well as a meeting with Gandhi. As Corbett Ashby remarked: ‘We are seeing more of India in 3 weeks than others see in 3 years [. . .] we seem to have won their confidence [. . .] they talk more freely about their own 165

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problems.’65 This extract, like those relating to Catt’s travels discussed above, emphasises Corbett Ashby’s faith in her, and her companion Royden’s, impact in India. Indeed, Corbett Ashby claimed that their visit was appreciated by both women and men, who showed an equal interest in the content of their speeches. At the same time, she acknowledged that there was local distrust of the British and their politics as well as problems with racism. However, while both women met Gandhi, their reactions to him differed markedly: Royden admired him passionately for his faith in nonviolence, but he failed to make the same impact on Corbett Ashby. Though she regarded him as a remarkable person, Corbett Ashby was less certain about his politics and declared in her later recollections of her travels that she was ‘thankful he is now turning his attention to village reconstruction instead of Congress’.66 Thus, Corbett Ashby’s travel writings clearly reflected the political situation of the time and the increasing calls for independence from Indian nationalists. But, while Corbett Ashby and Royden were both British, their views on Indian politics and in particular on Gandhi differed, influenced in part by the fact that Corbett Ashby’s main commitment lay with the IAW (she was also a member of the IFUW), whereas Royden was a committed pacifist and also a member of WILPF, whose anti-imperialist policies could influence its members’ reactions to the non-West. By the time that she reached Cairo, Corbett Ashby, accompanied by now by Manus, was joined by Mme Malaterre-Sellier (French) and Mrs Bakker van Bosse (Dutch) from the IAW, and they all attended a big suffrage conference organised by Shaarawi who was still a leading force within the Egyptian Feminist Union. While clearly continuing to respect Shaarawi and her achievements, Corbett Ashby attributed the entry of Egyptian women into the public sphere, at least to a large extent, to her earlier visit to Cairo in 1923. The visitors then went on to British-controlled Palestine, where they met local Jewish and Arab women, representing the Jewish Women’s Equal Rights Association and the Arab Women’s Union respectively. The official account of this part of their journey in the IWSN outlines a fairly balanced view of the problems of Arab and Jewish women working together.67 166

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It differed markedly, however, from Corbett Ashby’s personal or private portrayals of Arab women, whom she described as violently nationalist, ‘anti-British and anti-Jewish’. As far as Jewish women were concerned, she dismissed her meeting with them as the ‘dullest they had yet had, [for] Jews of the lower middle class from Russia and [G]ermany are not inspiring and every paragraph had to be translated into Hebrew’.68 Thus, Corbett Ashby’s subsequent recollections of her encounters in Palestine, like those of India, were informed by the nationalist struggles against the British there. Moreover, as the above comments on Jewish women suggest, she found it tricky to connect with those with lower middle-class backgrounds, probably because they differed considerably from the English- (or French-) speaking elite women with whom she (and other Western women travellers) usually interacted while on trips abroad. WILPF was equally eager to offer support to its members around the world. As early as 1921 Emily Balch, secretary-treasurer of WILPF, made a visit to south-east Europe, Prague, Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest and Budapest, which was intended to strengthen old connections and resulted in many new ones. Balch likewise went to Athens, Constantinople, Bucharest and Belgrade in 1925. Extensive travelling by WILPF members a decade later, between 1929 and 1932, further helped to reinforce relations between national sections. For example, Drevet’s trip to Tunis in 1930, it was claimed in WILPF literature, inspired Muslim women to join the local section there, which up to that point had been dominated almost exclusively by local Europeans and Jews following its establishment in 1919. Indeed, WILPF’s trips to its non-Western affiliations come across as more genuinely ‘supportive’ than those journeys undertaken by the ICW and the IAW. For instance, Drevet referred to the members of the WILPF’s Mexican section as ‘friends’, who had carefully worked on reports on women’s activities in the country and whose speakers had the gift of eloquence. ‘Support’ travel was thus carried out in all directions; however, many of the visits were also carried out by senior members to neighbouring countries. Indeed, regional travel, as opposed to international travel, was used to strengthen WILPF in 167

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particular. For example, in 1922, the trip by Miss Widegren and Miss Sa¨fverstro¨m, of the Swedish section, to Finland resulted in the reestablishment of communications with Finnish pacifists, as Dr Maikki Friberg, from Helsinki, became a corresponding associate. Moreover, exchanges between neighbours such as the interchange of speakers between Germany and France (Mme Ducheˆne, Mme Perlen and Mme Wanner) publicised the extent of the union between pacifists in both countries. Similarly, while IFUW officers travelled extensively in the 1920s and 1930s to support the organisation’s affiliations, these trips were largely confined to Europe since it lacked the necessary sections in other parts of the world. For instance, the IFUW secretary reported in the 1924 conference report on her tour through Europe, where she had visited the headquarters in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy and France and those of the new federations in Hungary and Switzerland. In addition, the 1932 conference report highlighted the fact that that the president, Professor Cullis, had recently visited the headquarters of federations in Germany, Holland, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Belgium and France, while Professor Westerdyk had been to Czechoslovakia and Germany. In addition, the secretary had been to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, whereas Miss Holme had visited several of the branches of the Italian Federation. Furthermore, in 1933 Mrs Adamowicz travelled to Latvia and Estonia. In the mid-1930s Professor Winifred Cullis, BFUW, had visited several branches of the Australian Federation, when she was a guest of the Government of Southern Australia centenary celebrations. These trips were evidently appreciated by the members. For example, the Italian Federation commented positively on the foreign visits to its association in the 1922 conference report, while the Finnish Federation hoped that the international exchange would develop so that it would receive more visits in the future.69 Members of international women’s organisations also attended the national conferences of sections other than their own. In addition to an official representative of the international organisation, who was usually a senior officer, invitations were sent to all the national sections. 168

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However, considering the distances involved and the time and money that travelling necessitated at this time, it was often only possible for members from neighbouring countries to attend each other’s conferences. For instance, Miss Widegren and Dr Sahlbom of the WILPF Swedish section took part in the annual meeting of the German section at Bremen in 1922, while Betzy Kjelsberg, president of the NCW of Norway, attended a meeting of the Swedish NCW in October 1922. Moreover, a national organisation was often represented by one of their nationals living in the country holding the conference. For instance, a Mrs Milne, a member of the British NCW but living in Portugal, represented the ICW at the Portuguese NCW conference. However, despite the distance, the Swedish NCW managed to send a delegate to the NCW of the US national conference in 1933. Senior officers such as Professor Bonnevie, of the IFUW, participated in the congress organised by the Swedish section of WILPF in Stockholm in 1926, whereas van Eeghen attended the Dominion Conference in Johannesburg in 1936 on behalf of the ICW, which, in her report in the Bulletin, she praised for being well prepared and well attended.70 Prominent women were often invited individually to travel to speak at national conferences. For example, in December 1922 Jane Addams, Catherine Marshall, from England, and Jeanne Me´lin, from France, leading members of WILPF who had spoken at the earlier WILPF conference in the Hague, gave addresses at a meeting organised by the Stockholm branch of the Swedish section of WILPF, which was publicised widely in the Swedish press.71 Similarly, Gertrud Baer, joint chairman of WILPF, spoke at the Annual Convention of the US section in addition to visiting local branches in 1936.72 Jubilees of national women’s organisations attracted special attention from the international women’s communities. The Golden Jubilee of the Fredrika Bremer Association (affiliated to the IAW)73, that took place in Stockholm in 1934, was attended by senior officers such as Ingegerd Palme and Betzy Kjelsberg (who both represented the ICW), Corbett Ashby, and representatives of national sections such as Bodil Begtrup and Mrs Erich from the Danish NCW and the Finnish NCW respectively.74 169

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*** International travel, and the physical interaction and exchange between women of different nationalities that it facilitated, served to underpin the aims of international women’s organisations to achieve worldwide co-operation, friendship and sisterhood. Travel undoubtedly expanded Western women’s horizons as well as widening the membership of their organisations. The motives behind these trips, whether ‘fact-finding’, ‘recruitment’ or ‘support’, were distinguished from the independent trips undertaken by women, in particular those of earlier decades, and together with these women travellers’ organisational links had a powerful impact on how they perceived women in other parts of the world. While independent women travellers often regarded travelling as a liberating and emancipating experience, as it freed them from domestic constraints and they gained a public role through their travel writings, the empowerment experienced by members of international women’s organisations was manifested in their strengthened belief in the aims of their associations and in themselves as leaders. Through international travel, these women were able to demonstrate their organisations’ commitment to international co-operation, friendship and sisterhood, all of which was strengthened by contact between women from around the world. All the same, the bulk of the activities of international women’s organisations remained focused on the West, a geographical bias that, as previous chapters have highlighted, was also reflected in what might be regarded as asymmetrical relationships existing between their various Western and ‘Eastern’ members, often reflected in the views of the latter by the former during these ‘world tours’ encounters. Indeed, it was against this backdrop that the emergence of regionally based organisations took place in the second half of the interwar period, organisations that, at least on paper, looked set to challenge the nature of the relationships that characterised notions and expressions of ‘international sisterhood’ at this time.

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There has recently been a movement for groups of women’s societies in countries with closely connected cultural or political connections to form special international groups among themselves. The Petite Entente des Femmes was formed in Rome during the Alliance Congress; the Scandinavian countries have a some what similar organisation – the Northern Women’s Congress, there is an Inter-American Union of Women for the North and South American Continents, and there is now the British Commonwealth League. (IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report) By the mid-1920s, trends had started to take place that would result, by the end of the decade, in a rise in the number of regional organisations being formed. Whereas early organisations of this kind had tended to centre on different parts of Europe, now the pattern was spreading to encompass women belonging to particular regions outside the West. In addition to the two examples mentioned here – the Inter-American Union of Women for the North and South American Continents1 and the British Commonwealth League (BCL) – the other main players involved in this development were the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC), the Pan-Pacific Women’s

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Association (PPWA) and the Inter-American Commission of Women (IACW) as well as regional conferences such as the Oriental Congress of Women and the All-Asian Women’s Conference (AAWC) that were held in Damascus in 1930 and in Lahore in 1931 respectively. While these regional forums usually presented themselves as colleagues rather than rivals of existing international women’s organisations, they nevertheless represented a challenge to the hegemony of the international framework established by Western women at the beginning of the twentieth century, posing questions for the kind of internationalism being pursued by them. Indeed, the expansion of regional co-operation outside the parameters of Europe coincided with the growth in tension that from the late 1920s nonWestern women were experiencing between their commitments to internationalism, on the one hand, and nationalism, on the other.

Origins Unlike international women’s organisations that organised around women’s rights issues, which they claimed concerned women worldwide irrespective of where they lived, regional women’s associations emphasised the significance of ‘location’, something that implied common traditions, cultures and interests in addition to the shared experience of being a woman. While some of these regional organisations were initiated by women, others grew out of existing mixed-sex, male-dominated, associations. Moreover, whereas some of the activities of these regional women’s organisations were intended to complement international efforts, others saw them as an alternative to existing transnational co-operation from which they felt isolated. Even though both kinds of organisation were working for improvements to women’s lives, some of the latter exhibited signs of resenting the extent to which the former seemed to be dominated by European and North American women as well as the general ‘Westernisation’ of their societies that seemed to be encouraged. Existing regional organisations such as the Northern Feminist Organisations’ Union (NFOU) and the Entente des Femmes (made up of women from Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland and Romania) served as 172

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examples to new regional women’s organisations outside Europe such as the BCL. While the NFOU’s co-operation hinged on the similar customs and laws, standard of education and forms of democracy of its member countries, countries within the Entente des Femmes shared common postwar reconstruction problems. Co-operation between northern European women was undoubtedly eased by their languages being mutually understandable. Indeed, it could be argued that Scandinavian women, with their common linguistic traditions, were the forerunners in regional co-operation. They held their first Scandinavian conference for women in Stockholm as early as 1897. It was Danish women who then took the initiative to form a more permanent organisation, the NFOU, when they invited representatives from women’s organisations in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland to Denmark in 1914. The NFOU’s first conference was held in Stockholm in 1916, and was attended by prominent women such as Eva Upmark, president of the Swedish National Council of Women (NCW). At this conference, Nordic women’s organisations agreed to work together to secure women’s interests within family, state and society as well as issues regarding children’s laws. Members of both the Entente des Femmes and the NFOU found that that their work was more effective when linked together.2 The value of regional co-operation was also recognised by women outside of these organisations and thus influenced the establishment of other regional initiatives. For example, at its first conference, the BCL chairman, Margery Corbett Ashby, who was also the president of the International Alliance of Women (IAW), maintained: A similar grouping among the women of the British Commonwealth seems obvious. We use the same language, and with few exceptions the same body and tradition of law, and we tend to approximate in democratic theory and practice. There is to some extend a mutual understanding and common public opinion.3 The BCL, established in 1925, represented the reorganisation of the existing British Dominions Women Citizen’s Union (formed in 173

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1913) and the former British Overseas Committee of what was then the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). Though not strictly ‘regional’ perhaps, it still symbolised an important departure from the prevailing pattern of international co-operation among women, as membership was limited to women coming from within the British Empire. Attempts at ‘regional’ co-operation in the nonWest, however, had not always been that successful before this point. For example, the first International Congress of Spanish-American Women held in Mexico City in 1925 turned out to be a failure despite the endorsement of the Mexican government, and its lack of success was attributed by contemporaries to the vagueness of its aims and what they described as its ‘uninteresting agenda’ that barred all political and religious discussions from its programme.4 All the same, by the late 1920s and early 1930s, there was an upsurge in regional co-operation in the non-West with the establishment of the PPWA, the IACW, the AIWC and the AAWC as well as women’s congresses in the Middle East and South Africa, all following in relatively quick succession. While the PPWA and IACW emerged out of pre-existing mixed-sex regional organisations, the AIWC and the AAWC were both initiated by Indian women alone. The idea behind the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference (PPWC), forerunner of the PPWA, came from a suggestion by Mark Cohen of New Zealand in 1924 to Alexander Hume Ford, director of the Pan-Pacific Union (PPU), that New Zealand ought to spread knowledge about the valuable work the country had achieved in child welfare around the Pacific. The PPU was an organisation aimed at fostering collaboration and understanding among the peoples of the Pacific and it had already organised many conferences on technical and scientific subjects. The topic of child welfare, however, had aroused the interest of a group of women in Hawaii, on whom the PPU bestowed the task of promoting the first PPWC. These women formed the Hawaiian executive committee and although all its members were Western in terms of their origins, deliberate efforts were made to get women from ‘Pacific’ member countries of the PPU involved. In particular, there was a great deal of communication between the PPU and the Japanese feminist, Fusae 174

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Ichikawa, from 1925 to 1929. This correspondence not only reveals Ichikawa’s close co-operation with the organisers of the first PPWC but also the extensive preparations that underpinned its inaugural conference, which was eventually held in Honolulu in 1928 under the auspices of the PPU. The PPU also backed the second conference in Honolulu in 1930, from which the PPWA was formed. Interestingly, a separate conference for women was initially rejected by some female members of the PPU, on the grounds that this move was unnecessary since women had already been taking their places in its conferences upon a basis of equality with men. Indeed, women did hold high positions within the PPU, as epitomised by Ann Satterthwaite who was its executive secretary during the 1930s. Nevertheless, those PPU members in favour of separate women’s conferences argued that female participants had been few in number and that meeting apart would allow women to concentrate on and consider questions vital to their sex. Although co-operating closely, especially during the early years, Satterthwaite, active in both the PPU and the PPWA, claimed subsequently that she was eager to keep the work of these two organisations separate.5 Similarly, pressure by Cuban women and female activists from other South and North American countries, who felt the need for an organisation working for women’s political and civil rights in their own region, was behind the establishment of the IACW in 1928 at the sixth International Conference of American States (ICAS) in Cuba. Even though the IACW had already been on the ICAS agenda in Santiago in 1923, this was the first time that equality for women on the continents was defended by women themselves in one of the ICAS’s plenary sessions when they asked for a treaty guaranteeing complete civil and political equality. Composed of one woman from each of the American republics, with each appointed by her own government, the IACW was in a position to assert direct influence over the American states as it formed a part of the Pan-American Union.6 The desire of Indian and Arab women for greater co-operation among themselves similarly resulted in the creation of further regional women’s organisations and conferences in south Asia and the Middle East. Unlike Pacific women, however, the regional 175

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co-operation undertaken by Arab and south Asian women was more directly fuelled by a growing resentment of Western imperialism and the resulting impact that this was having on their societies. The AIWC stemmed from a gathering in 1926 of prominent Indian women such as Sarojini Naidu, the Begum of Bhopal, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Sarala Ray, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Muthulakshmi Reddi, organised by Irish feminist Margaret Cousins. It became a permanent organisation following its first conference, which was held the following year in Poona. Although strictly speaking a ‘national’ rather than ‘regional’ organisation, the vastness of the Indian subcontinent, together with the wide range of people living there, meant that it differed considerably from other, more restricted, nation-wide associations. Moreover, the women behind the AIWC, which orchestrated the AAWC in Lahore in 1931 and was thus responsible for initiating and organising this regional cooperation among Asian women, had been directly inspired to create an Asia-wide organisation after observing the success of the PPWC as well as conferences held by American women.7 A preliminary call to hold an AAWC, circulated within India in 1929, was received by the press and representative men and women with approval. Like the AIWC, the idea behind the AAWC had initially come from Cousins (who was also involved in the Women’s Indian Association or WIA) following her own world tour that had brought her into contact with other women’s organisations and generated messages of sympathy and co-operation from women of many nationalities. In practice, it was organised by a committee of leading Indian women, including politicians, artists and educationalists, who sent out an invitation to attend to 250 representative women and some influential men in 33 countries throughout the continent of Asia in 1931. This rallying call for action suggests that more emphasis was now being placed by Indian women on the cultural, political and geographical connections that existed between Asian women, thanks to their growing interest in regional cooperation linked to their country’s expanding nationalist movement. Similar developments took place in the Middle East, where a conference was held under the auspices of the Oriental Arabic Feminist 176

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Academy in Damascus in July 1930 and a second in Tehran two years later.8 As with south Asia, the situation in the Middle East was directly influenced by nationalist debates, in particular the question of Palestine. Indeed, as the 1930s progressed, pan-Arab feminism, headed by Egyptian feminists disillusioned with Western imperialism and increasingly also with transnational feminism, grew stronger.9

Agendas International and regional women’s organisations alike were committed to enhancing women’s rights. However, as regional bodies were organised around a geographical focus, rather than specific topics, their agendas were also influenced by the particular countries and cultures that they represented. For example, Australian activists, concerned with the plight of local Aboriginal peoples, introduced indigenous rights onto the agendas of the regional organisations in which they were involved. Moreover, the growing nationalist movements in some parts of the non-West not only challenged Western influence over their countries but also called into question what some were coming to perceive as the Western hegemony of international feminism. Thus, through their cultural, political and geographical connections, at least some of these regional women’s organisations attempted to forge a different version of internationalism from the kind that had been defined by the North American and western European women leadership of existing international women’s organisations. Like international women’s organisations, regional women’s organisations usually constituted a group of linked associations with varied degrees of commitment to ‘feminism’, ranging from socalled moderates to radicals. While the BCL and the IACW emphasised women’s rights and women’s equality with men, the PPWA and the AIWC were more concerned with transnational cooperation and education. The IACW, for instance, was created with the express intention of winning recognition for the civil and political rights of women. As it formed a part of the Pan-American Union, it sought to influence American governments directly on the 177

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issue of women’s rights. To that end, the adoption of a nationality and equal rights treaty at the conference of American states in Montevideo in 1933 was used by international women’s organisations to put pressure on the League of Nations.10 The BCL’s agenda was also clearly feminist, as reflected in its objective set out at its inaugural conference ‘to secure equality of liberties, status, and opportunities between men and women in the British Commonwealth of Nations’.11 Moreover, topics for discussion at this first BCL gathering included political equality, equal moral standards, legislative inequalities and economic equality. Like the IAW, the BCL proceeded to broaden its work once female enfranchisement had been achieved in many countries, lobbying for the institutionalisation of these rights and at the same time helping those women within the Empire who still did not have the vote.12 Thus, the IACW and the BCL shared a similar kind of feminist agenda and co-ordinated their efforts closely with international women’s organisations, whose work they greatly assisted. As Millicent Garrett Fawcett (also involved in the IAW) declared in the foreword to the BCL’s first conference report in 1925: ‘It [the BCL] is [in] no sense in rivalry with the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, a fact that is emphasised by its President, Mrs. Corbett Ashby, also being the President of the British Commonwealth League.’13 Justification for the BCL lay in the fact that an international organisation like the IAW could not devote an undue proportion of its time and funds to empire issues alone. In the view of Corbett Ashby, whose own activities straddled both organisations, the BCL, therefore, filled ‘a very great and important place half way between national effort and international work’.14 Having a ‘special international group’ of their own, in her view, would allow women from within the British Empire to concentrate on the issues most relevant to them; hence her support for the BCL’s call for greater influence for the views and wishes of women at future meetings of the Imperial Conference.15 But despite the many similarities it shared with the IAW, the BCL differed from it and other international women’s organisations in the way that it adopted what has been regarded as a more supportive stance towards its non-Western members as well as the specific 178

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interest that it took in indigenous women’s rights. For instance, as Sinha has highlighted, a 1925 issue of Stri Dharma (official organ of the WIA) reacted to the creation of the BCL by referring to the birth of a new kind of internationalism in Britain. This ‘new’ internationalism was assessed by WIA activists as different from that being pursued by dominant British women’s organisations because, in their view, ‘it [was] not Imperialistic, but [stood] on the ground of our common feminism’.16 Consequently, leading Indian feminists chose to co-operate with British women through the medium of the BCL, building on ‘this ‘new orientation’ in the attitude of some British women toward India’.17 Furthermore, while a number of international women’s organisations regarded Katherine Mayo, American author of the controversial book Mother India published in 1927 (on the ‘plight’ of Indian women, translated into many European languages and used as imperial propaganda against Indian independence), as an authority on the position on Indian women, the BCL disagreed and instead organised a conference in London at which Indian and British critics of Mayo’s polemic shared the platform.18 It is interesting to note, however, that, according to BCL records, those Indian societies that supported the BCL in the interwar period only included the WIA and the Indian Social Service Group. The AIWC, for instance, is not mentioned.19 Such documentary evidence suggests that not all Indian women, and in particular the more nationalist members of the AIWC, were entirely convinced of this apparently ‘new’ direction being taken by at least some British women activists. Yet, evidence of some change in orientation can be demonstrated by the way in which indigenous women’s rights were added to the BCL (as well as the PPWA) agenda, matters that were not being prioritised by international organisations at the time. Indeed, during the 1930s, the plight of Australian aborigines was discussed at all BCL conferences. It was leading Australian women activists who were responsible for bringing the campaign for Aboriginal rights to the attention of regional organisations such as the BCL. Their campaign began and gathered momentum in the 1920s and 1930s, and used platforms 179

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such as that provided by the BCL to reach a world audience. These women’s campaign work was encouraged by their international connections, as Australian delegates to the BCL conferences in London often found an appreciative audience for their demands for the improvement to Aboriginal status and conditions in Australia. Yet, interestingly, they took a more subtle approach within the PPWA, as they rarely criticised the race politics of their country at its forums. While a paper by pro-indigenous activist Constance Cooke that highlighted Australia’s failure to protect its Aboriginal population was published in the PPWA official conference report of 1930, she did not present the paper at the actual conference itself, perhaps because the Australian government had insisted that, if she did this, then their lengthy reply would have to be read alongside. All the same, Australian activists succeeded in drawing the attention of the London press, and thus the Australian government and public, to the urgency of Aboriginal rights in Australia.20 Woollacott has suggested that the feminist activism of Australian women can be viewed as a kind of ‘commonwealth feminism’ (as opposed to imperial feminism), in which not only British women but also women belonging to the white dominions regarded themselves as ‘responsible for their less fortunate imperial sisters’.21 By appointing themselves as spokespersons for Aboriginal women, these well-meaning women, according to Woollacott, failed to maximise the political power of those whom they represented. And their reference to indigenous peoples as ‘less forward races’, she contends, conveyed a belief in their own superiority as well as their responsibility for indigenous women. All the same, the fact that, thanks to their efforts, regional women’s organisations now incorporated indigenous women’s rights within their agendas represented a novel direction within international co-operation and differed markedly from what was being promoted by other kinds of international women’s organisations. This shift, however, did coincide, it should be noted, with the general broadening of the definition of feminist work taking place in the interwar period to encompass human rights and work for social justice seen within international women’s organisations. 180

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While committed to improving the general position of women, the PPWA proved itself to be more moderate than the BCL and the IACW, and was concerned first and foremost with promoting understanding, co-operation and friendship among Pacific women.22 Its aims resembled that of its founder, the PPU, which set itself the task of developing ‘a spirit of neighbourliness and understanding amongst the peoples of the Pacific’.23 Nevertheless, the PPWA still included topics of specific concern to women, including infant and maternal welfare legislation and the suppression of the traffic in women, and carried out studies that drew comparisons between the standards of living, wages, health of women in industry, electoral systems, women’s place in political parties, effect of compulsory voting and legislation relating to women and children in the different countries in the Pacific. Despite being primarily concerned with study and discussion, any resolutions that were passed at its conferences during its early years tended to lend support to women in other organisations. Like others, the PPWA cooperated with the League of Nations, but while its programme initially largely overlapped with those of international women’s organisations, it maintained that it gradually acquired its own role, as seen in its efforts to achieve better understanding between people of the Pacific and, thus, to promote peace there during a period of growing political tension. Consequently, while long lists of resolutions, which largely supported endeavours of women in other organisations, were produced at its first two conferences, there were none from its 1937 conference.24 The PPWA’s emphasis on peace and international friendship was not a unique agenda, though its membership in the Pacific did remain larger than that of any other international women’s organisation concerned with similar issues at the time. According to Eleanor Hinder, Australian Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) organiser who lived in China and who was a driving force behind the PPWA, the latter was both a ‘clearing house’ for European-based international women’s organisations that sought to strengthen their ties with the Pacific as well as a means through which a distinctive and constructive Pacific thinking would be asserted.25 However, as the PPWA encompassed women of many different cultures living under various political systems, constructing a 181

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common ‘Pacific’ viewpoint was not straightforward and was probably more difficult than the identity formation of other regional organisations whose memberships were more culturally uniform. Accordingly, the PPWA appears to have functioned primarily as an ‘international’ organisation for women in the Pacific, who united under its auspices because they were located far from the headquarters and conferences of international women’s organisations, in order to assist with the forging of better connections between so-called Eastern and Western women. Indeed, the PPWA repeatedly referred to itself as a colleague, and not a rival, of other international organisations, something that was reflected in the comments of Tsune Gauntlett, its international president at the 1937 PPWC, that the main purpose of the PPWA was: ‘To bring the women of the world closer together and overcome the tendency of the past to separate the women of the Eastern Hemisphere from those in the Western Hemisphere.’26 Moreover, like international women’s organisations, the PPWA’s concerns reflected changes in the political, economic and social climate of the 1930s: its work was affected by the depression; its budget was halved; and it also became more focused on the urgent question of peace.27 While a commitment to the emancipation of women influenced the programmes of the BCL, the IACW and the PPWA, elsewhere nationalist struggles and their ideologies can be seen as having had a more direct impact on regional women’s organisations’ agendas. For example, Arab regional feminism grew from the 1930s under Egyptian leadership due to regional solidarity on the question of Palestine, the intensification of nationalism and what were perceived to be the limitations of international feminism. Likewise, the efforts to create a revised kind of internationalism free from the influence of European imperialism by the women’s movement in India culminated in the creation of the AAWC in Lahore in 1931.28 The AAWC supported the right of all countries to selfdetermination, considering ‘it imperative that each country [should] have full responsible self-government’.29 Indeed, for many nonWestern women at this time, winning national freedom became the over-riding priority.30 This meant that for them the prerequisite for true internationalism lay with independence, in contrast to that of 182

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international women’s organisations that was premised on the similar experience of women worldwide and thus ignored, or downplayed, the different political contexts of specific countries. Many of the women behind the AIWC and the AAWC were directly involved in the non-violent struggle for independence in India. Only eight of the Indian women who originally called for the formation of the AAWC were able to attend its first meeting as the rest were either in prison, including Sarojini Naidu who was made president in absentia, or busy involved in nationalist struggle elsewhere. But, courtesy of the network established by the AAWC, the fate of these Indian women was widely – internationally – known: for instance, the Japanese delegate, Taki Fujita, was able to enquire in advance of the conference about Naidu’s arrest and whether this would mean any changes to the AAWC programme.31 That the AAWC also challenged the hegemony of Western feminist values in its desire to create an ‘Asian sisterhood’ can be seen from Lakshmibai G. Rajwade’s address at the 1931 meeting. As she explained, We have long allowed ourselves to be influenced by western ideas, Western ethic, and Western materialism and in my humble opinion we have reached a point when we might pause and consider whether we should allow our ancient culture to be completely lost to the world.32 Some of its members, such as Mrs S.W. Ilangakoon of Ceylon, not only criticised Western values but also Western attitudes towards the East: In the West individuality had been carried on to such a point that observers admit that the family system has broken down. We see it in the worst form in the increase of divorce, in estrangements between husbands and wives; in the declining birth-rate, and the reluctance of men and women to take the responsibilities of parenthood. In the face of these stern facts, it used to be the fashion in the West to disparage Eastern civilisation. Miss Mayo’s 183

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‘Mother India’ is a notorious example of the libels perpetrated on Indian civilization. The suggestion behind the book is the timehonoured libel that women of India are helpless chattels bought and sold, according to the whims of their masters, the men. Nobody who knows anything of the East could make such a stupid mistake. The women of the East have, usually, not ventured to cross the seas, and have preferred to exert their influence in shaping, influencing and directing the destinies of their husbands, sons, and daughters over the sea of life. But they have seldom been backward, when the need arose, in the more perilous adventures of life to play their part barely and selflessly.33 Likewise, Weber has pointed out that the Oriental Congress of Women in Tehran stressed the importance of preserving ‘Eastern’ culture, and how Islam was used as a unifying symbol.34 Thus, both the Oriental Congresses in the early 1930s and the AAWC stood up for, and supported, Middle Eastern and Asian cultural values, which its members believed had often been dismissed by Western women and international women’s organisations. Indeed, the controversy surrounding Mother India in the late 1920s heightened the question about who had the responsibility for representing Indian women. Many members of Indian women’s organisations increasingly disapproved of the tendency of British and/or Western women, as they saw it, to assign responsibility for ‘uplifting’ the position of Indian women to their own organisations while seeming to disregard progress being carried out by Indian women themselves. Indian suffragists also clashed with dominant British women’s organisations over the question of how to extend the franchise of Indian women: rather than being based, according to government proposals, on communal electorates, they called for universal adult suffrage according to which Indian women would be regarded as equal citizens of a recognised nation. Indeed, as Candy has explored, Indian women’s organisations such as the WIA and the AIWC were deliberately excluded from suffrage negotiations and instead replaced by conservative Indian women who, she claims, worked in effect as agents of those British conservative feminists who supported Mayo.35 184

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Thus, Indian women activists were not only concerned about who represented them but also began to question the agendas of Westerndominated organisations and their definitions of ‘internationalism’, putting forward different ideas that challenged the international feminism based on Western values being promoted by international women’s organisations. While disagreements found expressions within the major international organisations in the interwar period, they also seem to have encouraged some of these women to turn to regionalism at this time. The resentment felt by some Indian women towards Western-influenced international feminism clearly became more pronounced in organisations such as the AIWC and the AAWC over this period, with members of the AAWC, such as Ilangakoon, particularly opposed to Western-style feminism: [T]he attitude of the women in the West which is to a greater or lesser degree the result of feminine antagonism to man’s claim of overlordship. In the East, women are in no sense antagonistic to men, but they are now only exerting in the political field the benevolent influences they have always exerted in the home for the betterment, upliftment, and preservation of their country and nation [. . .] unless the women of each Asian country work side by side with their men to preserve the national and moral qualities of their individual civilisations, it is not only possible but probable that every nation or race in the East will be effectively wiped out in the near or distant future.36 Similarly, in an interview for The Woman’s Journal, Sarojini Naidu, representing the AIWC as well as the AAWC, asserted: I do not understand this American tendency to separate men and women, to talk as though they belonged to different species. I do not like what you call feminism. We have none of it in India, and I hope we will not have it. Your women, you will pardon my frankness, seem to me to be suffering from a bad inferiority complex. Your highest ideal seems to be man, and what he does. Your highest phrase of praise is ‘like a man’, 185

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whether you talk of a haircut, an overcoat, or a way of thinking. It’s wrong. Men and women must work side by side in the world for their common good, their common development, each one contributing his or her share.37 Ilangakoon and Naidu thus both stressed the significance of women and men working together, especially in their efforts to free their countries from imperialism and Western influence, and their version of ‘internationalism’ was closely linked to their commitment to nationalism. Yet, while these Indian women activists claimed that unity was achievable between women of different backgrounds at home, they also came to feel that their political situation and cultural values increasingly prevented them from bonding properly with their Western sisters. At the same time, leading individual activists such as Cousins believed that Indian women could influence fellow Asian women such as Japanese and Chinese ‘more wisely and more in line with their oriental natures than American women’.38 Interesting parallels can therefore be drawn with pan-American feminism, which, according to Ehrick’s research, grew stronger with the growth of nationalist and anti-imperialist sentiments in Latin America in the interwar years. Indeed, some Latin American feminists joined with their Iberian counterparts to form the International League of Iberian and Hispanic-American Women (ILIHAW) in response to what they perceived to be the continued domination of North American feminists of the Pan-American Women’s Association, established following the Pan-American Conference of Women in Baltimore in 1922. In the 1930s, the ILIHAW, with its nationalistic rhetoric and strong pan-Hispanic ideology, came to exist as an alternative to the IACW, which remained dominated in its view by North American women. Ehrick maintains that these Latin American feminists were driven by their own particular national and continental agendas,39 forces that clearly also applied to Indian women activists and their turn to regional co-operation during the same period. While comments by AAWC and AIWC members suggest that the priorities of these organisations differed from those of international 186

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women’s organisations, especially in relation to their willingness to work with men, both of their programmes clearly remained selfconsciously ‘feminist’.40 So, even though the AIWC began life as an organisation concerned with women’s education, it soon came to include more space for social reforms and women’s rights in its agenda. This same trend is evident from the address of the AIWC president, Her Highness Maharani Setu Parvati Bayi, to the 1935– 6 conference, in which she stressed that its goal had to be ‘to create absolute equality of opportunities and position as between the two sexes in all branches of activity’.41 As a result, the topics under discussion ranged from health, drugs, legal disabilities, legislation, franchise and citizenship to trafficking in women and children,42 and caused Georgina Sweet, who was present as PPWA representative, to reflect: ‘Where am I? Am I in Australia, or Great Britain, or in a Pacific Women’s Conference, or in America, or where? So familiar were the discussions, the reasoning, the arguments on the various subjects!’43 Sweet’s comments reinforce the impression that there was a high degree of similarity that persisted between the various agendas pursued by international, regional and national women’s organisations. Likewise, despite its stern criticism of the West and its proindependence stance, the AAWC’s conference programme resembled those of other international women’s organisations at this time, as it included education, equality of the sexes, drink and drugs, equal moral standard, peace, children’s rights and labour. Like other organisations, too, it stressed the importance of lobbying and working with the League of Nations, and in 1931, after being contacted by the IACW, its conference voted unanimously to support the request of the Women’s Nationality Committee to the Council of the League of Nations to form an International Committee on Nationality of Women.44 Moreover, while some AAWC members were certainly outspoken in their criticisms of Western values and Western influence, others believed that they benefited from the co-operation with Western women and so wished for its continuation. For instance, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi (also president of the AIWC), maintained at the 1931 AAWC conference: 187

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Our contact and our association with our Western Sisters many of whom are living in our midst even to-day as teachers, doctors, missionaries have been to our benefit. The active and the enterprising women of the West have been a source of inspiration to us, many of whom are our friends and co-workers in the same cause as ours. They have been watching our work and progress with joy and sisterly affection. Therefore the awakening of the women of the East followed that of the West. It is part of the world’s movement. It is not confined to the East or the West.45 Reddi was also elected liaison officer between the AAWC and the League of Nations and other international organisations. Furthermore, the AIWC’s affiliation to the IAW in 1935 and participation in the Istanbul congress the same year further demonstrated its level of commitment to transnational co-operation and feminism.46 Thus, while the nationalist struggle represented the main priority for many Indian women, their commitment to women’s rights47 and transnational co-operation endured. Even though some women might have been genuinely critical of Western feminism, others probably decided to distance themselves from it in order not to antagonise their male colleagues at a time when unity between the sexes was perceived as crucial in the struggle against the colonial power. It was not uncommon for such women to denounce feminism if and when it was seen as anti-men. Likewise, dropping explicit references to feminism from the agenda could mean gaining wider support, including that of those women who might otherwise have been reluctant to become involved in an organisation that was outspoken on women’s rights. Parallels can be drawn with the United States at the turn of the century, when some Jewish women were hesitant about joining women’s organisations there, in part because they did not want to involve themselves in the controversial issue of feminism when they were still working to achieve social integration into American society more generally.48 A major strength of regional women’s organisations, however, was that they were able to identify the specific concerns of women living 188

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in the countries that they represented. For example, alongside the need for increased access to education, Begum Mazharul Haque identified purdah as the chief problem for Indian women in her welcome address to the 1929 AIWC conference. Purdah, the Begum claimed, affected Muslim women more than others, especially those of wealthier classes, and prevented women and girls from leaving their houses. But instead of holding up Western women as examples, she highlighted instead ‘progressive’ developments taking place elsewhere in the Muslim world as the model for Indian Muslim women to follow: ‘It appears from the papers that the women of Turkey and Persia have freed themselves from the tyrannies of [the] burqa and that even in Afghanistan [woman] has discarded her burqa.’49 Similarly, Middle Eastern women could be outspoken against practices of female seclusion. In a paper given by Kodsieh Ashraf at the Oriental Congress of Women held in Damascus in 1930, she drew attention to the aims of the Persian Women’s Association for Home-Welfare that called directly for the abandonment of the veil. Resolutions on polygamy, minimum age of marriage and child marriage – all perceived to be problems affecting female lives in the region – were also adopted at this meeting.50 Moreover, while national independence became an issue of importance for both Asian and Arab women’s organisations, the rights of indigenous peoples were brought to the attention of regional organisations by Australian women, as seen above. The different geographical location of these women activists as compared with their European and North American colleagues, thus, influenced what they regarded as the priorities of international co-operation.

Memberships and conferences Regional women’s organisations, as we have seen, enjoyed wide support from non-Western women, and their memberships frequently included women from countries that were not yet involved in international organisations. Both the location of regional women’s conferences, primarily outside Europe and North America, and the inclusion of a larger number of regional issues contributed to more sizeable delegations of non-Western women attending than at 189

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international conferences. The regional focus, rather than subjects, of these organisations and conferences also meant that they included women from many different backgrounds and women’s organisations. However, despite these distinctions, many of these regional associations, like international women’s organisations, remained directed by women whose origins lay in the West. One important difference was that the location of regional women’s conferences meant that more women from outside North America and in particular Europe were able to take part in conferences. Apart from the BCL, which held its conferences in London, meetings of the IACW, the PPWA, the AIWC and AAWC, were convened in South America, Hawaii and India respectively. While the 1930 PPWC in Honolulu was attended by delegates from Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Samoa, Korea, Mexico, Malaya, Hawaii and the United States, delegates at the 1931 AAWC came from Java, Japan, Burma, Afghanistan, Ceylon and Persia in addition to 50 women from all over India. Similarly, women’s conferences in the Middle East attracted women from many of the countries in that region. Whereas the first feminist conference in the region, held in Beirut in April 1930, was attended by delegates from Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the July 1930 Oriental Congress of Women, presided over by Mme Nour Hamada, founder of the ‘Supreme Council of Oriental Women’, included women from beyond the ‘Arab’ Middle East and (in addition to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Aleppo, Hauran and Hedjaz) also comprised delegates from Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and even as far away as India. In addition, the BCL brought women from countries such as Bermuda, Kenya and the British West Indies to its conferences.51 Many of these women came from places that were not yet officially participating in international women’s organisations and their conferences. There are, for example, no records of women from countries such as Java, Burma, Afghanistan, Samoa, Korea, Malaya and Kenya attending any of the conferences run by international women’s organisations in the interwar period. Attendance from other countries in the Middle East and Asia had likewise been sparse at their forums. 190

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The significance of this difference between international and regional women’s conferences was recognised at the time by Jane Addams (international chairman of the PPWC as well as president of WILPF), who declared in Pax that the first PPWC conference in 1928 would represent ‘a real meeting of the women of the East and West’.52 In the event, the Japanese delegation to this gathering proved to be larger than those from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Eleanor Hinder, present at the conference, wrote afterwards in Pacific Affairs that it differed greatly from the conference of the IFUW in Kristiania (Oslo) in 1924, where the only Chinese delegate, Grace Yang ‘splendidly qualified woman though she was, [was] regarded as a unique representative, and less as one seriously prepared to make a contribution to the gathering’.53 Acknowledgement was also received from Alexander Hume Ford, director of the PPU, who claimed that the PPWC was the most successful conference that the PPU had organised on the basis of Japan, Australia and New Zealand all sending larger delegations to it than to any other previous gathering in Hawaii. Not only did the PPWC attract large delegations of ‘Eastern’ women, it also brought the more geographically isolated Australians and New Zealanders into closer contact with ‘oriental’ women.54 By the end of the 1930s, it was also talking more vocally about securing the representation of Central and South America at its conferences. Like the PPWA, the AAWC was self-consciously proud of its achievements. Prior to its first conference, it pointed out that it had managed to secure delegates from ten countries, and it compared this with the fact that the 1930 PPWA conference had only been attended by women from eight countries despite two years of preparation and financial backing from the PPU. However, in the end, seven nationalities were represented at its conference. The AAWC repeatedly stressed, and drew strength from, the central role played by Indian women in bringing the women of Asia together: ‘This Conference, which owes its existence to the brilliant imagination and labours of the women in this country, is a striking indication of the spirit which now animates the womankind of the East.’55 Male visitors to the conference were equally impressed. For instance, the Honourable Sardar Sir 191

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Jogendra Singh, Minister of Agriculture, remarked: ‘I know of no parallel in the history of the world of such a movement as this Women’s Conference representing the whole of Asia.’56 The above comments, however, hint at an element of competition between regional women’s organisations, just as there could at times be competition between international women’s organisations. However, recognising this should not detract from, or diminish, the extent to which they co-operated with each other, as demonstrated by the attendance of the Australian president of the PPWA, Georgina Sweet, who represented both the PPWA and the Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Committee at the 1936 AIWC in Ahmedabad, western India. Indeed, at the PPWA conference later on in 1937, Sweet gave a lecture entitled ‘India, Its Women, and the All-India Women’s Conference’, in which she commented on the influence of the Indian nationalist struggle over Indian women’s activism: It is perhaps only natural, especially at the present time, that the Indian women’s thought and activity is for the time being very much turned in on their own country and its development – for, and it was sad to feel this, in my experience very few [. . .] were conscious of what is going on in the world at large outside India – and who should criticize?57 At the same time, Sweet proclaimed that ‘there is much we may learn from them of the Technique of developing soul and progressive public opinion’.58 Non-Western women not only participated in regional women’s conferences in greater numbers, they also held higher positions within the organisational hierarchies of these regional women’s organisations. The AIWC’s board was from the outset dominated by Indian women from many different provinces within the country. In the more multinational PPWA, similarly prominent positions were held by east Asian women such as Mrs Tsune Gauntlett of Japan (International President 1934–7 and First Vice-President 1937– 40), Mrs H.C. Mei of China (Second Vice-President 1934– 7), Dr Zen Way Koh from Singapore (Second Vice President 1930– 4) and Mrs Lo 192

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(Third Vice-President 1937– 40). Moreover, non-Western women were also well represented on the conference executive and programme committees and appointed to chairman and vicechairman positions on the different sections at the PPWC. In addition, the PPWC experiment with round table discussions, as opposed to general meetings, meant that delegates were brought closer together through informal discussions. Thus, non-Western women enjoyed a more direct impact on the agendas promoted by regional women’s organisations than in international women’s organisations, where they still remained a minority. Even though many of the non-Western women delegates to regional women’s conferences were well known within the circuit of international women’s organisations, they also incorporated women who were new to international conferences, who travelled abroad for the first time and who had never before been in close contact with women of other races. For instance, while the Japanese delegation to the second PPWC in 1930 included prominent women such as Ichikawa (also active in the IAW) and Inouye (influential within the Japanese section of WILPF), it also comprised four women who did not know enough English to be full delegates. All of them, however, worked with education back in Japan, and were, according to Ichikawa, as well qualified as any other delegate. Moreover, at AIWC conferences steps were taken to accommodate women in purdah, which meant restrictions for members of the press who had to stand behind screens to hear the speakers. The AIWC in Lahore in 1931 was attended by women from all over India, including Parsees, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, from schoolgirls to older women. Moreover, the delegates’ social status ranged from royalty to harijans (so-called ‘untouchables’). Indeed, the AIWC was more nationally representative than the WIA, which was concentrated in south India. By 1937 the former had standing committees in its 36 constituent areas, and 114 sub-areas, which each organised separate annual conferences, comprising 400 – 500 delegates, and thus constituted a useful way of encouraging more women to become involved in the organisation.59 Behind this expansion lay the AIWC’s unequivocal commitment to a united and 193

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independent India: as the welcome address to its 1935–6 conference put it, ‘We must realise that India is one, undivided and indivisible. Her problems are the same despite the variety of dress and language.’60 Thus, measures were deliberately introduced by the AIWC to reach beyond the educated Westernised elite who traditionally tended to dominate those non-Western women’s associations affiliated to international women’s organisations at this time. Organising around a geographical region, rather than a specific topic, meant that these forums provided opportunities for women from a wider range of different backgrounds and associations to participate in their activities. However, the heterogeneous nature of regional co-operation did generate a number of difficulties and debates elsewhere in the world during the same period. For example, some members of the NFOU wished to admit only women’s organisations that were explicitly committed to women’s rights and equality between women and men, whereas others wanted to include wider groups of women, including women’s sections of political parties and organisations that were concerned solely with social questions. Thus, while regional organisations were structured on the basis of geographical location and cultural similarities, political divisions between women from the same country sometimes proved great. Regional women’s organisations in the non-West were not immune to similar problems. Indeed, prior to the first PPWC, Ichikawa worried about being able to work with the other Japanese delegates and her report reveals evidence of tension and disunity among them. Moreover, language not only proved a difficulty for the Japanese delegates to the PPWC, but also posed difficulties at AIWC conferences. As many of the 500 or more local Gujarat women, many of them peasants or mill-women, attending its 1936 conference in Ahmedabad, could not understand English, the only common language understood throughout India, speeches or summaries of speeches accordingly had to be in Gujarati that not all the other delegates could understand.61 In addition, processes of regionalisation gave the non-Western public more of a chance of attending women’s conferences, an opportunity taken up by thousands of men as well as women. For 194

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instance, while around 1,200 came to the AAWC in 1931, the opening meeting of the 1936 AIWC, according to contemporary reports, was attended by some 2,000 women and men.62 In similar fashion, a large crowd of several hundred attended a ‘bon voyage’ gathering when Ichikawa, part of the Japanese delegation to the first PPWC in 1928, left Japan, a response that not only points to the popularity of the PPWC in Japan but also, according to Molony, reflected increasing support for civil rights in Japan, as did the greetings that the conference received from Prince Tokugawa, president of the Pan-Pacific Association in Japan.63 The interest shown by Japanese officials also needs to be viewed in the light of Japan’s status in Asia at the time. For example, Shibahara points out how the Japanese press insisted on the need for Japanese women’s leadership among Asian nations at the time of the first PPWA conference, reinforcing Japan’s perceived leading position in Asia at the time.64 The PPWA was also popular in the West, and at its 1937 Vancouver conference hundreds of people apparently had to be turned away from its first open session due to lack of space. The conference in Canada also received official recognition in the form of a banquet given by the government of British Columbia in honour of the PPWA.65 It is interesting to note that the greater number of non-Western women and the focus on regional friendship and co-operation seem to have affected the way in which Western women addressed these gatherings. As J. Merle Davis, the general secretary of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Hawaii, emphasised in her speech on ‘The Opportunities, Limitations and Problems of the International Conference’ at the first PPWC, Western delegates had come to learn and not to teach. Davies also stressed the importance of not always comparing the East with the West since: [T]he difference in the psychology of the different races is perhaps the greatest difference of all. The thinking of some peoples upon certain social and political questions is quite different from our own, and we must avoid easy assumptions based on our own limited experience in our discussions. Our 195

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friends from the East have certain quite different units of standardization from the West, a thing which is in itself of tremendous significance: I refer to the central position of the family in oriental society as compared with the highly developed individualism of the West.66 Eleanor Moore, a delegate from Australia at the same conference, likewise claimed that Western women were happy to listen to women from the Philippines, Japan and China who talked about the work for social betterment in their countries. She maintained that, despite all the obvious differences between women at the conference, ‘the one bond between them was their common womanhood’.67 Moreover, in the view of Josephine Schain (one of the US delegates), there was no place for the narrow-minded at the 1937 PPWC. According to her: [D]ifferent national bases, different religious attitudes, different cultural backgrounds, different economic levels – all had to be considered in drawing conclusions. There was no place for the narrow-minded in any of the round tables. [. . .] no Westerner emerged with any too sure opinion of her own superiority after a philosophical discussion with an Eastern delegate!68 The many letters that were written to Ichikawa from pan-Pacific institutions also attest to the value and importance placed on Japanese women’s participation. Unlike other conferences, where Western women were normally held up as ‘examples’ to the East, the AAWC stressed the progress made in Japan, in particular in terms of education and health, and urged their own governments to follow Japan’s precedent.69 Thus, the PPWA, like the BCL, at least to some extent represented a different form of international co-operation, which showed more obvious tolerance of the cultural differences of so-called Eastern and Western women. Indeed, the ‘internationalism’ promoted by both the PPWA and the BCL was influenced by the compositions of these organisations, with larger delegates of nonWestern as well as Australian and New Zealand women than seen at international women’s organisations. 196

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But despite greater participation and representation of nonWestern women within regional organisations, and a more sensitive attitude from their Western members notwithstanding, confidence in the leadership of Western societies, common within international women’s organisations, still persisted, as demonstrated by the attitude of some Western members of regional women’s organisations towards ‘Eastern’ women. For instance, Georgina Sweet’s speech to the 1937 PPWA conference on her attendance of the 1936 AIWC, as mentioned above, highlighted this tendency when she commented on the level of discussions there and reminded her audience that ‘it must be remembered that [. . .] as a rule, the discussions had to start from a lower level of present achievement than in most western countries’.70 As could happen at the gatherings of international women’s organisations, an emphasis on Eastern women learning from Western women did creep into regional discourses. How far this could be the case is highlighted by the content of BCL conference reports, which referred to so-called Western women as ‘women of the more forward races’, emphasising what they could do to help ‘women of the less forward races’.71 Moreover, as ICW secretary Louise van Eeghen claimed, not only did the Dominion Conference in Johannesburg directly inspire the delegates of National Councils from all parts of the South African Union, but the address on women police by one of the British delegates present, Miss Tancred, was credited with playing the vital role in breaking down prejudice against women police that still prevailed in this part of the British Empire.72 Thus, even though the greater numbers of non-Western women within regional women’s organisations created what might be termed a more respectful attitude among some Western women towards ‘Eastern’ women and their cultures, notions of Western superiority persisted in relation to others. Enormous value continued to be placed on the acquisition of a Western-style education by regional women’s organisations, and it was presumed to endow women with great authority. For example, half of the non-Western women proposed as topic directors for the 1937 PPWA conference had been educated in the United States. Indeed, Western women still often continued to overlook non-Western local conditions in favour of 197

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Western models of social activism and Western institutions. At the same time, conference reports continued to be characterised by recognition of the eagerness of non-Western women to learn what they could from their Western counterparts. Hence a claim from Moore that women from oriental countries were keen to find out how to attain political status from Western delegates at the first PPWC. Indeed, Dr Ting from China, Mrs Tsune Gauntlett of Japan and Mrs Sofia R. de Vegra from the Philippines themselves all stressed publicly how much they valued the opportunity given to them to learn from others at the 1928 PPWC conference.73 As what appears to be a draft of Ichikawa’s speech to the first PPWC conference reminded its potential audience: ‘The majority of you who are attending this conference are from the countries where women have already acquired political rights equal to those of men. We, the Japanese women, however, are deprived of such rights.’74 Even though the majority of regional women’s organisations were based outside Europe and North America, Western women remained influential within most of them. It is telling that, even though the IACW comprised women from all American republics, its first president was Doris Stevens from the United States.75 Not only were organisations such as WILPF and the IAW officially represented at the conferences of regional organisations, their memberships often included women from the West, and often overlapped with those of international women’s organisations. For example, the Organisation Committee of the first PPWC included both Jane Addams and Amy Kane, ex-president of the NCW of New Zealand, while Margery Corbett Ashby was both chairman of the BCL and president of the IAW, as mentioned above. Similarly, other women, both Western and non-Western, such as Australian Mrs Rischbieth and Japanese Tsune Gauntlett were active, not just in the BCL, but also in the IAW and the PPWA, and the IAW and PPWA respectively.76 As these women’s activities indicate, there were clear organisational and membership links between international and regional women’s organisations. Women with Western origins, not surprisingly, were particularly active and influential in the BCL and the PPWA. As the BCL worked 198

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for the women in countries making up the British Empire, British women played a dominant role within it, as did women from Australia and New Zealand. Likewise, the PPWA included among its members the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Thus, despite a wide membership in the Pacific and the notable participation of non-Western women at its conferences, the PPWA remained a Western-influenced institution, and the majority of its officers between 1930 and 1940 hailed from the West. Even though, as we have seen, Japan was relatively well represented, the majority of the delegates at the first PPWC still came from Hawaii and the US mainland. Moreover, it is important to note that Western women made up part of the Chinese delegation, as well as the entire delegations from the Dutch East Indies, Fiji and India. While the PPWA had 14 member countries by 1937, its conference that same year was only attended by representatives from eight of those countries and the dominance of Western countries, in particular Canada and the United States, was actually more marked than at earlier conferences. The overall number of delegates may have been higher in 1937 (with 125 official representatives) than at the 1934 conference (attended by 108 delegates), but the first and the second conferences had been attended by even more, with 182 and 157 delegates respectively. The pattern of these figures reinforces the significance of where a conference was located, as moving the PPWC to North America in 1937, despite bids from both Japan and India, probably contributed to this drop in delegates from Asia and the smaller countries in the Pacific. Not only did fewer non-Western women travel to Vancouver, but all of the non-Western women who were proposed as topic directors for the 1937 conference did not attend. While conflict in east Asia between Japan and China undoubtedly contributed to their non-appearance, there had also been some criticism of the proposed 1937 conference programme by east Asian delegates: Chinese women, for instance, believed that the programme would attract only the more educated and intellectual types.77 Thus, regionalisation did not necessarily represent a complete departure from ‘Westernised’ agendas, nor necessarily a reduction in the dominant role played by Western women. However, whereas the 199

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ICW, the IAW and other international organisations were largely dominated by women from North America and western Europe, organisations such as the PPWA and the BLC did present opportunities for women from the ‘new lands’, primarily Australia and New Zealand, to gain influence in relation to women within the British Empire and the Pacific region, to air their independent perspectives on world affairs at international forums, and to challenge European and North American control over international women’s movements. Moore, for instance, claimed in her 1929 Pax article on the first PPWC that Americans, New Zealanders and Australians ‘naturally’ took the lead in relation to work on women in public life, as they had more experience than ‘oriental’ countries.78 This same approach was taken up in a speech at the conference by Mrs Rischbieth from Australia, who emphasised how far, in the ‘new lands’ of Australia, New Zealand and the United States, women had been allowed to participate in the building up of a new civilisation together with men. She also highlighted the apparent progress made by these countries towards securing women’s rights: ‘We women of the new world come with a new symbol in our hand, “the symbol of opportunity”, to meet women of the East steeped in the rich experience of civilizations stretched down the ladder of time.’79 Australians thus questioned the value of their links to Europe along the following lines: The delegates who attended the Pan Pacific Conference all came home with a strong sense of the opportunity which is ours to help a peaceful fellowship in the Pacific, and it is just an open question whether we should not concentrate on this, rather than make great efforts to send delegates to Europe. It is true that Europe is the chief policy centre for the world; it is also the principal incubator of war germs, perhaps of peace germs also. These facts make its Conference very important; but we cannot help asking ourselves, is anything that an Australian can contribute likely to be worth much, in a council whose psychology is, as it must be, so definitely European? [. . .] Might we not really help the peace cause more in the long run 200

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by using our money, say to go to Japan or to India, or even to western America, and trying to cultivate and consolidate peaceful contact there? As part of the British Empire, we are of course tied by a long string to British Foreign Policy, but geographically the string is very long, and it has often occurred to me that one of the best checks on British militarist schemes might be to have the Dominions showing definite signs of a will to cultivate their own friendly relations with other peoples, without asking permission or sanction from Westminster.80 Women activists from the so-called ‘new lands’ were, thus, rethinking not only their roles within the transnational women’s movement but also their identity and place more generally within the world. Indeed, Lake, Woollacott and Paisley have in their different ways all shown how far Australian (and to some extent New Zealand) women activists desired to have more of an independent perspective on world affairs in the interwar period. According to Lake, the Australian feminist project was shaped by a sense of ‘double difference’, by Australia’s construction of a New World identity and politics marked by difference from the European Old World and aboriginal Australians:81 in her view, ‘As colonised and colonisers, Australian feminists shaped their New World identity in opposition to the “Old World barbarism” of Britain and the older “primitive barbarism” evident to them in Aboriginal society.’82 Australian women activists were determined to be part of postwar British Commonwealth politics and to increase the political voice of the ‘women of Australia’ on the world stage and within imperial affairs.83 One development that increased their presence internationally was their campaign for Aboriginal rights through regional organisations such as the BCL. According to both Woollacott and Paisley, the confidence exhibited by these Australian women stemmed from their early enfranchisement, which had been among the first in the world, and they consequently believed that it was their duty to help ‘native peoples’ living in Australia.84 Lake argues that while Australian women had previously seen themselves as belonging to the same family as British and American 201

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women – with their sense of themselves situated in an imperialist framework influenced by the dichotomies between ‘civilised’ and ‘primitive’, ‘Europeans’ and ‘natives’, ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ peoples – these oppositions became destabilised as gender affinities blurred racial boundaries through the efforts of these women on behalf of Aboriginal women’s rights.85 Of course such binary divisions were also breaking down for other Western women, including the British, within international women’s organisations as they expanded into the non-West in the interwar period. At the same time, agitating for increased Aboriginal rights caused considerable tensions between Australian feminists, caught up as they became in conflicting loyalties between their commitment to feminism on the one hand and nationalism on the other. This was, however, a common dilemma for many women activists at this time, with some of the Australian women involved ‘unable to reconcile their proud nationalist identifications with a recognition that their national history rested on a process of dispossession, exploitation and sexual abuse’.86 Paisley and Woollacott have demonstrated the way in which these particular Australian women, while clearly concerned about the plight of Aboriginal people, were to some extent driven by their own desire to increase their voice on the world stage, something which their campaign for Aboriginal rights helped them to achieve.87 Thus, regional organisations such as the BCL and the PPWA offered new opportunities for Australian women activists to assert themselves internationally. Instead of challenging the overall dominance of Western women, it could be argued, regional organisations like the BCL and the PPWA produced new hierarchies among them, as women from Australia and New Zealand gained greater influence within these particular organisations than they had previously experienced within international women’s organisations more generally. All the same, despite this documented shift towards the ‘new lands’, women based in Britain remained influential in the BCL and co-operated closely with the AIWC. Not only were all of the BCL’s conferences held in London, but British women’s organisations also published the Bulletin of the Indian Women’s Movement in connection 202

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with the liaison work of the AIWC. As many as 30 women’s organisations had subscribed to the Bulletin by 1935.88 Moreover, many Western women attended AIWC and AAWC conferences, including prominent visitors such as Maude Royden and Margery Corbett Ashby. Indeed, the AIWC frequently acknowledged the work by British women on behalf of those whom they described as their Indian sisters, with, for instance, its president, Her Highness Maharani Setu Parvati Bayi issuing a lavish welcome to its 1935– 6 foreign visitors, who, she claimed, were ‘all World-famous, distinguished personalities devoting their time and talents to the cause. The presence of such splendid, sincere and indefatigable workers will prove a fresh inspiration to our own.’89 Including an extract from a letter from Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, AIWC liaison officer, in the Bulletin’s May 1934 issue, similarly emphasised the AIWC’s appreciation of the continued support for its franchise demands during the constitutional discussions taking place in India at the time. The Bulletin also reported the gratitude of the AIWC standing committee to Miss Eleanor Rathbone for her book, Child Marriage: The Indian Minotaur, which contained practical suggestions on how to combat child marriage. Likewise, the care that the AAWC took in listing its Western sympathisers in its 1931 conference report seemed to reflect a not inconsiderable degree of pride in the interest shown in its activities by non-Asian countries. Moreover, it took care to publicise the fact that its conference was attended by foreign visitors from Britain, New Zealand and the United States.90 But while some of the AIWC’s Western supporters were in favour of Indian independence (including WILPF, and individuals such as Royden, who described the 1934– 5 AIWC conference as ‘sowing a seed of a new united India’),91 others were more concerned about the nature of its influence over women in India. Yet, apart from the comments by Her Highness Maharani Setu Parvati Bayi, most of what the AIWC had to say on the matter was filtered through British hands on its way to being published in the Bulletin, with the result that it is hard to be certain how far the Bulletin’s contents were necessarily an accurate reflection of Indian women’s attitudes towards the British at the time. Indeed, many Indian women activist were 203

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outspoken against Western-style feminism and, as shown above, far from wholeheartedly appreciating the work done by British feminists; some clashed with their British sisters over the way in which their franchise was to be extended. While British and Indian women continued to collaborate with each other, their relationship could not avoid being influenced by the expanding Indian nationalist movement. The growth of nationalism had a similar impact elsewhere in the non-West. For example, the presence of Western women at the AAWC meant that the two Javanese women, Mrs Santoso and Miss Sunayati, who belonged to the Self-Help League of their country, chose to attend as visitors rather than delegates as they had been instructed by that organisation to refrain from participating as delegates if money and assistance had been given by non-Asians.92 Thus, while some women continued to look to Western feminism for solutions to their problems, others as supporters of independence for colonised peoples were more concerned about creating their own ‘Asian sisterhood’. Leadership of both the AIWC and the AAWC remained firmly in the hands of Indian women, and whereas British and American women and women from the ‘new lands’ dominated British Empire, South American and the Pacific forums respectively, Indian women were able to take the lead in Asia, a difference that led to criticism of the AAWC being dominated by Indian women and not being as truly ‘All-Asian’ as it claimed. Nevertheless, in the same way as the ILIHAW existed as an alternative to the North Americandominated IACW for South American women, the AIWC, and in particular the AAWC, constituted different options for Asian women from the Western-dominated regional women’s organisations such as the PPWA and the BCL. All the same, Indian women’s regional efforts were short lived, as while a second AAWC was planned for 1933, it never transpired.93 International women’s organisations, it must be said, displayed a consistent interest in regional women’s organisations. They took pains to be represented at regional women’s conferences and devoted attention to regional co-operation in their many publications. The activities of the PPWC, the AIWC and the AAWC and other regional activities were all widely advertised, and reported on, in Pax, 204

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the ICW Bulletin and the IWSN. While some of these regional organisations were linked to international ones, notably the IAW with the BCL and the AIWC, others were connected through the medium of overlapping memberships. For instance, many of WILPF’s members were active in the PPWA; several delegates represented both the international section and its national branches at PPWA’s conferences: it even organised a small conference of its own following the first PPWC in 1928.94 However, this was perhaps not that surprising as WILPF had always taken a keen interest in east Asia, to which it organised several trips in the 1920s. Thus, these organisations largely reinforced one another and co-operation between them was extensive. Together they made up the increasingly diverse transnational women’s movement of the interwar period. Indeed, many encouraged this diversification: as AAWC literature put it, ‘the women at Geneva [. . .] are keenly interested in this Asian Conference, recognizing in it a promise of necessary self-conscious element in the federation of the world and the establishment of unity in diversified world sisterhood’.95 In similar fashion, Lady Aberdeen announced in the ICW Bulletin that the forthcoming AIWC 1934– 5 conference promised to be ‘an outstanding occasion’.96 However, as with the question of the nature of the co-operation among British and Indian women, interaction between international women’s organisations and regional women’s organisations was complex. Others were less sympathetic to the initiatives of nonWestern women, as reflected in the rather negative response of Kathleen Courtney (British member of the IAW and WILPF) towards the proposal made by Cuban women to hold a world conference there in 1940: Have you heard about a proposal for some kind of world conference of women to be held in Cuba next September? Mrs. Haldane is actively concerned with it here, and it seems to me that it would inevitably conflict with our international conference which we are proposing for next January. Mrs Haldane tells me that the conference in question has been invited by Cuban women, and started as a Pan-American 205

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conference. They are, however, enlarging it to make it international. [. . .] At first glance the thing seems to me to be impracticable – I mean of course from the international not the Pan-American, point of view. We know very well how difficult it is to get such a conference going. The time for this is much too short, there being only about four months, and not all of them working months. International affairs are now in such a confused state that noone in Europe can possibly commit themselves far ahead, and I think an international conference in Cuba would be a flop. My tactic, if left to myself, would therefore be, to turn this proposal down with all politeness, and to concentrate on making a success of our January effort.97 Courtney clearly questioned the capabilities of Cuban women to organise a gathering on such a scale, but her main worry seems to have been with the competition that it constituted for the international congress that she herself was organising for next year. Indeed, the two conferences were likely to compete with one another in terms of the time and support of women activists, in particular from the Americas. Likewise, before the formalisation of the PPWA, the IAW appeared slightly anxious about the knock-on effects of such an organisation on its direct links in Australasia.98 Uneasiness in response to any challenges to the status quo of the transnational women’s movement at the time was further reflected in the way in which Western women frequently praised those non-Western women who remained conspicuously committed to international women’s organisations, such as the Indian activist, Muthulakshmi (president of the AIWC and active in AAWC): ‘Mrs. Muthulakshmi Reddi, M.D., the President of the All-Indian, gave a masterly and comprehensive opening address [at the 1930–1 AIWC]. All through that week she showed herself as a woman of unfailing goodwill, generosity, tolerance and common sense.’99 This fulsome praise contrasted with criticism levelled against those non-Western women who were pro-independence and questioned Western values, such as Sarojini Naidu, who in Corbett Ashby’s view was an anti-British leader and ‘admirer of democracy who did not practice it. [Af]ter I attended a 206

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committee which she chaired and when the opinions went against her she said calmly the committee would sit until they agreed with her, so they did but with bitter remarks to me in private.’100 Yet, despite the possibilities of competition in the Pacific and the Americas and the pro-independence, anti-imperialism and more general anti-Western sentiments of Indian-based organisations, international women’s organisations retained a positive outlook as far as their regional counterparts were concerned. On the whole, they and their members were supportive of regional initiatives. The strong links between international and regional women’s organisations, together with their overlapping memberships and agendas, meant that, in practice, they rarely competed with one another for the support and time of the women activists involved. Instead, many activists considered regional women’s organisations and conferences to be useful additions to national and transnational co-operation, as well as valuable for the expansion of their connections further into the non-West. In relation to the PPWA, for instance, instead of believing that this would result in any breaking of its direct bonds with Australasian countries, the IAW came to regard the Pan-Pacific Bureau as a potentially valuable additional way of helping it to make contact with women from smaller countries in the Pacific, especially since organisations located there were not regarded as sufficiently developed for formal affiliation to the IAW.101 *** The appearance of regional women’s conferences and organisations located outside Europe intensified from the late 1920s. Inspired by the apparent success of earlier regional women’s organisations, these new bodies set out to achieve more effective co-operation between women living in the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. International women’s organisations viewed regional women’s organisations first and foremost as ‘colleagues’ in their joint quest for the further expansion of the transnational women’s movement, though they were occasionally concerned that the latter could potentially become ‘rivals’ that might challenge their own leadership position within the hierarchies of international (or Western) feminism. 207

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Tensions between international and regional women’s organisations were more pronounced wherever nationalist struggles influenced nonWestern women and their views on Western versions of international feminism. It was in these locations that non-Western women were likely to have consciously chosen to attend regional organisations over international ones, encouraged by the greater impact that they enjoyed within such associations. But regional women’s organisations and conferences at this time included a larger number of non-Western members and delegates than any international women’s organisation. Moreover, their regional focus meant that they brought together women from different backgrounds and associations. Their conferences clearly provided more ‘space’ or room for non-Western women than did their international counterparts, as well as a chance for them to directly influence these organisations’ agendas. These regional organisations definitely extended and refined the agendas of international organisations, while their locations and diverse memberships meant that they pursued a somewhat different kind of internationalism, influenced by specific regional and sometimes national concerns, from that defined by international women’s organisations dominated by western European and North American women. While national self-determination of all nations remained high on the agendas of Indian and Arab-led organisations, the BCL (and the PPWA) were not afraid of tackling sensitive subjects such as racism. Yet, apart from the Indian-dominated AIWC and the AAWC, these regional women’s organisations largely remained in Western hands, even though there was a shift away from European leadership to a higher profile for women from the ‘new lands’, in particular Australia and New Zealand. While international and regional organisations continued to operate alongside one another, often linked by both aims and overlapping memberships, establishment and growth of regional associations represented a shift from the international to the regional, which posed challenges to the international framework created and sustained by Western women. Although Western women continued to take a leading role, the increase of regional women’s organisations nevertheless produced an important diversification within the transnational women’s movement by the 1930s. 208

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Recent years have seen a growth in transnational interpretations of history, including an increased interest in cross-border co-operation among activists such as those under scrutiny here. While definitions of terminology are important, establishing whether these organisations should be described as transnational or international has not been the main aim of this book – instead the focus has firmly been on the experiences and identities of their members. Indeed, it is clear that international women’s organisations display features associated with both transnational and international co-operation – which is further complicated by the differences in terminology used by contemporary members of these international women’s organisations and that employed by historians when analysing that period today. This book has tried to avoid assessing these associations and their memberships in hindsight by focus on international women’s organisations in their own right, and by placing these women activists’ experiences in the context of their own time. The roots of interwar international women’s organisations were located in the nineteenth century and in female involvement with philanthropy, the abolitionist movement and temperance organisations. These earlier campaigns provided women with experience and

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skills in organisation and activism, and also, importantly, contributed to the formation of a substructure, often worldwide as in the case of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), that later organisations could make use of in their pursuit of attracting members beyond the parameters of Western societies. Even though it is important to acknowledge that the women’s movement at this time was diverse, as demonstrated by the many different campaigns undertaken by its members whose opinions and activities were not only influenced by gender but also by class, religion and political beliefs, it continued to be dominated by upper and middleclass women. While social reforms remained high on the agendas of these women activists, they increasingly began to focus on the question of women’s access to the public sphere and thus to articulate political aims (above all female suffrage). These were issues that brought women together into newly formed transnational networks towards the end of the nineteenth century. These new organisations were certainly far from uniform in terms of their immediate priorities, but they all tended to focus primarily on existing inequalities between women and men, especially in terms of the political rights and legislation on which they were campaigning, and not on inequalities that existed between women themselves. The movement projected a significant degree of unity thanks to the fact that its upper and middle-class members, in the main, subscribed to the idea of a distinct ‘femaleness’, notions about women’s common subordination and, thus, to the assumed universality of sisterhood. That World War I disrupted transnational co-operation among women is well documented, but, as this book has demonstrated, contrary to earlier historical assessments, it actually intensified and proliferated in the interwar period. When the war ended, international women’s organisations shared a renewed and urgent desire to transform themselves into what they described as ‘truly international’ bodies, and so the International Council of Women (ICW), the International Alliance of Women (IAW), Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) all put much effort into expanding their composition and the arenas within which 210

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their activities took place. But, even though these organisations sought to broaden their agendas, and eventually their programmes included working towards the acquisition of both political and social rights, peace work became the real driving force behind all of them, in particular WILPF, by the 1930s. Moreover, they all placed the objective of securing international friendship among women worldwide so high on their agendas that it at times seemed to overshadow their primary focus on women’s rights. In different ways, therefore, these international organisations offered concrete opportunities for forging connections and establishing friendships that transcended borders, in turn strengthening their members’ belief that the similarities between women overrode any differences separating them. All the organisations explored in this book displayed a growing interest in the non-West, as demonstrated by their efforts to expand their membership in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America over this period. Ties between women in different parts of the world were undoubtedly strengthened through the medium of international travel, which played an important part in extending these organisations’ memberships outside the West itself. By the 1920s the ‘function’ of travel had moved on, to a great extent though not completely, from the ‘fact-finding’ tours of the early twentieth century, which had often represented the first contact between Western members of these organisations and non-Western women. Increasingly, travel by the official representatives of these organisations became instead the means of raising ‘recruitment’ as well as offering ‘support’ to countries where affiliations had already been formed. Since there was always an element, or undercurrent, of competition between these organisations and their desire to become ‘truly international’, sources reveal that some of them were prepared to loosen and bend their rules and constitutions in order to affiliate more associations. And as the number of national sections increased, the conferences of these international women’s organisations became more properly international than in earlier periods, with, for instance, an impressive 43 nationalities represented at the IAW conference in Rome in 1923. This apparent growth in the level of cooperation between women worldwide, and in particular between 211

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those belonging to the so-called West and East, captured not only the imagination of those women who were directly involved themselves but also that of the general public in many of the places where congresses were held. However, the optimism surrounding transnational co-operation in the 1920s, brought about by the rapid expansion experienced by many of these international organisations, was challenged in the following decade. The increase in political and economic instability directly affected the size, composition, and agenda of international women’s organisations. Due to the perceived seriousness of the international political situation, peace and disarmament work dominated the outlook and priorities of all international women’s organisations during the 1930s. And as their programmes seemed to become more alike in this respect, collaboration between them accordingly increased. One outcome was that these organisations and their members increasingly debated the definitions and meanings of feminism, and ended up widening their programmes in a common effort to work for what they now regarded as a more all-embracing humanism. They came to interact in distinctly new ways, and this was echoed in both the formation of ‘superinternational’ organisations and increased collaboration with the League of Nations. With peace and disarmament outweighing so-called ‘women’s rights’ in terms of public recognition, women involved in these organisations became more visible in international politics, with the League of Nations providing a new global platform from which any decisions had a wide potential reach. Despite the fact that international women’s organisations lost sections in Europe over the course of the interwar period, they still expanded, albeit unevenly, into the non-West. Even though they remained Western-dominated, the balance within these organisations shifted noticeably, as non-Western women not only entered them in greater numbers in the 1930s but also become better integrated, a change that was reflected in their greater participation at conferences and involvement in committees and even on boards. Whereas many European countries experienced conservative currents, which led to backlashes against the rights and advancements made by women in 212

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previous decades, many non-Western societies were still in the early days of witnessing meaningful female emancipation. Indeed, women’s movements in many parts of the non-West were growing stronger at precisely this time, in some countries assisted by the extent of female participation in nationalist struggles that gave women access to legitimate public space and political experience. All the same, this enhanced involvement of non-Western women created challenges for the earlier perceived ‘unity’ of the 1920s, as new kinds of distinctions, in particular between women located in the West and the non-West, came to the fore. Increased expansion into the nonWestern world meant that these organisations increasingly incorporated national associations at many different stages in their development. While some were working for political and legal rights after having won the vote, others could be more concerned with education and social questions. Moreover, by the 1930s, as certain groups of women located outside Europe and North America acquired greater experience within transnational movements, they began to assert themselves and to question what they perceived to be the Western dominance of these organisations. This important shift was reflected in the significant growth of regional women’s conferences and organisations in the non-West from the late 1920s. While the ‘regionalisation’ of international women’s organisations may have been spurred on by tensions between women’s commitment to transnational female activism on the one hand and nationalist struggles on the other, and also by feelings of ‘isolation’ from the activities and ideologies of international women’s organisations, it also represented a struggle for influence taking place between female activists themselves, in particular between women living in Britain and Europe and those of the ‘new lands’ of white settlement, such as Australia and New Zealand. Most of these regional women’s organisations eventually worked closely with existing international women’s organisations, yet their emergence posed questions for the established international framework that had since its creation been led by women of European and North American origins. In particular, the influence of nationalist struggles in places such as India highlighted the practical limitations 213

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of internationalism during this period, and led to the questioning of the predominance of Western women and their agendas within the major international women’s organisations. However, whereas Middle Eastern and south Asian women formed independent regional organisations of their own during the interwar period, British women, courtesy of the British Commonwealth League (BCL), seem to have been more preoccupied with establishing closer connections with women elsewhere within the Empire; Australians and New Zealanders in particular forged connections with their neighbours in the Pacific under the aegis of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA); and North American women sought to maintain and increase their influence in both the nearby Pacific (via the PPWA) and in South America (via the Inter-American Commission and other organisations). Since many of these regional organisations were less separatist than their international counterparts, as revealed by their readiness to cooperate more extensively with men, and as they organised around a particular region or area of the world rather than on the basis of specific issues, they managed to attract women from an arguably wider range of backgrounds to participate at their conferences and to join their associations. Women from Asia, the Middle East, South America and the West Indies certainly assumed a more active role within these regional events, and this was despite the fact that both the PPWA and the BCL still remained dominated by women with Western origins. In what was a significant distinction, however, these regional organisations elevated non-Western women to positions of leadership and turned them into role models for the emerging feminist movements of the non-Western world. Moreover, their programmes tended to reflect more closely issues that were of immediate concern to more women in these regions than those decided upon by the Western organisers of international women’s conferences. Indeed, subjects that had previously not been discussed at international women’s conferences, such as the contentious issue of race in the form of Aboriginal rights, were introduced onto the agendas of the BCL and the PPWA by Australian women, who were 214

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determined to enhance their roles internationally and to influence the internationalist discourses pursued by international women activists. This growing range of women’s organisations, in many ways, serves to highlight the diversity that had come to be present within the transnational women’s movement by the 1930s as well as some of the practical difficulties involved in the process of creating a unified ‘international sisterhood’. Even though international and regional women’s organisations shared a joint commitment to peace as well as to the overall emancipation of women, their ideas about, and the ways that they tried to achieve, these aims could differ. Whereas some favoured working for what might be viewed as more ‘social’ issues and emphasised women’s difference from men, others were concerned primarily with ‘political’ questions and downplayed dissimilarities between the sexes. Whereas some focused on ‘difference’, others were committed to ‘equality’ in terms of how to approach the issue of women’s rights. The IFUW, in particular, was keen to emphasise what it regarded as its ‘unique’ agenda, claiming that it differed both from ‘feminist’ and educationalist associations. Disagreements also took place over peace questions, in particular the validity of ‘defensive war’, among, as well as within, organisations. While some organisations were relatively more ‘progressive’ in relation to certain issues – such as the IAW (on women’s rights), WILPF (concerning international relations) and the All-Asian Women’s Conference (on imperialism) – the PPWA, the ICW and the IFUW proved to be more conservative. Being less outspoken on women’s rights and deliberately adopting what might be described as more ‘modest’ ideologies, these particular organisations aimed to reach a broader spectrum of women, as well as to win acceptance and support from the public. Indeed, while the pacifism of WILPF (in particular that of its US branch) was interpreted as ‘unpatriotic’ and its agenda ‘socialist’ by some commentators, the stress placed by the IFUW on education earned it wide recognition from the public, the international press and a number of governments. Organisations, thus, always included a range of women who subscribed to different forms and levels of activism. Yet, despite different approaches, these groups of women tended to share the same overarching goals with the result that the 215

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distinctions between them were not always clearly apparent. Indeed, women with somewhat different views often co-existed, and collaborated, within international and regional women’s organisations at this time. While the ICW and the IFUW organisations publicly distanced themselves from ‘feminism’, their overall agendas, like those of the other organisations, still stressed the need for the emancipation of women. All the same, WILPF (and the IAW and the ICW) remained more ‘international’ than the IFUW, whose expansion, especially in the non-West, was hampered by its membership requirement of a university degree. Thus, whereas the interwar women’s movements appeared less challenging in places such as western Europe and North America than suffragist movements there had been before World War I, women continued their work for improvements to female lives in a range of ways. Under these circumstances, the emphasis of an organisation such as the IFUW on what was undoubtedly the less controversial issue of education proved to be an effective way of working more broadly for equal rights for women at this time. Above all, it needs to be remembered that since these organisations primarily had lobbying and consultative roles, they needed allies in order to effect any changes. It is against this backdrop that the various interwar experiences of ‘international sisterhood’ have to be evaluated. Although a rather controversial notion today, it appears that certain issues, for instance the struggle for the vote and women’s commitment to peace, did have the power to transcend national differences and unite women in an ‘international sisterhood’ during the first half of the twentieth century.1 Indeed, there was genuine optimism and real belief in the value and impact of women’s transnational collaboration in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, great importance was placed in their literature on visible or tangible co-operation between women from the so-called West and the ‘East’, and many members of international women’s organisations accordingly showed considerable interest in and enthusiasm about belonging to these associations and being part of the ‘sisterhoods’ that these represented. International conferences clearly served as inspiration for members, non-Western and Western alike, who came away from these events seemingly more confident 216

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and with a greater belief in the value of transnational co-operation between women. For example, both Tsune Gauntlett and Huda Shaarawi claimed that their participation in IAW congresses in the 1920s ‘opened a new world’ and ‘gave impetus’ to women in Japan and Egypt respectively. Congresses and conferences resulted in the creation of personal friendships that crossed national borders, and this affection was further reinforced through international travel and correspondence that likewise transcended physical boundaries. Interaction of this kind created bonds between those women involved, based on their shared experiences of female subordination, working for women’s rights and commitment to peace. The relative ease with which an ‘international sisterhood’ was constructed by these organisations at this time, however, was greatly influenced by their members’ common backgrounds. All the associations examined here were undoubtedly dominated by upper and middle-class women, and, even though the IFUW was the only organisation that officially required a shared qualification for membership – in its case a university degree – most of the members of the other organisations concerned had also received some kind of higher education. Upper and middle-class women were not only privileged in terms of education but also in relation to the financial resources required for travelling to and participating in international women’s meetings and conferences. In many ways, the nature of the international travel carried out by these organisations and their members underlined and reinforced the elite status of these organisations. This interwar ‘international sisterhood’ therefore relied in practice on more than just the common identity derived from being female. Indeed, according to the IFUW, a higher education made its members particularly well qualified for working in the service of transnational co-operation. Shared class and educational backgrounds strengthened links between these women and directly assisted the formation of an ‘international sisterhood’ at this time. Thus, while all of the organisations examined here were openly committed to extending their work to parts of the world outside North America and Europe, their interaction with non-Western women in practice rarely went beyond the Westernised elites whom 217

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they found there. Indeed, non-Western women educated in the West, familiar with Western culture, female activism and fluent in Western languages, were the ideal recruits for international women’s organisations as the latter went ‘global’ in the interwar period. These organisations all benefited from the increasing number of ‘Eastern’ female students going to the West for their education at this time. But while international student exchange was one of the IFUW’s priorities, its scholarships largely failed to benefit these nonWestern women, who instead were assisted much more frequently by organisations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in the interwar period. Many of these ‘Westernised’ women were also Christians and were or had been active in not only the YWCA but also the WCTU, and so had already been ‘exposed’ to aspects of Western culture, which further strengthened the connections between them and their counterparts in the West. This minority of elite non-Western women provided vital points of access to the nonWest for international women’s organisations, as they were often involved in more than one of these associations. Indeed, the practical ways in which connections between Western and non-Western women were made, especially as the 1920s passed, highlights how far similarities in terms of experience existed between groups of elite women around the world.2 Yet, in spite of this apparent closeness, the kind of co-operation that took place between Western and non-Western women did not seem to be the sort that involved completely equal partners. Instead, their interaction was unable to escape being influenced by existing international political dynamics of the day, something that was reflected in the way that ‘Eastern’ women in particular tended to characterise it in terms of a relationship between an older sister, or tutor, and a younger sister, or student. In primary sources utilised for this research, for instance, non-white delegates from parts of the world as far-flung as Jamaica, Turkey, Egypt, China and Japan all labelled themselves on various occasions as ‘students’ within the transnational women’s movement and emphasised how much they had to gain, or learn, from participating in its international forums. But while they clearly enjoyed, and valued, being able to attend such 218

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conferences, many ‘Eastern’ women were noticeably less confident than Western women when actually present at these gatherings, possibly because they had internalised perceptions of their native countries as relatively ‘backward’, but also very likely because they shared common insecurities regarding their language abilities; after all, English was usually the lingua franca of these meetings. All the same, the presence of such women at conferences was frequently used to indicate or signal the ‘international’ credentials of these organisations and, thus, to confirm and strengthen belief in the universality of women’s subordination and the common urgency of confronting and overcoming it. Despite all the initiatives to expand into the non-West undertaken by these organisations, the sources consulted for this research suggest that their priorities remained rooted in the West. Though their official literature rarely deployed the actual terminology of ‘big sisters’ and ‘little sisters’, comments made by some of the Western members about the rate of change taking place elsewhere in the world provide evidence about how positive they felt about their own cultures and their role as world leaders. Time and again, sources reveal the extent to which these leading female activists regarded themselves as the natural role models for non-Western women who, they assumed, would be keen to follow in their footsteps. For while they rightly rejoiced in their own hard-won achievements together with the successful expansion of their organisations into the nonWest, they also tended to emphasise, and perhaps gain confidence from, the fact that it remained their responsibility to help ‘to raise the status of the women of all races’.3 As correspondence between British and Swedish members of the ICW reveals, women in the West not only regarded ‘Eastern’ women as less advanced as themselves, but also viewed those whom they described as ‘Latin’ and eastern European women as lagging behind their Anglo-Saxon and Nordic counterparts in terms of development. Clearly, there were hierarchies in terms of relative development that existed within the West as well. It is perhaps not surprising that women located in the West demonstrated this kind of self-confidence, encouraged as they were by their own recent suffrage victories and the various improvements that 219

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seemed to be taking place regarding women’s rights in their own home countries. Yet, relationships between different groups of women throughout the period remained complex, not only between Western and non-Western women, but also, on the one hand, between various European women, and, on the other, between those from western Europe, primarily Britain, and women of European origin in white settler countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Nevertheless, ‘little sister’ and ‘big sister’ roles, on the whole, remained fluid, embraced by some and rejected by others. In the same way, while some European and American women did not criticise imperialism, others opposed it; just as some women in Asia, the Middle East and South America were influenced by Western feminism and stayed loyal to the kind of ‘Western feminist’ goals pursued by international women’s organisations, while others were more critical of its universal applicability and emphasised the relevance of alternative values and the importance of creating their own distinct, or separate, ‘sisterhoods’. The 1930s were a time when an increasing number of South American and in particular Middle Eastern and Asian women started to question what they regarded as the dominance of women based in the West together with their agendas: apart from anything else, local feminist movements in these regions were coming into their own, in many places spurred on by women’s participation in nationalist movements in the 1930s. Egyptian and Indian women were particularly outspoken about what they perceived as the negative impact of Western imperialism on their countries, while others, such as those from Peru, voiced growing objections to South American women not being treated, as they saw it, as equals within international women’s organisations. Women from the ‘new lands’ of Australia and New Zealand were also in the process of rethinking their roles within transnational women’s movements, with the result that they increased the extent of their co-operation with women closer to home and started to introduce different issues onto organisational agendas. At the same time, the 1930s witnessed some European members becoming less certain about the overall usefulness of these organisations, their doubts prompted by the trend among 220

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national sections in many Western states to become less active or even to cease to be members. By exploring the expansion of regional organisations from the late 1920s and into the 1930s, this book has highlighted some of the limitations of transnational female co-operation as it then existed. While almost all collaborated with organisations representing women’s interests in the West, they nevertheless came to challenge aspects of the influence and authority exerted by the latter. They did this in part by introducing new issues onto the agenda as well as by working more deliberately alongside men. But, while these regional bodies definitely created more organisational opportunity for women from the non-West and so achieved some success in drawing together a wider cross-section of women living there, their very diversity on occasions could result in tensions between their members. Differences (in terms of class, educational level, ethnicity, religions and so forth) among delegates at regional women’s conferences often proved to be greater than those that might occur between the elite women of different nationalities who attended international women’s conferences. In addition, the trend towards the regionalisation of international women’s organisations did not necessarily mean a clearcut departure from a ‘Westernised’ agenda or even a reduction in the leadership roles played by women with European origins. In many ways, the PPWA, for instance, ended up by producing new hierarchies among women of Western origins, with women from Australia and New Zealand gaining greater influence within that particular organisation than they had managed to exercise within existing international women’s organisations operating out of their headquarters in western Europe and North America. Thus, an ‘international sisterhood’ of sorts was successfully created by members of the different international women’s organisations active during the interwar period, but this process was not straightforward and was accompanied by many challenges. Organisations clearly proliferated in the interwar period – as demonstrated by their expansion and continued, if sometimes reduced and redirected, activities – and they made positive strides in bringing women together across national borders, facilitated 221

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primarily through their international congresses, journals and correspondence, all of which contributed to confidence in the widespread and shared benefits of an ‘international sisterhood’. This kind of ‘international sisterhood’ in practice, however, was restricted to a minority of educated upper and middle-class women and was thus far from ‘all-inclusive’. Women active on the international stage only constituted a small fraction of all those involved in these organisations, the vast majority of whom pursued their activities on the local or national level. The privileged backgrounds of those who operated internationally could mean that they had little understanding of problems facing women of other classes. On the whole, it would seem that non-Western women still had to be ‘Westernised’ in order to be accepted into these associations: once affiliated to organisations that might essentially be described as Western women’s ‘clubs’, non-Western women were regarded, by their contemporaries, as having ‘made it’. However, while international women’s organisations drew within their folds members from many different nationalities in the interwar period, using the label of ‘foreign’ to describe these non-Western members is somewhat misplaced, as organisational procedures effectively excluded those who could not speak English, French or German (the official languages of these organisations) from much of their activity, often required their members to have a university education (preferably from an institution in the West), and followed the ‘Western liberal’ models of feminism being pursued in the main by these organisations. Their often-expressed, and no doubt genuinely felt, sentiment that nations should learn from one another often failed to transpire as they had hoped in practice. Instead, leaders of these international women’s organisations tended to assume that their visits to the non-West would directly help to accelerate the advancement of women there and they also stressed the importance of non-Western women studying in the West. Of course, the ideology of these organisations largely reflected the needs of Western upper- and middle-class women. Likewise, a great deal of emphasis continued to be placed on what Western women had to teach their non-Western sisters. Even though the gatherings of these organisations were 222

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clearly made more ‘international’ by the greater participation of non-Western women at this time, they still remained overwhelmingly ‘Western’ in terms of character, structure, ideology and languages. Despite all these reservations, however, it is important not to downplay the importance of notions of ‘international sisterhood’ to women in the West and non-West alike, for, as primary sources – both organisational and private – attest, many clearly valued their transnational connections and formed lifelong friendships with those of other nationalities. These organisations, after all, did succeed in bringing together an impressive number of women from around the world during this period. Moreover, the fact that they were able to carry on with their international work despite the difficult political circumstances that led up to World War II, meant that confidence among their members did not diminish and that their commitment to transnational co-operation remained strong. So, while the meanings and experiences of ‘international sisterhood’ varied and depended on where different groups of women were located – it differed not only among women of different nationalities but also among women in the same country and within an organisation – these groups of active women still managed to create a form of unity and identity around their common struggle for suffrage, emancipation and commitment to peace, coming together to fight for many rights that are now taken for granted by women across the world.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1 Maud Wood Park, President, National League of Women Voters [USA], Messages from Friends, All Roads Lead to Rome. Ninth Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Rome, 12 – 19 May 1923. International Woman Suffrage News (April 1923). 2 Address of the President, Carrie Chapman Catt, IWSA, Report of the Ninth Congress, Rome, Italy, 12 – 19 May, 1923 (Dresden, 1923). 3 Professor Caroline Spurgeon, IFUW, Bulletin No. 6, Report of the Third Conference, Christiania, July, 1924 (London, 1924). 4 Presidential Address, ICW, Report of the Quinquennial Meeting, Washington, 1925, Edited by the Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, President of the ICW (London, 1926). 5 ‘Introduction: why feminisms and internationalism?’, in M. Sinha, D.J. Guy and A. Woollacott (eds), Feminisms and Internationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), p. 7. 6 Caitriona Beaumont, ‘Citizens not feminists: the boundary negotiated between citizenship and feminism by mainstream women’s organisations in England, 1928– 39’, Women’s History Review 9/2 (2000), pp. 411–29. 7 Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 13. 8 Other organisations, whose aims were not explicitly concerned with gaining female suffrage and women’s rights, but which nevertheless addressed women’s issues and whose memberships did share specific political views or religious outlooks, included the International Socialist Women’s Committee (1907) and the International Union of Catholic Women’s Association (1910). After World War I there was further development when international organisations emerged to work for specific interest groups such as the Medical Women’s International Association (1919) and the League of Jewish Women (1920). In addition, there

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9 10

11 12

13

14

were others, such as the Equal Rights International (1930), committed to single issues. See Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 38 – 40, for a list of international women’s organisations at this time; Christine Bolt, Sisterhood Questioned? Race, Class and Internationalism in the American and British Women’s Movements, c.1880s–1970s (London: UCL Press, 2004); Carol Miller, ‘Lobbying the League: Women’s International Organisations and the League of Nations’, PhD dissertation (Oxford University, 1992); and ‘“Geneva – the Key to Equality”: inter-war feminists and the League of Nations’, Women’s History Review 3/2 (1994), pp. 219– 45. Presidential Address, ICW 1925 Conference Report. While the term ‘sisterhood’ appears to have only been used by the ICW, other organisations frequently used these other terms to describe the connection between their members: see WILPF, Report of the Third International Congress of Women, Vienna, 10 – 17 July, 1921 (Geneva, 1921); WILPF, Report of the Fifth Congress, Dublin, 8 – 15 July, 1926 (Washington; Geneva, 1926); IWSA, Report of Eighth Congress, Geneva, Switzerland, 6 – 12 June, 1920 (Manchester, 1920); IWSA, 1923 Congress Reports; ICW, Combined Third and Fourth Annual Report of the Seventh Quinquennial Period, 1922 to 1924, compiled by Fru Anna Backer, Hon. Corresponding Secretary; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; ICW, Bulletin XII/5 (1934); and Jane Addams, ‘Opening Address of W.I.L. Congress At Prague’, Pax International 4/10 (1929). Australia and New Zealand were also early members of the ICW; and Australia women were also involved in the IAW from inception in 1904 and joined WILPF in 1919 (Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 16 – 8). Rupp’s Worlds of Women is the most important work in this field. However, she concentrates her research on the international structures of transnational organisations (ICW, IAW and WILPF) and primarily on the experiences of women from the West. Other important works include: Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902– 1942 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1990); Bolt, Sisterhood Questioned?; Patricia Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents in the International Women’s Movement, 1848– 1948 (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999) as well as earlier works: Edith F. Hurwitz, ‘The international sisterhood’, in R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), pp. 325– 45; Rebecca Sherrick, ‘Toward universal sisterhood’, Women’s Studies International Forum 5/9 (1982), pp. 655–61. This works agrees with and employs the definition of transnationalism used and discussed in Daniel Laqua (ed.), Internationalism Reconfigured: Transnational Ideas and Movements Between the World Wars (London: I.B.Tauris, 2011). See especially the Preface and the Introduction by Patricia Clavin. Kimberley Jensen and Erika Kuhlman, ‘Introduction’ and Elizabeth LittellLamb, ‘Localizing the global: The YWCA movement in China, 1899– 1939’, in K. Jensen and E. Kuhlman, Women and Transnational Activism in Historical Perspectives (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters, 2010), pp. 1– 13, 63. 225

NOTES TO PAGES 4 –6 15 Jensen and Kuhlman, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1 – 2. 16 The term ‘feminism’ was first used in France towards the end of the nineteenth century. Earlier in the century it was common to refer to the ‘women’s movement’, the ‘woman movement’ or to ‘women’s rights’; see June Hannam, Feminism (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2007), pp. 3 –5. 17 Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (Oxford: Westview Press, 1998), p. 1. 18 Foreword, IAWSEC, Report of the Tenth Congress, La Sorbonne, Paris, France, 30 May to 6 June, 1926 (London, 1926). 19 The Yorkshire Path, 5 February 1923, Caroline Spurgeon Papers (CS Papers), PP7/6/1/5, Archives, Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL Archives); and Virginia Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade: Memoirs of Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (New York: Macmillan, 1954), pp. 137– 8; IFUW, Bulletin No. 1, Report of the First Conference, London, July, 1920 (London). 20 Put forward by, for example, Pugh and Kent. See Martin Pugh, ‘Domesticity and the decline of feminism, 1930 –1950’, in H.L. Smith (ed.), British Feminism in the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Elgar, 1990), pp. 144– 64; Susan Kingsley Kent, ‘The politics of sexual difference: World War I and the demise of British feminism’, The Journal of British Studies 27/3 (1988), pp. 232–53. 21 See Beaumont, ‘Citizens not feminists’ and Patricia M. Thane, ‘What difference did the vote make? Women in public and private life in Britain’, Historical Research 76/192 (2003), p. 268. 22 With the exception of Rupp, Worlds of Women, and Miller’s work on women and the League of Nations: Miller, ‘Geneva’, p. 219. 23 While most authors seem to use the term ‘new feminism’ and ‘equalitarian/ egalitarian feminism’ (for example, see Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power: The Women’s Movement, 1918– 1928 (London; New York: I.B.Tauris, 2000); and Kingsley Kent, ‘Politics of sexual difference’), others such as Offen have reworked this terminology in favour of ‘relational’ and ‘individual’ feminism; see Karen Offen, ‘Defining feminism: a comparative historical approach’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14/1 (1988), pp. 119–57. See also Wendy Sarvasy, ‘Beyond the difference versus equality policy debate: postsuffrage feminism, citizenship, and the quest for a feminist welfare state’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17/2 (1992), pp. 329– 62, for further discussion of the definition of these different terms. 24 Described as ‘relational feminism’, it had, according to Offen, been the dominant line of argument in much of the West prior to the twentieth century, while ‘equalitarian’ or, as Offen puts it, ‘individualist feminism’ arguments had largely characterised Anglo– American feminism. See Offen, ‘Defining feminism’. 25 See for example Olive Banks, Becoming a Feminist (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986), p. 7, who outlines three types of ‘feminism’: namely, ‘equal-rights’, ‘women’s unique contribution’ and ‘socialist’; and Tong, Feminist Thought. 26 I agree with Beaumont and Offen who downplay ideological differences between different women’s groups and argue that they shared many of the same goals and 226

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27

28

29

30 31

32 33

34

35

were united in their desire to improve the status and lives of British women. See Beaumont, ‘Citizens not feminists’; and Offen, ‘Defining feminism’. Karen Offen, ‘Women’s rights or human rights? International feminism between the wars’, in P. Grimshaw, K. Holmes and M. Lake (eds), Women’s Rights and Human Rights: International Historical Perspectives (Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 243– 53; Rupp, Worlds of Women, p. 133. Such reluctance on their part supports the findings of Beaumont’s research that have shown how so-called ‘mainstream’ women’s organisations in interwar Britain preferred to employ the terminology of ‘citizenship’ rather than ‘feminism’ as a way of enhancing women’s status in society, in this way hoping to avoid any association with the latter that was regarded as unpopular at this time. See Beaumont, ‘Citizens not feminists’, p. 415. Antoinette Burton, ‘The white woman’s burden, British feminists and “the Indian Woman”, 1865 –1915’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 137– 57. Charlotte Weber, ‘Unveiling Scheharazade: feminist orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911– 1950’, Feminist Studies 27/1 (2001), pp. 125– 57. Virginia Gildersleeve, one of the founders of the IFUW, states in her memoirs that she wanted the Federation to be ‘truly international’, and therefore suggested measures to restrict the influence of dominant countries such as the United States; see Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, p. 136. See A. Burton, ‘Some trajectories of “feminism” and “imperialism”’, in Sinha, Guy and Woollacott (eds), Feminisms and Internationalism, and Sinha, Guy and Woollacott, ‘Introduction: why feminisms and internationalism?’, pp. 214– 24. Blom highlights how concepts of equality and individuality, central to both Western philosophy and feminism, differed much from the value system respected by Indian women. See Ida Blom, ‘Gender and nation in international comparison’, in I. Blom, K. Hagemann and C. Hall (eds), Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2000), p. 10. Karen Hunt, ‘“The Immense Meaning of it All”: The challenges of internationalism for British socialist women before the First World War’, Socialist History 17 (2000), pp. 22 –42. See also June Hannam and Karen Hunt, Socialist Women: Britain, 1880s to 1920s (London; New York: Routledge, 2002). The possibilities of class ‘affinity’ within the British Empire have been explored by Ramusack, and, in particular, by Cannadine, arguing that it could often be easier in practice to cross boundaries of race than those of class in the imperial context. See Barbara N. Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries, maternal imperialists, and activists: British women activists in India, 1865–1945’, in Chaudhuri and Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism, pp. 119– 136; D. Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2001). 227

NOTES TO PAGES 10 –13 36 WILPF went so far as to declare that it was working for ‘the establishment of social, political and economic justice for all, without distinctions of sex, race, class or creed’, WILPF, Report of the Seventh Congress, Grenoble, 15 – 19 May, 1932 (Geneva, 1932). 37 On feminist orientalism see Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation (London; New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 2, 14, 17. 38 Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 1 –3. 39 Joyce Zonana, ‘The sultan and the slave: feminist orientalism and the structure of “Jane Eyre”’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 18/3 (1993), p. 594. 40 Mary A. Fay, ‘International feminism and the women’s movement in Egypt 1904– 1923’, Mujeres mediterra´neas, 2 December 2004. Available at www.medi terraneas.org (accessed 14 May 2014). 41 See Tracey J. Boisseau, ‘“They Called Me Bebe Bwana”: a critical cultural study of an imperial feminist’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 21/1 (1995), pp. 116– 46 on Mary French-Sheldon, explorer to Africa and her attitudes to women there. 42 This more direct interaction between Western and Eastern women has also been explored by Burton, Ramusack, Weber and Rupp. See Antoinette Burton, ‘The feminist quest for identity: British imperial suffragism and “global sisterhood”, 1900– 1915’, Journal of Women’s History 3/3 (1991), pp. 46 – 81; Burton, ‘White woman’s burden’; Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries’; Weber, ‘Unveiling Scheharazade’; Rupp, Worlds of Women; and Leila J. Rupp, ‘Challenging imperialism in international women’s organizations, 1888– 1945’, NWSA Journal 8/1 (1996), pp. 8 – 27. 43 Imperialism and orientalism are sometimes used interchangeably but often the former refers to the structural (political/economic) dominance while the latter refers to cultural representation. For a discussion of these terms see Joanna Liddle and Shirin Rai, ‘Feminism, imperialism and orientalism: the challenge of the “Indian woman”’, Women’s History Review 7/4 (1998), pp. 495– 520; and Joanna de Groot, ‘Anti-colonial subjects? Post-colonial subjects? Nationalisms, ethnocentrisms and feminist scholarship’, in M. Maynard and J. Purvis (eds), New Frontiers in Women’s Studies: Knowledge, Identity and Nationalism (London: Taylor and Francis, 1996), pp. 30 –49. 44 Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, pp. 47 – 8, 55. 45 Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries’, p. 133. 46 Ibid. See also Woollacott for a discussion of Australian women’s ‘commonwealth feminism’: Angela Woollacott, ‘Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian women’s internationalist activism in the 1920s – 30s’, in Sinha, Guy and Woollacott (eds), Feminisms and Internationalism, pp. 81 – 104. 47 Burton does mention the IWSA (IAW), which was largely ‘Western’ prior to 1915, and also points to the ethnocentric view of the world of women demonstrated by its American president Catt; see ‘Feminist quest’, p. 63. 48 Fay, ‘International feminism’. A similar argument is put forward by Weber in ‘Unveiling Scheharazade’. 228

NOTES TO PAGES 13 –17 49 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 75 – 80. 50 Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries’, p. 133; Burton, ‘White woman’s burden’, p. 137. 51 While Terborg-Penn and Woollacott have both used the term ‘little coloured sisters’ to describe how contemporary US suffragists and Australian activists viewed Caribbean suffragists and indigenous women respectively, this type of sisterly terminology has not been fully explored outside the particular geographical contexts on which their research focuses. Terborg-Penn used the term ‘little colored sisters’ to illustrate white US women’s suffragist attitude to Caribbean suffragists. See Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, ‘Enfranchising women of color: woman suffragists as agents of imperialism’, in R.R. Pierson and N. Chaudhuri (eds), Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 46. 52 Chandra T. Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses’, in C.T. Mohanty, A. Russo and C. Torres (eds), Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 73 – 4, argues that ‘it is only insofar as “Woman/Women” and “the East” are defined as Others, or as peripheral that (Western) Man/Humanism can represent him/itself as the center. It is not the center that determines the periphery, but the periphery that, in its boundedness, determines the center’. 53 As studies of the women’s press in Egypt during this period have shown, Egyptian women talked about themselves as ‘Women of the East’, see, for instance, Marilyn Booth, ‘May her likes be multiplied: “famous women”, biography and gendered prescription in Egypt, 1892– 1935’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 22/4 (1997), pp. 827– 90. 54 See Rupp, Worlds of Women. 55 For example, the Palestine delegation to the IAWSEC 1926 Congress comprised: Dr Mina Berligue, Mme Debora Grasowski, Dr Rina Junovitch and Dr Rosa Welt Strauss, while three of the four delegates from South Africa lived in London. It is more difficult to establish the origins of South Americans, other than that the elite tended to be of southern European origin. Moreover, Bertha Lutz, Brazilian and prominent member of the IAW, was apparently the daughter of a Swiss-Brazilian father and an English mother. See June E. Hahner, ‘Feminism, women’s rights, and the suffrage movement in Brazil, 1850– 1932’, Latin American Research Review 15/1 (1980), p. 99. 56 For a discussion of different approaches to non-western women’s history, see Mala Mathrani, ‘East – West encounters and the making of feminists’, Journal of Women’s History 9/3 (1997), pp. 215– 26. 57 In 1935 the International Archives for the Women’s Movement was set up in Amsterdam. One of the co-founders was Rosa Manus, long-term vice-president of the IAW and also active in other international women’s organisations. The official goal of the IAV was ‘to further the knowledge and scientific study of the women’s movement in the broadest sense of the word’. It enjoyed support from women such as Carrie Chapman Catt and Margery Corbett Ashby (IAW presidents 1904 –23 and 1923– 46 respectively). In 1940, the IAV was closed by 229

NOTES TO PAGES 17 –22 German officials and much of its material disappeared. However, it reopened in 1947 and in 2003 some of the lost material, which had ended up in Moscow, was returned to the Netherlands. See Francisca de Haan, ‘Getting to the source, a “truly international” archive for the women’s movement (IAV, now IIAV): from its foundation in Amsterdam in 1935 to the return of its looted archives in 2003’, Journal of Women’s History 16/4 (2004), pp. 148– 72. 58 This discussion has been influenced by Jane Martin’s ‘Feminist teachers and social action: the case of city politics’ and Jane McDermid’s ‘A public life: Grace Paterson, educationalist and suffragist’, research papers presented at the 15th Annual Conference of the Women’s History Network, THINKING WOMEN Education, Culture and Society, 1 – 3 September 2006, Collingwood College, Durham University. 59 Olney has pointed out that formal manuscript records such as committee meetings might have been ‘constructively’ written to record what should have been said rather than what was actually discussed. See Richard J. Olney, Manuscript Sources for British History: Their Nature, Location and Use (University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 1995). 60 Rupp, Worlds of Women, p. 5.

Chapter 2 The Internationalisation of the Women’s Movement Prior to 1919 1 Quoted in R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), pp. 325– 45. 2 I am using Margot Badran’s definition of feminist consciousness: women ‘coming into an awarenesss that being born female meant that they would lead their lives very differently from those of similar classes and circumstances who were born male’, their questioning why this was so and under what authority (Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 3). 3 Bonnie G. Smith, Changing Lives: European Women in History Since 1700 (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1989), p. 317; David Rubinstein, Before the Suffragettes: Women’s Emancipation in the 1890s (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1986), pp. 12, 18; Ann Ardis, New Women, New Novels: Feminism and Early Modernism (New Brunswick, NJ; London: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 4 Smith, Changing Lives, p. 319. 5 Although the word ‘feminism’ was not coined until the end of the century and was not commonly used until the years preceding World War I, the term, as discussed in Chapter 1, is still often used to describe women’s beliefs and activities as this time. See Barbara Caine, Victorian Feminists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 4 – 6. 230

NOTES TO PAGES 22 –27 6 Smith, Changing Lives, p. 317. 7 Ibid., p. 325. 8 Jane McDermid, ‘Women and education’, in J. Purvis, Women’s History: Britain, 1850– 1945, An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 108– 9, 112; Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870– 1939 (London: UCL Press, 1995), p. 7. 9 Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), p. 67. 10 Barbara N. Ramusack, ‘Catalysts or helpers? British feminists, Indian women’s rights and Indian independence’, in G. Minault (ed.), The Extended Family: Women and Political Participation in India and Pakistan (Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1981), pp. 109–10. 11 Patricia Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents in the International Women’s Movement 1848– 1948 (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999), p. 15. 12 Vron Ware, Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History (London; New York: Verso, 1992), p. 162. 13 Antoinette Burton, ‘The white woman’s burden: British feminists and “the Indian Woman”, 1865 –1915’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 152. 14 Ware, Beyond the Pale, p. 129; Grewal, Home and Harem, pp. 74 – 8; Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents, p. 15. 15 Grewal, Home and Harem, p. 65. 16 Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Books Ltd, 1986), p. 178; Geraldine Forbes, ‘The Indian women’s movement: a struggle for women’s rights or national liberation?’, in Minault (ed.), The Extended Family, p. 51. 17 J. Liddle and S. Nakajima, Rising Suns, Rising Daughters: Gender, Class and Power in Japan (London; New York: Zed Books Ltd, 2000), pp. 17, 33, 36 – 7, 39. 18 Jayawardena, Feminism, p. 176. 19 Vera Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment and Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 26. 20 Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginning of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983), pp. 27, 104, 112; Jayawardena, Feminism, pp. 234– 6; McDermid, ‘Women’. 21 Richard J. Evans, The Feminists: Women’s Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840– 1920 (London: Croom Helm, 1977), p. 246; Smith, Changing Lives, p. 319; Leila J. Rupp, ‘The making of international women’s organisations’, in M.H. Geyer and J. Paulmann (eds), The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 205; Burton, ‘White woman’s burden’, p. 145; June Hannam, ‘Women and politics’, in J. Purvis (ed.), Women’s History: Britain 1850– 1945, An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 219. 231

NOTES TO PAGES 27 –32

22

23 24

25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 232

The Langham Place Circle was also established at this time (1857); see Caine, Victorian Feminists, p. 13. Badran, Feminists, p. 3; Mervet Hatem, ‘Through each other’s eyes: the impact on the colonial encounter of the images of Egyptian, Levantine-Egyptian, and European women, 1862–1920’, in Chaudhuri and Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism, p. 36; Mackie, Feminism, p. 27. Jayawardena, Feminism. Ida Blom, ‘Gender and nation in international comparison: from gendered cultural histories to gendered nations – a historiographical approach’, in I. Blom, K. Hagemann and C. Hall (eds), Gendered Nations: Nationalism and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2000), p. 6; Evans, The Feminists, p. 246; D.A. Vavich, ‘The Japanese women’s movement: Ichikawa Fusae – a pioneer in women’s suffrage’, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (1967), p. 408. ‘New woman’ was used to describe a group of fictional characters or novels, women who took up new activities like cycling or who entered new professions as well as expressing new ideas about the nature of women. See Caine, Victorian Feminists. Evans, The Feminists; Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents, pp. 4, 15; Kathryn Gleadle, British Women in the Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p. 75; Janet Zolinger Giele, Two Paths to Women’s Equality: Temperance, Suffrage, and the Origins of Modern Feminism (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), p. 2. Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880– 1930 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 6. Japan was represented by a self-appointed delegate in the form of an American missionary on furlough; see ibid., p. 20. Ibid., pp. 3, 20, 25, 62. The WCTU had unions in Germany, Denmark, France, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Russia, Chile, Palestine, Egypt, Uruguay, Argentina, Syria and many more locations. Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., pp. 25, 45, 47, 49. Ibid., pp. 46 – 7. Ibid., pp. 3 – 6, 62 – 3. Mackie, Feminism, p. 29; Sievers, Flowers, pp. 89 – 90, 102; Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1994), pp. 177– 8, 181. Yvonne Hirdmann, ‘Kvinnor, makt och demokrati’, in Y. Hirdmann, M. Strandberg Olofsson, B. Losman et al., Om kvinnors villkor fra˚n antiken till va˚ra dagar (Stockholm: Utbildningsradion, 1992), p. 164; Hannam, ‘Women’, p. 220. The promise of a Second Reform Bill in Britain in 1865 revived the public debate on women’s suffrage; see S. Stanley-Holton, ‘Women and the vote’, in J. Purvis (ed.), Women’s History: Britian 1850 –1945, An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 278. Caine, Victorian Feminists, p. 241.

NOTES TO PAGES 32 –37 36 Philippa Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England: Private Roles and Public Commitment (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 66 – 7. 37 Leila R. Rupp, ‘Constructing internationalism: the case of transnational women’s organisations, 1888– 1945’, American Historical Review 99 (1994), pp. 1573– 4. 38 Ibid.; Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 15; Evans, The Feminists, pp. 247– 50. 39 T. Vammen, ‘‘‘Ro¨stra¨tt till Kvinnor!’, Den engelska ro¨stra¨ttskampen i europeiskt perspektiv, 1860– 1930’, in Y. Hirdmann, M. Strandberg Olofsson, B. Losman et al., Om kvinnors villkor fra˚n antiken till va˚ra dagar (Stockholm: Utbildningsradion, 1992), pp. 172– 3; Antoinette Burton, ‘The feminist quest for identity: British imperial suffragism and “global sisterhood”, 1900– 1915’, Journal of Women’s History 3/3 (Fall 1991), p. 70; Caine, Victorian Feminists, pp. 2, 14, 241– 2. 40 See Hannam, ‘Women’, pp. 228– 32; Karen Hunt, ‘“The Immense Meaning of it All”: The challenges of internationalism for British socialist women before the First World War’, Socialist History 17 (2000), pp. 22– 42; and June Hannam and Karen Hunt, Socialist Women: Britain, 1880s to 1920s (London; New York: Routledge, 2002). 41 Smith, Changing Lives, p. 349. 42 Caine, Victorian Feminists, pp. 260– 2. 43 The term ‘militant’ is usually applied to members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her eldest daughter Christabel, and the members of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL) founded in 1907, when some members broke away from the WSPU. The constitutionalists were associated with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), established in 1896. However, many feminists belonged to both the militant and constitutionalists sections of the suffrage movement. See Maroula Joannou and June Purvis, ‘Introduction’, in M. Joannou and J. Purvis (eds), The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998). 44 Evans, The Feminists, p. 250; Rupp, ‘Constructing’, p. 1574; Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 19 – 22; Women in a Changing World: The Dynamic Story of the International Council of Women since 1888 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), pp. 41 – 2. 45 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 22, 16; Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, p. 61; Evans, The Feminists, p. 251. 46 The first issue was printed on 15 October 1906 as the IWSA Bulletin, whose title was later changed to Jus Suffragii in January 1907; see Sybil Oldfield, International Woman Suffrage: Ius Suffragii 1913– 1920 (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 1 – 2. 47 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 50, 75. 48 Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, p. 47. 233

NOTES TO PAGES 37 –42 49 Burton, ‘White woman’s burden’, p. 149. 50 Kristin Hoganson, ‘“As badly off as the Filipinos”: U.S. women’s suffragists and the imperial issue at the turn of the twentieth century’, Journal of Women’s History 13/2 (2001), pp. 9– 33. 51 Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, pp. 63 – 4. 52 See Hoganson, ‘As badly off’. 53 Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, p. 49. 54 Ibid., p. 70. 55 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 180– 1; Susan Zimmermann, ‘The challenge of multinational empire for the international women’s movement: the Habsburg monarchy and the development of feminist inter/national politics’, Journal of Women’s History 17/2 (2005), pp. 87 – 117. 56 Zolinger Giele, Two Paths (pp. 5, 12) does acknowledge that there were exceptions: ‘French feminists, although well organised and energetic as early as 1900, were caught between revolutionary socialism and church authority and failed to win suffrage before 1920, as had other nations of comparable urban and industrial development’. 57 Baron, Women’s Awakening, p. 168. 58 Jayawardena, Feminism, pp. 229– 30. 59 Badran, Feminists, p. 3. 60 Burton, ‘Feminist quest’, p. 68. 61 Ibid., p. 69. Burton refers to British women but the idea of interlocking identities can be applied to women anywhere, as class, nationality etc. intertwined with gender always contributes to a woman’s identity. 62 Ibid. Burton refers to Britain but the concept of ‘otherness’ could be applied to women anywhere; however, it might be experienced differently. 63 A term with similar meaning to ‘new woman’ as used elsewhere; see Lu Meiyi, ‘The awakening of Chinese women and the women’s movement in the early twentieth century’, in J. Tao, B. Zheng and S. L. Mow (eds), Holding Up Half the Sky: Chinese Women Past, Present, and the Future (New York: The Feminist Press, 2004), p. 55. 64 Ibid., pp. 55 – 7, 60; Janet S. Chafetz and Anthony G. Dworkin, Female Revolt: Women’s Movements in World and Historical Perspectives (New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1986), p. 138; Charlotte Weber, ‘Unveiling Scheharazade: feminist orientalism in the international alliance of women, 1911– 1950’, Feminist Studies 27/1 (2001), pp. 125–57. 65 Lu Meiyi, ‘The awakening’, pp. 61 – 2. 66 Ibid., pp. 62 – 3, 66; Chafetz and Dworkin, Female Revolt, p. 138. 67 ‘New woman’ was first applied to Japanese women by the playwright Ihara Seiseien when writing a review of a production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Tokyo in 1911. See Laurel R. Rodd, ‘Yosano Akiko and the Taisho¯ debate over the “New Woman”’, in G.L. Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, 1600 – 1945 (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 167 – 8, 175 – 6. 234

NOTES TO PAGES 42 –47 68 Sonia Ryang, ‘Love and colonialism in Takamure Itsue’s feminism: a postcolonial critique’, Feminist Review 60 (1998), pp. 14 – 15. 69 Rodd, ‘Yosano Akiko’, p. 183. 70 Ibid., p. 189. 71 Ibid., pp. 189– 90, 194. 72 Dorothy Jinarajadasa was actually an English Theosophist married to a Sinhalese Buddhist scholar who was also a Theosophist; see Ramusack, ‘Catalysts’, p. 127. Margaret Cousins was Irish, a Theosophist and Indian nationalist; see Forbes, ‘Indian women’s movement’, p. 55. 73 There were reformist organisations established by women by the end of the nineteenth century; however, they were normally attached to male organisations and largely concerned with reforming purdah; see Chafetz and Dworkin, Female Revolt, pp. 143 –5. 74 Forbes, ‘Indian women’s movement’, pp. 54 – 5; Gail Minault, ‘Sisterhood or separatism? The All-India Muslim Ladies Conference and the National Movement’, in Minault, The Extended Family, pp. 86– 7, 89, 94, 96, 100. 75 This was arranged by distributing articles via neutral countries such as Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. See Sybil Oldfield, ‘Mary Sheepshank edits an international suffrage monthly in wartime: Jus Suffragii 1914– 19’, Women’s History Review 12/1 (2003), pp. 119–34. 76 Ibid., p. 5; Oldfield, International, pp. 15 – 17; Rupp, Worlds of Women, p. 26. 77 Catherine Foster, Women for All Seasons: The Story of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989), pp. 7 – 11. 78 Rupp, Worlds of Women, p. 27. 79 Oldfield, International, p. 15; Foster, Women, p. 7; Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 19, 27, 90 – 1.

Chapter 3 International Women’s Organisations in the 1920s 1 China was an exception since a society there had become affiliated to the IWSA in 1913 following Catt and Jacob’s world tour. However, Chinese women did not attend either the congress in Budapest in 1913 or the one in Geneva in 1920, arriving late due to the difficulties of travel; see IWSA, 1920 Congress Report. 2 Each of the national councils constituted a federation of all types of women’s societies in their respective countries, which meant that the ICW could claim a membership of 40 million women by the mid-1920s. See ICW, Bulletin IV/4 (1926). 3 Namely, Brazil, Egypt, India, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Newfoundland, Palestine, Lithuania and Ukraine; see IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. 235

NOTES TO PAGES 48 – 53 4 IWSA, 1920 Congress Report; Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson, Journey Towards Freedom, Written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women (Copenhagen: IAW, 1955), pp. 37, 29; Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902– 1942 (Columbus OH: Ohio State University Press, 1990). 5 ICW, 1922– 24 Combined Annual Report; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report; and WILPF, Congress Reports from the 1920s. 6 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915– 1938: A Venture in Internationalism (Geneva, 1938), p. 17; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report; ‘The Pax Special’ (Report of Amy Woods, Secretary of the United States Section, in the July Bulletin of the United States Section) WILPF, 1924 Congress Report; ‘Attack Women’s Peace League. Daughters of 1812 Ask Senate Committee on Propaganda to Investigate Pacifist Organization’, Boston Post, 3 May 1924; ‘Peace League Starts “War”. Tumultuous Scenes Enacted at Women’s Meeting in Washington’, Kansas City (Mo.) Times, 28 April 1924; ‘The Searchlight: Data on Subversive Movements Against the American Government, Political and Labor Radicals, Communist and the “Pinks”’, edited by Fred R. Marvin, New York Commercial, 17 May 1924 and 24 May 1924; ‘Women’s Peace League Rapped. Denounced as Backed by German Socialists in National Civic Federation Resolutions. Pacifist Aims Attacked’, American New York City, 25 April 1924; ‘Prof. Schevill Opens School of Pacifism. Traces History of Internationalist Move as Women of 25 Nations Attend’, The Daily News, 19 May 1924, Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection (SL Collection), Sophia Smith Collection (SSC), Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Jane Addams, ‘Address to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference’, Pax International 3/11 (1928); ‘Prague Congress’, Pax International 4/10 (1929). 7 Huda Shaarawi, Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879 – 1924) (translated, edited and introduced by M. Badran) (New York: The New Feminist Press, 1986); IAW, Congress Reports 1920– 29; Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, pp. 34, 41. 8 WILPF, Congress Reports 1919– 29; A Venture in Internationalism, p. 20; ICW, The Washington Meetings, by Mrs Ogilvie Gordon, First Vice-President, F I:2, Svenska Kvinnors Nationalfo¨rbund (SKN), KS. 9 Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 28. 10 Swedish NCW to Lady Aberdeen, 8 August 1924, E I, SKN, KS. 11 Svensk Korrepondens 1930– 1932, E II:2, SKN, KS; ‘Utla¨ndsk Korrespondens, 1923– 1932’, E I, SKN, KS; ICW, 1922– 24 Combined Annual Report; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; ‘International Executive Meeting, Geneva, 1929’, E I:2, IKFF, KS. 12 ICW, 1925 Conference Report; IWSA, 1920 Congress Report; WILPF, 1926 Congress Report. Pax International was launched in 1925; however, it was preceded by the news sheet, International, and known as Pax et Libertas from 1919 (see Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 176). 236

NOTES TO PAGES 53 –65 13 WILPF, 1924 Congress Report; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report; for a discussion on the policies of the IWSA see Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 14 President’s Report, ICW, 1922 –24 Combined Annual Report. 15 ‘National Sections, Japan’, WILPF, 1921 Conference Report. 16 ‘Utla¨ndska brev 1920-talet’, E I:2, IKFF, KS. 17 Gabrielle Ducheˆne, ‘The League Must Not Go Backward’ and Marguerite Gobat, ‘The Danger of Crystalization’, Pax International 1/7 (1926). 18 ‘Utla¨ndska brev 1920-talet’, E I:2, IKFF, KS. 19 ICW, 1925 Conference Report; Women in a Changing World: The Dynamic Story of the International Council of Women since 1888 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 53. 20 Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 37; ‘WILPF 6th Congress’, F II:3, IKFF, KS; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; ‘Exekutivmo¨tet i Ko¨penhamn 1924’, F II: 3, SKN, KS. 21 ICW, 1922– 24 Combined Annual Report, 1925 Conference Report. 22 IWSA, 1920 Congress Report, 1923 Congress Report. 23 Address of the President, Carrie Chapman Catt, IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. 24 Shaarawi, Harem Years, p. 129; Badran, Feminists, p. 3; Caitriona Beaumont, ‘Stand up and be counted: mainstream women’s organisations and the women’s movement in twentieth century Britain’, paper at conference on ‘Mainstream Women’s Organisations’, 13 March 2004, Women’s Library (WL). 25 ICW, Bulletin IV/10 (1926); Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 36; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report, 1929 Congress Report. 26 ‘WILPF 6th Congress’, F II:3, IKFF, KS; IAWSEC, 1929 Congress Report. 27 WILPF, 1924 Congress Report, 1926 Congress Report; ‘Prague Congress’, Pax International 4/10 (1929). 28 See ICW, 1925 Conference Report; WILPF, 1921 Congress Report; IWSA, 1923 Congress Report; and IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report. 29 IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report; Crystal Macmillan, IWSA, 1920 Congress Report. 30 Address by Catt, IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. 31 ICW, Bulletin IIV/10 (1926), V/4 (1926), V/6 (1927), VI/7 (1928); IWSN, January 1921; IWSN, February 1921, letter from C.T. Gauntlett of Japan, IWSN, December 1921, letter from Lee Lien, China, IWSN, February and September 1922, IWSN, March and October 1923, and IWSN, August 1923, Egypt – ‘First Deputation from Women to Minister’ by H. Charoui; WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. 32 ‘Utla¨ndsk korrespondens 1922, 1927’, E 1, SKN, KS. 33 Ibid. 34 Correspondence to and from Tano Jodai, J0022– J0025, J0030, Naruse Memorial Collection (NMC), Japan Women’s University, Tokyo. 35 Address by Catt, IWSA, 1923 Conference Report. 36 Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor, ‘Forging feminist identity in an international movement: a collective identity approach to twentieth-century feminism’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 24/2 (1999), pp. 376, 380– 1. 237

NOTES TO PAGES 65 –71 37 See E.F. Hurwitz, ‘The international sisterhood’, in R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), p. 329. 38 President’s Report, ICW, 1922 –24 Combined Annual Report. 39 WILPF, 1926 Congress Report; IWSA, 1923 Congress Report; ‘Rome Congress: Draft Programme’, IWSN, March 1923; President’s Memorandum, ICW, 1925 Conference Report. 40 Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, p. 27. 41 ‘Minnen fra˚n Kristiania’, F I:1, SKN, KS; ‘Matilda Widegren’s fo¨redrags manuskript 1914– 1937’ F I:1, IKFF, KS. 42 See WILPF, 1926 Congress Report; IAWSEC, 1929 Congress Report. 43 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 109– 10. 44 ICW, Bulletin V/8 (1927). 45 ‘Women of 30 Lands Appear Here Tonight. Delegates to International Peace Meeting in Washington Will Be Reception Guests. To Speak in Native Tongues’, New York Evening Post, 23 April 1924, SL Collection, SSC; ‘Programme 1935 IAW Congress’, Josephine Schain Papers (JS Papers), SSC. 46 Barbara N. Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries, maternal imperialists, feminist allies: British women activists in India 1865– 1945’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 119–136. 47 See Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, pp. 38 – 42. 48 See IWSN, December 1921, April and September 1922; IWSA, 1920 Congress Report; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report; ICW, 1925 Conference Report; Pax International 2/6 (1927). 49 Ramusack, ‘Cultural missionaries’. 50 IWSN, April and September 1922; IWSA, 1920 Congress Report. ‘Sister’ was also sometimes preceded by the religious affiliation of a member. For example, Aletta Jacobs, IAW, sent a greeting to ‘our Catholic sisters’ prior to the 1922 PanAmerican Conference. See IWSN, April 1922. 51 Report from China, WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. 52 ‘Women of the World Here to Discuss Peace. Foreign Delegates to International League Tell how Their Sisters in Europe Are Working Against the War Spirit – An Emissary From New Turkey’, New York Times, 27 April 1924, SL Collection, SSC. 53 IAWSEC, 1929 Congress Report. 54 WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. 55 See Angela Woollacott, ‘Australian women’s metropolitan activism: from suffrage, to imperial vanguard, to Commonwealth feminism’, in I.C. Fletcher, L.E. Nym Mayhall and P. Levine (eds), Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Nation, and Race (London; New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 219; and R. Terborg-Penn, ‘Enfranchising women of color: woman suffragists as agents of imperialism’, in R.R. Pierson and N. Chaudhuri (eds), Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 238

NOTES TO PAGES 71 –82

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70

1998), p. 46. However, Woollacott quotes Maude Royden, of the British Dominions Women Citizens’ Union: ‘We must stand in an elder sister-like relation to these peoples [native races in the Overseas Dominions], rejoicing in their growth, shielding them in their weakness’; see Woollacott, ‘Australian’, pp. 218– 19. Pax International 2/6 (1927). IWSA, 1920 Congress Report. ‘U.S.A. helps Indian Women to get the Suffrage’, IWSN, November 1921. WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. Ibid. IWSA, 1920 Congress Report. C.T. Gauntlett to Mrs Abbott, 20 January 1921, IWSN, February 1921. IWSN, September 1922. Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 36. ‘Visit to Egypt 1923’, MCA Papers, WL. H. Charoui, ‘Egypt. First Deputation from Women to a Minister’, IWSN, August 1923. ‘Women of the World Here to Discuss Peace’, New York Times, 27 April 1924; ‘26 Women Peace Delegates Arrive. Mme. Youssouf, Constantinople, Says Feminist Movement is Gaining in Turkey’, Philadelphia Bulletin, 25 April 1924; ‘Filipino Girl Star Speaker At Women’s Peace Congress’, Brooklyn Eagle, 3 May 1924, SL Collection, SSC; ‘Anteckningar om det Internationella Kvinnomo¨tet, International Council of Women’s 5-a˚rs mo¨te: Kristiania 8 – 18 Sept. 1920, Eva Upmark’, F I:1. SKN, KS. ‘Japan. The Woman’s Movement Moves’, IWSN, September 1922. ‘Recollections of international work and history of the IAW from 1904’, MCA Papers, WL.

Chapter 4 International Women’s Organisations in the 1930s 1 Term used by Rupp to describe coalitions of international women’s organisations; see Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 37. 2 For further details on the Turkish branch see Kathryn Libal, ‘Staging Turkish women’s emancipation: Istanbul, 1935’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4/1 (2008). 3 Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson, Journey Towards Freedom, Written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women (Copenhagen: IAW, 1955), p. 51; WILPF, 1932 and 1937 Congress Reports; Women in a Changing World: 239

NOTES TO PAGES 83 –84

4

5 6 7

8

9 10 11 12

13

240

The Dynamic Story of the International Council of Women since 1888 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), pp. 64–70; Mary Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Biography (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1944), p. 454; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; ICW, Bulletin XIII/1 (1934); Katherine Bompas, IAWSEC headquarter secretary, to Ichikawa, 0213-14, Collection on Japanese Women’s Suffrage Movement I 1918–1946, JWSM Collection, the Fusae Ichikawa Memorial Association Library (FIMA), Tokyo; ICW, 1930 Conference Report. IAWSEC, 1929 and 1939 Congress Reports; WILPF, 1932 and 1937 Congress Reports; Pax International 14/6 (1939); ‘Call to the Twelfth Congress of the Alliance Istanbul 1935’, JS Papers, SSC; Virginia Gildersleeve, Many A Good Crusade: Memoirs of Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (New York: Macmillan, 1954), pp. 149, 154; BFUW News Sheet, 11 (1933). Three national sections joined WILPF during this decade: Tunis (1932), Yugoslavia (1934) and Egypt (1937); WILPF, 1932 and 1937 Congress Reports. It had second societies affiliated from Syria, India and Palestine. IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report. ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ICW, President’s Memorandum regarding the Council Meeting of the International Council of Women, Dubrovnik, 28 Sept to 9 Oct 1936 (Brussels, 1936); Fusae Ichikawa to Lady Aberdeen, 30 April 1930; and WYWCA to Miss Yamamoto, 1 March 1930, 0326–0327, JWSM Collection, FIMA; ICW, Booklet, General Officers and NCW, E I, SKN, KS. In 1930 honorary organisers could be found in Russia, China, Japan, Southern Rhodesia and Albania, of which the last three were also corresponding members, joined by Egypt and Mexico in 1936. Iceland and Spain were also corresponding members of ICW in 1935. Call to the 12th Congress of the IAWSEC in Athens April 1932, E I, SKN, KS, ‘Call to the Twelfth Congress’, JS Papers, SSC. The IAW also appears to have organised a Study Conference in Zurich in the mid-1930s, see ‘Peace Resolution (The Study Conference in Zurich by the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, declares. . .)’, JS Papers, SSC. ‘The Second Zurich Congress’, Pax International 9/4– 5 (1934). See ‘Foreword’, IAWSEC, 1939 Congress Report; Women in a Changing World, p. 66; M.I. Corbett Ashby, President of the IAW, and E. Gourd, Secretary of the IAW, to Presidents of Auxiliaries, 27 October 1934, JS Papers, SSC. ICW, 1925 and 1930 Conference Reports; IAWSEC, 1935 and 1939 Congress Reports; Pax International 1930– 1938. The ICW held conferences in Vienna (1930), Paris (1934), Dubrovnik (1936) and Edinburgh (1938). The NCW of the United States also organised a conference on ‘Our Common Cause – Civilization’ in Chicago in 1933 to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the World’s Congress of Representative Women held in the same city in 1893, which attracted representation from 33 countries including Japan and Turkey (ICW, Bulletin XII/2 (1933)). The ICW to Presidents and Secretaries of affiliated National Councils, Brussels, 15 June 1937, 1086, JWSM Collection, FIMA.

NOTES TO PAGES 85 – 90 14 ICW, 1930 Conference Report; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; Correspondence to and from Tano Jodai, NCM, JWU; WILPF, 1937 Congress Report. 15 ICW, Bulletin XII/1 (1933); Utla¨ndsk korrespondens, 1933, E I, SKN, KS; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; and press cuttings and leaflets, MCA Papers, WL. The Idun Academy was founded by Swedish women’s newspaper Idun (Pax International 5/5 (1930); WILPF, 1932 Congress Report); ICW, Bulletin XII/10 (1934). 16 Carrie Chapman Catt to Rosa Manus, July 1935, in Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902– 1942 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1990), p. 234. 17 Carol Miller, ‘“Geneva – the Key to Equality”: inter-war feminists and the League of Nations’, Women’s History Review 3/2 (1994), p. 224; Catherine Foster, Women for All Seasons: The Story of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Athens, GA: 1989), p. 18; ‘Our Stockholm Meeting: June 26th to July 6th, 1933’, ICW, Bulletin XII/1 (1933); Women in a Changing World, pp. 69 – 70; IAWSEC, 1935 and 1939 Congress Reports; WILPF, 1937 Congress Report; ICW, Bulletin XII/2 (1933). 18 The Palestine Jewish Women’s Rights Association was affiliated in 1923 (IWSA, 1923 Congress Report); ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ICW, Bulletin XIII/1 (1934); List of officers, delegates, contributors and visitors to the meetings of the ICW, Stockholm 26 June – 6 July 1933, F I:2, SKN, KS; Rosa Manus to Carrie Chapman Catt, 31 July 1939, in Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, p. 250; IAWSEC, 1939 Conference Report. 19 Rosa Manus to Carrie Chapman Catt, 22 August 1939, in Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, p. 254. 20 While the 1935 IAW congress was one of its regular international events, the NCW of India and the ICW jointly organised a conference in Calcutta in 1936. Each affiliated national association had the right to be represented by 12 delegates and 12 alternates (ICW, President’s Memorandum regarding 1936 Council Meeting; and IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report); IAWSEC pamphlet, 1935, JS Papers, SSC. ‘Women Gather At Istanbul in World Party. 300 delegates to Equality Congress Include India Section for the First Time’, Herald Tribune, 1935, JS Papers, SSC. 21 Women in a Changing World, p. 66; Joint Conference of the ICW and the NCW in India, International Council of Women Records (ICW Records), SSC; ICW, President’s Memorandum regarding 1936 Council Meeting; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; and Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 48. 22 ICW, Bulletin XIV/4 (1935). 23 Ibid.; ‘Message from the U.S. of America At the Vali’s Banquet Para Palas Hotel Turkey, April 18’, International Alliance of Women Records (IAW Records), SSC. 24 Shidzue Ishimoto, Facing Two Ways: The Story of My Life (London, 1935) pp. 381– 2. 241

NOTES TO PAGES 91 – 96 25 Gunther till Stjernstedt, Utla¨ndsk korrespondens, 1932, E I, SKN, KS; ICW, 1930 Conference Report; Women in a Changing World, p. 63; and WILPF News Letter 14/8 (1939). 26 IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; China: Lady Whyte, Dr Marion Yang and Miss Soumi Cheng; Palestine: Miss Nixon and Miss Bentwich; India: Mrs Jirray Mehta represented India on all but one committee. Miss Natrajam represented India on the Press committee (ICW, 1930 Conference Report); ‘Wein and Women’, F165/167, Sorabji Collection (SC), the British Library (BL); IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; Programme 1935 IAW Congress, JS Papers, SSC. While Rama Rau is said to be from England in the former, the latter referred to her as Indian. A third co-opted vice-president came from Australia (ICW, President’s Memorandum regarding 1936 Council Meeting; WILPF, 1937 Congress Report). 27 W. Wijnaendts-Francken on the 1933 Chicago conference, ICW, Bulletin XII/2 (1933); XIII/4 (1934), XIV/9 (1936); Correspondence to and from Tano Jodai, NCM, JWU; ‘Women and Disarmament. The Deputation of American, British, French and Japanese Women received by the Chairman of the London Naval Conference at St. James’s Palace on February 6th, 1930’, MCA Papers, WL; Edith M. Pye to Tano Jodai 1932/03/14, J0090, NMC, JWU. 28 Antoinette Burton, ‘The white woman’s burden, British feminists and “the Indian Woman”, 1965 –1915’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 137– 57; ICW, Bulletin XIII/2 (1934). 29 ICW, Bulletin XIV/9 (1936). 30 ICW Calcutta Conference, ICW, Bulletin XIV/7 (1936); ICW, Bulletin XIII/6 (1935). 31 International Women’s Conference in Calcutta by Elisabeth Zellweger, ICW, Bulletin XIV/7 (1936). 32 Juliette Rao, ‘The Arab Women’, Pax International 15/3 (1930); ‘Albanian women abandon the veil’, ICW, Bulletin XV/9 (1937); ‘The Status of Women in the Near East’ [n.d.], IAW Records, SSC. 33 China Report by Chu Chang-Nien, Legation de Chine, Sweden, ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ‘From our National Councils, Annual meeting of the NCW of the Netherlands’, ICW, Bulletin XV/9 (1937); Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 49; ‘Wein’, F165/167, SC, BL; ICW, 1930 Conference Report. 34 Speakers from India, Mrs Hussain and Mrs Hamid Ali, at the session on ‘East and West in co-operation’ at 1935 IAW Istanbul Congress (The IWSN Jus Suffragii, 29/9 (1935); press cuttings and leaflets, MCA Papers, WL). 35 ‘East and West in co-operation’ by Shareefeh Hamid Ali, IAW Records, SSC. 36 Speech to IAW 1935 Congress by Syrian delegate, IAW Records, SSC. 37 ‘Kvinderene vil samle Vest of Øst i Arbejde for Fred, Frihed og Tolerance, Det katastrofale i Tiden er det moralske Anarki, der hersker mellem Staterne, Kvindekongressens offentlige Møde’, Politikern, 13 July 1939. Gulli Petrini samling, KS; Rupp, Worlds of Women, p. 60; Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, pp. 221–2. 242

NOTES TO PAGES 96 –100 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47

48 49

50

51

Rosa Manus to Carrie Chapman Catt, 31 July 1939, in ibid., pp. 246– 52. Ibid. Mercedes Gallagher Parka, NCW of Peru, 0478-79, JWSM Collection, FIMA. NCW of Peru to Baroness Boe¨l, president of the ICW, 10 March 1937, 0480-81, JWSM Collection, FIMA. There is no reference to the resignation of the Peruvian NCW in 1937 or descriptions of Peruvian women’s experiences at the 1936 conference in either the ICW 1936 Conference Report or Women in a Changing World. Whereas Bosch and Kloosterman’s account of Shaarawi’s protest is based on a letter from Rosa Manus to Carrie Chapman Catt, 31 July 1939, Rupp makes reference to the French minutes from the IAWSEC Executive Committee, Copenhagen, July, 1939, IAW Papers, WL, and there is no mention in the 1939 IAWSEC conference report or in Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey. ‘Lady Aberdeen’s farewell speech as president of the ICW at Dubrovnik in 1936’, F I:3, SKN, KS. ‘Wein’, F165/167, SC, BL. van Veen to Hesselgren, 16 July 1933, F I:2, SKN, KS. Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, p. 175. The organisations comprised the ICW, the IAW, WILPF, IFUW, the WYWCA and the WUWIC (‘Appeal Of Women To The World’s Statesmen’, Pax International 5/11 (1930)); LCWIO and Peace and Disarmament Committee of Women’s International Organisations 1934– 42, MCA Papers, WL. WILPF, 1932 Congress Report. The LCWIO, itself established in 1930 in support of the international disarmament conference called for the following year, comprised the ICW, the WYWCA, the IAW, WILPF, the WUWIC, The National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, the LJW, the IFBPW, the World Organisation of Jewish Women, the EFSC, the WWCTU, the ICWG and the IFUW. See Disarmament Conference Correspondence 1931 – 35, MCA Papers, WL; LCWIO, An Experiment in Co-operation 1925– 1945: The History of the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations (Essex, 1945), JS Papers, SSC. The DCWIO members included: the ICW, the WYWCA, the IAW, WILPF, the WUWIC, the League of Mothers and Educators for Peace, the LJW, the IFBPW, the EFSC, the WWCTU, the ICWG (observer), the IFUW (observer) and the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (USA). These organisations had branches in 56 countries and a membership of 45 million women (IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report). WILPF, 1932 Congress Report; Mary Dingham to the Swedish NCW regarding the lack of labour organisations on the disarmament committee, asking what labour women in Sweden are doing (F I: 2, SKN, KS); Utla¨ndsk korrespondens, 1935, E I, SKN, KS. In a letter from Carrie Chapman Catt to Rosa Manus, July 1935, the former points out that the American delegates to the 1935 IAW Congress did not like Miss van Eeghen of the ICW (Letter printed in Bosch and Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, pp. 232–4); IAWSEC, 1939 Congress Report. 243

NOTES TO PAGES 100 –104 52 WILPF, 1932 Congress Report; Schreiber and Matheison, Journey, p. 49; Camille Drevet, WILPF, Geneva, to Tano Jodai, 2 March 1933, NMC, JWU. 53 IAWSEC, 1935 and 1939 Congress Reports; DCWIO, Official record of the declarations and petitions presented by the Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International Organizations to the Disarmament Conference Geneva Report of the Disarmament Conference . . . 1932 (Geneva, 1932). 54 IAWSEC, 1939 Congress Report. 55 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 444, 455– 6; Jacqueline van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life (New York: The Feminist Press, 1987), p. 214; WILPF, 1932 Congress Report. 56 New York Herald Tribune, 4 February 1932, Disarmament Conference newspaper cuttings 1932– 35, MCA Papers, WL. 57 Daily News, Colombo, Ceylon, 29 January 1932; ibid. 58 Correspondence between the ICW President and the Rt. Hon J. Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Chairman of the Naval Disarmament Conference, London, January– April 1930. ICW, 1930 Conference Report. 59 van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 198, 212– 13. 60 Utla¨ndsk korrespondens, 1931, E I, SKN, KS; WILPF, 1937 Congress Report; ‘The Grenoble Congress’, Pax International 7/7 (1932); Foster, Women, pp. 21 – 2. 61 Among others, the British Commonwealth League, British Women’s Temperance Association, Scottish Christian Union, National Council for Equal Citizenship, Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations and Union of Jewish Women (Women’s Peace Crusade, JS Papers, SSC). 62 Courtney to Schain, 14 March 1936, JS Papers, SSC. 63 Disarmament Conference Correspondence, MCA Papers, WL. 64 ‘International Community – World Citizenship’ by L.G.H., Pax International 14/2 (1939). 65 Miller, ‘Geneva’, pp. 221, 239; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report. This was part of a campaign against regulated prostitution started by Josephine Butler in the nineteenth century. 66 Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality was made up of: ICW, IAW, WILPF, WUWIC, IFUW, the Inter-American Commission of Women, Equal Rights International and the All-Asian Conference of Women; see Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 37– 44. The LCWIO continued and expanded on the work carried out by its predecessor, the JSCWIO, which had been set up in the 1920s to try to secure the appointment of women to committees and bodies established by the League. See LCWIO, An Experiment in Co-operation, JS Papers, SSC. 67 Ibid., p. 120; Women in a Changing World, p. 70; LCWIO, An Experiment in Cooperation, JS Papers, SSC; Princess Radziwill, Liaison Agent of Women’s International Organisations, attended the 1935 IAW congress; see IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report. 68 Carol Miller, ‘Lobbying the League: Women’s International Organisations and the League of Nations’, PhD dissertation (Oxford University, 1992). 244

NOTES TO PAGES 104 –112 69 Rupp, Worlds of Women, pp. 212– 14; ICW, Bulletin XII/7 (1934). 70 IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report. 71 Miller, ‘Geneva’, p. 222; Kerstin Hesselgren, President of Swedish NCW, was the only female full delegate to the Assembly in 1932 and was also appointed President of the Fifth Commission (ICW, Bulletin XII/2 (1932); Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, pp. 50 – 5; Women in a Changing World, p. 70; Miller, ‘Geneva’, pp. 222– 3; IAWSEC, 1935 Congress Report; M.O. Hudson, ‘The Hague Convention of 1930 and the Nationality of Women’, The American Journal of International Law 27/1 (January 1933). 72 IAWSEC Draft Resolution for Istanbul Congress [1935], JS Papers, SSC.

Chapter 5 The International Federation of University Women 1 IFUW, 1934 Conference Report. 2 IFUW, 1920 and 1924 Conference Report; Janet Sondheimer, History of the British Federation of University Women 1907– 1957 (London: BFUW, 1957), p. 30. 3 ‘Presentation on IFUW History’ by Dr Elizabeth M.E. Poskitt, IFUW Past President. Available at www.ifuw.org (accessed 21 May 2014); Virginia Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade: Memoirs of Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (New York: Macmillan, 1954), pp. 127– 9. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., pp. 127– 30; ‘Reception by the Federation of University Women at Bedford College on July 10th, 1919’, Summary of an address by Virginia C. Gildersleeve, The Bedford College Magazine 96 (1920); ‘Presentation on IFUW History’; IFUW, Constitution and Bye-Laws Adopted at the First Conference, London, July 1920, CS Papers, PP7/6/6/1, RHUL Archives. 6 ‘Address by Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve’, IFUW, 1920 and 1922 Conference Report; The Yorkshire Post [name of paper unclear], 5 February 1923, CS Papers IFUW PP7/6/1/5, RHUL Archives; Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, pp. 137– 8 7 Margaret Forster, Significant Sisters: The Grassroots of Active Feminism 1839– 1939 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1984), p. 4. 8 IFUW, Occasional Paper No. 1 September 1922, CS Papers, PP/6/6/5, RHUL Archives. 9 IFUW, 1924 Conference Report. 10 IFUW, 1920 Conference Report. 11 ‘A World-Conference of Women, University Assembly at Christiania. Dr. Nansen’s Inspiration (By a Member)’, The Observer, 17 August 1924, CS Papers, PP/7/6/4, RHUL Archives. 12 Edith C. Batho, A Lamp of Friendship 1918– 1968: A Short History of the International Federation of University Women (Eastbourne: Sumfield & Day Ltd (IFUW), 1968), p. 8. 245

NOTES TO PAGES 113 –117 13 Christy J. Snider, ‘Creating a transnational identity: the international federation of university women confronts racial and religious membership restrictions in the 1930s’, in K. Jensen and E. Kuhlman (eds), Women and Transnational Activism in Historical Perspective (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters, 2010), pp. 193– 218. 14 Patricia A. Palmieri, ‘Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895– 1920’, History of Education Quarterly 23/2 (1983), p. 206. 15 Address by Spurgeon, IFUW, 1920 Conference Report. 16 The words of Miss M. Carey Thomas, President of Bryn Mawr College, ibid. 17 The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923), PP7/6/3/2, RHUL Archives. 18 ‘University Women. League to Promote International Friendship (From a Woman Correspondent)’, CS Papers, PP7/6/1/5, RHUL Archives. 19 Nya Dagligt Allehande, article by Naima Sahlbom, CS Papers, PP/7/6/4, RHUL Archives. 20 The New Statesman, 9 August 1924, CS Papers, PP7/6/5/4, RHUL Archives. 21 IFUW, 1920 and 1922 Conference Reports; press cuttings relating to the 1924 IFUW Kristiania conference, CS Papers, PP/7/6/4, PP7/6/1/5, RHUL Archives; Caroline F.E. Spurgeon, President IFUW, to President Nielson, 27 September 1921, Bernice V. Brown, Treasurer IFUW, to President William Allan Neilson, Smith College, 6 May 1930, Winifred Cullis, President of IFUW, to Mr. William Alan Nielson, Smith College, 28 May 1931, WAN Papers, SCA. 22 IFUW leaflet (July 1923), CS Papers, PP7/6/6/2, RHUL Archives; ICW, 1930 Conference Report; Women in a Changing World: The Dynamic Story of the International Council of Women since 1888 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 55; Disarmament Conference Correspondence, MCA Papers, WL; IFUW, 1920 and 1924 Conference Report; The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVIII/1 (1924), RHUL Archives. 23 ‘A Chinese Woman in England. Tientsin Y.W.C.A. Secretary Tells Impressions of Visit’, Shanghai Times, 28 October 1924, CS Papers, PP7/6/5/4, RHUL Archives. 24 IFUW, 1929 Conference Report. 25 Susan Levine, Degrees of Equality: The American Association of University Women and the Challenge of Twentieth-Century Feminism (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995). 26 Protokollbo¨cker ABKFs kommitte fo¨r internationellt samarbete, 30 November 1931– 5 August 1936, E II:1, KAF, KS; IFUW information leaflet (December 1932), E II:1, KAF, KS; IFUW, 1922, 1929, 1932 and 1936 Conference Reports. 27 BFUW, Annual Report 1936– 37; Levine, Degrees, pp. 47 –53. 28 IFUW, 1929 Conference Report. 29 Caitriona Beaumont, ‘Stand up and be counted: mainstream women’s organisations and the women’s movement in twentieth century Britain’, paper at conference on ‘Mainstream Women’s Organisations’, 13 March 2004, WL. 30 Levine, Degrees, p. 22. 31 IFUW, 1936 Conference Report. 246

NOTES TO PAGES 118 –121 32 The Reporter, The Journal of Higher Education 8/6 (1937), p. 336. 33 Lynn D. Gordon, ‘Annie Nathan Meyer and Barnard College: mission and identity in women’s higher education, 1889– 1950’, History of Education Quarterly 26/4 (1986), pp. 508, 512– 13. 34 Women in a Changing World, p. 65; Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, p. 150– 2, 158. 35 IFUW, 1929, 1932, 1936 and 1939 Conference Reports; IFUW, 1933 News Sheet. 36 The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923) and XVII/1 (1924); IFUW, 1922 Conference Report; Spurgeon to Bosanquet, 24 June 1922, CS, PP7/6/4/1, RHUL Archives; ICW, Bulletin XIV/9 (1936); WILPF, Resolutions of the Dublin Congress 1926. In addition to Jodai, the ICW was also cooperating with Mrs Tsuji, active in the YWCA, to form a NCW of Japan (ICW, 1930 Conference Report; Theodora Bosanquet to Miss Spurgeon, 24 June 1922, CS Papers PP7/6/4/1, RHUL Archives). 37 IFUW Information leaflet, E II:1, KAF, KS; IFUW, 1926 and 1932 Conference Reports. 38 IFUW Information leaflet (July 1923), CS Papers PP7/6/2, RHUL Archives; Pamphlet – The American University Women’s Paris Club, WAN Papers, SCA. 39 The first fellowship offered by the IFUW was the Rose Sidgwick Fellowship – see The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923); IFUW, A List of International Fellowships for Research, 2nd edn (London: IFUW, 1934); The Reporter, The Journal of Higher Education 27/4 (1956), p. 220; Levine, Degrees, pp. 8, 13, 19 – 20; ‘For Research. Graduates’ chance. A New Fellowship’, Farmer and Settler, Sydney, Australia, 7 November 1924, CS Papers, PP7/6/2/4, RHUL Archives; Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, p. 143. 40 IFUW, 1939 Conference Report. 41 McDermid, ‘Women and education’, in June Purvis, Women’s History: Britain, 1850– 1945, An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 108– 9, 121. 42 IWSA, 1920 Congress Report; IAWSEC, 1926, 1929 and 1939 Congress Reports. 43 ICW, 1922– 24 Combined Annual Report; ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ICW, President’s Memorandum regarding the Council Meeting of the ICW, Dubrovnik, 28 Sept. to 9 Oct. 1936 (Brussels, 1936); ICW, Biennial Report, 1925– 1927; International Council of Women Records (ICW Records), SSC; NCW of Chile (affiliated 1923), International Council of Women, Histories of affiliated National Councils 1888– 1938, ICW Records, SSC; Yi-Fang Wu to ‘Ginling Sisters’, Banff, Canada, 22 August 1933, GC Records, SCA; WILPF, 1921 and 1926 Congress Reports. 44 Norwegian Section, WILPF, 1932 Congress Report. 45 Women’s Association in Japan for International Friendship was not yet a member of WILPF but co-operated with the organisation (WILPF, 1921 Congress Report). 46 Report on Japan, by Tano Jodai, WILPF, 1926 Congress Report. 47 Object of the League, WILPF, 1921 Congress Report. 48 Katherine Storr, ‘International Education for Peace and Equality, 1900– 1930’, paper at 15th Annual Conference of the Women’s History Network. 247

NOTES TO PAGES 122 –127 49 IFUW, Occasional Paper No. 1, September 1922, CS Papers, PP7/6/6/5, RHUL Archives. The IFUW welcomed representatives of newly joined federations in Yugoslavia, Ireland, Latvia and Lithuania at its conference in 1929 (IFUW, 1929 Conference Report). 50 The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923). 51 IFUW, 1920s and 1930s Conference Reports; The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923); The Yorkshire Post [name of paper unclear], 5 February 1923, CS Papers, PP7/6/1/5, RHUL Archives. 52 The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923). Moreover, in the United States women constituted a high proportion of American college students (47 per cent in 1920), see Levine, Degrees, p. 14; IFUW, 1926 and 1939 Conference Reports; Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, p. 142. 53 Elizabeth Littell-Lamb, ‘Localizing the global: the YWCA movement in China, 1899– 1939’, in Jensen and Kuhlman, Women and Transnational Activism, pp. 63 – 88. 54 Press cutting on the AAUW [not clear what newspaper but Japan in the name, n.d.], CS Papers, PP7/6/2/4, RHUL Archives; IFUW, 1922, 1932, 1936 and 1939 Conference Reports. 55 A federation was affiliated from Brazil in 1931 and a Mexican federation was established in 1928 (IFUW, 1924, 1929, 1932 and 1936 Conference Reports). 56 IFUW, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1929 and 1936 Conference Reports. Although Egypt’s representation within the IFUW was not new, the Egyptian Federation finally became a legitimate member in 1931, as it for the first time included an Egyptian graduate. 57 IFUW, 1924 Conference Report. All universities had been founded within the previous ten years (‘From China’, Bedford College Union Magazine 14 (1926); ‘A Chinese Woman in England’, CS Papers, PP7/6/5/4, RHUL Archives). Press cuttings, CS Papers, PP/7/6/4, RHUL Archives. 58 IFUW, 1932 Conference Report. 59 The Yorkshire Post [name of paper unclear], 5 February 1923, PP7/6/1/5, RHUL Archives; Gildersleeve, Good Crusade, pp. 136– 8, 142; IFUW, 1920, 1924 and 1926 Conference Reports; Batho, Lamp of Friendship, p. 5. 60 ‘A Woman’s League of Nations’ by Mrs Willoughby Cumnings, D.C.L., Listening Post [newspaper name unclear], Montreal, May 1924, CS Papers, PP/7/6/4, IFUW, Occasional Paper No. 1, September 1922, PP7/6/6/5; Eva B. A. Macmillan, Union Medical College Peking, China, to Miss Virginia Newcomb, the Institute of International Education, New York, 27 April 1922, CS Papers, PP7/6/4/1, RHUL Archives; ‘Turkish Women Flout Tradition, Go Without Veils, Bob Hair and Even Talk Suffrage, Says Dr. Patrick’, [paper name unclear] 9/29/24, CC, SSC; IFUW, 1924 and 1936 Conference Reports. 61 ‘University Women and World Friendship’, Spurgeon, President, IFUW, The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI/2 (1923); Occasional Paper No. 1, September 1922, CS Papers, PP/6/6/5, RHUL Archives. 248

NOTES TO PAGES 128 –131 62 The University Women’s Review 22 (1937); IFUW, 1936 Conference Report; Weili Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900– 1927 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 9. 63 Address by Spurgeon, IFUW, 1920 Conference Report. 64 IFUW, A List of International Fellowships for Research; Svenska stipendier 1936, E II:1, KAF, KS; Levine, Degrees, p. 20. 65 IFUW, A List of International Fellowships for Research; Utla¨ndsk Korrespondens, 1923– 1932, E I, SKN, KS; IWSA, 1920 Conference Report; IFUW, 1932 Conference Report; The Journal of the American Association of University Women XVI (1923); Elizabeth R. Hendee, Vocational Guidance Bureau Division on Work for Foreign-born Women, National Board of the YWCA of the USA, to Mr. F. Stuart Chapin, Smith Training School for Social Work, 18 November 1921, and Anne Wiggin, Secretary International Student Committee, National Student Council of YWCA, New York, to President William Neilson, Smith College, 5 January 1931, WAN Papers, SCA; IFUW, Higher education for women in Great Britain. Pamphlet No. 2 (1922) by Phaebe Sheavyn; Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China, From Shanghai to Hankow by the Yangtse’, Pax International 3/6 (1928); Notes from talk with Professor Sugimori (current president of the Japanese branch of WILPF) at JWU on 3 November 2004; LSE Women Alumni, Box 63, No. 2, LSE History Collection; Renuka Ray, My Reminiscences: Social Development During the Gandhian Era and After (New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private Limited, 1982), p. 44. On Chinese students, see Stacey Bieler, ‘Patriots’ or ‘Traitors’? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name, and Weili Ye, ‘“Nu Liuxuesheng”: the story of American-Educated Chinese women, 1880s – 1920s’, Modern China 20/3 (1994). 66 Bedford Student Magazine 73 (1910), 74 (1911), 76 (1911), 84 (1914), 93 (1918), 96 (1920) 98 (1920). Ye, ‘Nu Liuxuesheng’, p. 334; ‘Looking From West To East. Thoughts about Japan and her women, by a Japanese woman in London. Interview with Miss Shidachi, IWSN, May– June 1920. 67 ‘A Chinese Woman in England’, CS Papers, PP7/6/5/4, RHUL Archives. 68 PPWC, 1928 Conference Report. 69 ICW Bulletin VI/4 (1927); Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China, From Shanghai to Hankow by the Yangtse’, Pax International 3/6 (1928); ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ‘First Woman Professor at an Egyptian University’, ICW, Bulletin IX/4 (1930); Turkey, ICW, Bulletin V/7 (1927). 70 ICW, Bulletin XV/7 (1937). 71 ‘Women Quickly Win Freedom in New China, All Doors Now Thrown Open to Them, Says Peace Delegate to Shanghai’, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 February 1929, CC, SSC. 72 ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ‘Our Delegates To China, A Visit to Canton’, Edith M. Pye, Pax International 3/6 (1928); Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China, From Shanghai to Hankow by the Yangtse’, Pax International 3/6 (1928); Gwendoline R. Barclay (Girton College) (Sometime YWCA Secretary in 249

NOTES TO PAGES 131 –135

73

74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

250

Tokyo), ‘The Womanhood of Modern Japan’, News of the YWCA Throughout the World, Supplement to the IWSN, March 1921. Fraternal Delegates, Transjordanian and Arab Women, Miss Abul Huda, St Margaret’s Hall, Oxford, IAWSEC, 1939 Conference Report; IFUW, 1922 Conference Report; Notes from talk with Professor Sugimori, 3 November 2004; WILPF, 1924 Congress Report. Karen Garner, Precious Fire: Maud Russell and the Chinese Revolution (Amherst; Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003) pp. 70 –1; Ishimoto, Facing Two Ways, pp. 180, 202, 219. See also Littell-Lamb, ‘Localizing the global’ for details on Chinese Ding in particular. Michi Kawai represented Japan at the IAW 1920 Conference although a Japanese society was yet to be affiliated (IWSA, 1920 Conference Report); News of the YWCA Throughout the World, Supplement to the IWSN, March 1921; WILPF, 1932 Congress Report; Fusaye Ichikawa, Japan Women’s Committee for International Relations, to Miss Ann Satterwaite, the PPU, Honolulu, Hawaii, 6 June 1930, 0214, Collection on Japanese Women’s Suffrage Movement I, 1918– 1946 JWSM Collection, FIMA, Tokyo; Tano Jodai to Gladys, 8 April 1955, NMC, JWU. Soume´ Chen was one of the members on the ICW standing committee on laws and the legal position of women by 1930, see ICW Bulletin VI/4 (1927); Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China, From Shanghai to Hankow by the Yangtse’, Pax International 3/6 (1928); ICW, 1930 Conference Report; ‘Chinese Women Face A New Era’, The Christian Science Monitor, 3/01/29, CC, SSC; Ye, ‘Nu Liuxuesheng’, pp. 330–3. Renuka Ray studied at the LSE between 1922 and 1925 and received a BSc in Economics, LSE Magazine, 66 (1983), Box 45iii and LSE Women Alumni, Box 63, No. 2, LSE History Collection; The Journal of the American Association of University Women, XVI/2 (1923); ‘India. National Council of Women. Central Executive Meeting. July 16th, 1930’, ICW, Bulletin IX/2 (1930); ICW, Bulletin XIV/9 (1936); AIWC, 1935/36 Conference Report; IFUW, 1920 and 1922 Conference Report. ‘First in All Great Britain, Cornelia Sorabji Dies at 86; India’s First Woman Lawyer’, 9 July 1954, CC, SSC. Mary Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Biography (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1944), pp. 378– 9; ‘Impressions of Mexico’, Jane Addams, Jane Addams Papers, SSC. ‘A Sevenfold Return’, GC Records, SCA; ‘Princess of Persia Seeks Markets for Women’s Work’ special from Monitor Bureau (Chicago) The Christian Science Monitor 3/19/30, CC, SSC. ‘China’ by Irene Ho Tung, WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. Ibid. Yui Ming, Director, Shanghai Office Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the President, Smith College, 1 September 1937, WAN Papers, SCA. Ichikawa to Lidington 1929, 015 1618– 1627, JWSM Collection, FIMA; Ishbel Aberdeen to Tano Jodai, February 1926, J0022, NMC, JWU; Garner, Precious Fire, pp. 70 – 1. These visitors included Fusae Ichikawa, who visited Jane

NOTES TO PAGES 135 –143 Addams in 1921, see Barbara Molony, ‘Ichikawa Fusae and Japan’s pre-war women’s suffrage movement’, in H. Tomida and G. Daniels, Japanese Women: Emerging from Subservience, 1868– 1945 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2005), p. 76.

Chapter 6 The Travels of International Women’s Organisations in the Interwar Period 1 Mineke Bosch, ‘Colonial dimensions of Dutch women’s suffrage: Aletta Jacob’s travel letters from Africa and Asia, 1911– 1912’, in Journal of Women’s History 11/2 (Summer), p. 10. 2 Charlotte Weber, ‘Unveiling Scheherazade: feminist orientalism in the international alliance of women, 1911 –1950’, Feminist Studies 27/1 (2001), pp. 128, 132. 3 ‘My Visit to South Africa’ by H. Franklin, ICW, Bulletin IV/8 (1926); Patricia Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents in the International Women’s Movement, 1848– 1948 (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999), pp. 99, 101; Mary Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Biography (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1944), pp. 181 –2. Jacobs’ travel letters were subsequently published under the title Reisbrieven uit Afrika en Azie¨ (Travel Letters from Africa and Asia); see Bosch, ‘Colonial’, p. 9. 4 However, none of these Chinese women were able to attend the 1913 congress (Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 103, 182–5. 5 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 189– 91. 6 Jacqueline van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life (New York: The Feminist Press, 1987), p. 105. 7 Cheryl McEwan, Gender, Geography and Empire: Victorian Women Travellers in West Africa (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), p. 159; Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), p. 82. 8 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 187; van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 90 – 1. 9 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 205. 10 van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 111; Bosch, ‘Colonial’, pp. 19 – 20; Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 86; Weber, ‘Unveiling Scheherazade’, pp. 132– 5. 11 Catt, quoted in van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 105. 12 Bosch, ‘Colonial’, pp. 12 – 15. 13 Scott B. Cook, Colonial Encounters in the Age of High Imperialism (New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1996), pp. 160– 1. 14 Antoinette Burton, ‘The white woman’s burden: British feminists and “the Indian Woman”, 1865 –1915’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western 251

NOTES TO PAGES 143 –150

15

16

17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26

27

28

252

Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 137. McEwan, Gender, Geography and Empire, p. 32; Cheryl McEwan, ‘Encounters with West African women: textual representation of difference by white women abroad’, in Alison Blunt and Gillian Rose (eds), Writing Women and Space: Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies (New York; London: The Guildford Press, 1994), p. 94. Mills, Discourses, pp. 51 – 3; D.K. Fieldhouse, Colonialism, 1870– 1945 (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1981), pp. 29 – 41; Indira Ghose, Women Travellers in Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); McEwan, Gender, Geography and Empire; Alison Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa (New York: The Guildford Press, 1994); Shirley Foster, Across New Worlds: Nineteenth-Century Women Travellers and their Writings (Hemel Hampstead: Wheatsheaf, 1990) and Maria Aitken, A Girdle Round the Earth (London: Constable, 1987). Report of the Travel Committee, IFUW, 1932 Conference Report; ICW, 1922– 1924 Annual Report; ‘What the Federation does’, July 1923, IFUW, Caroline Spurgeon Papers (CS Papers), PP7/6/6/2, RHUL Archives. ICW, 1922– 24 Annual Report. IFUW, 1932 Conference Report. Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson, Journey Towards Freedom: Written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women (Copenhagen: IAW, 1955), p. 31; Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 373; van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 176. Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 373. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 373– 87; van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 176; IWSA, 1923 Congress Report; IAWSEC, 1926 Congress Report. van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, p. 176. IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. ICW, 1922– 24 Annual Report; ICW, Bulletin IV/5 (1926), IV/6 (1926), IV/7 (1926), 5/2 (1926), IV/4 (1925); Women in a Changing World: The Dynamic Story of the International Council of Women since 1888 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). There are conflicting reports on when the NCW of Peru was actually affiliated to the ICW. Some ICW material gives the date as 1926, others 1927. Moreover, there is no mention of Bolivia being formally affiliated in any of the ICW conference reports. Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880– 1930 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 63; Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 373, 378– 9. WILFP, 1921, 1924 and 1926 Congress Reports; Manuskript mest fra˚n 1920-talet, F I:3, Kongressen i Zurich 1934, Accession. Kartonger. 1932–34, Proceedings WILPF 6th Congress, Prague, 1929, F II:3, and Olmsted, WILPF Pennsylvania

NOTES TO PAGES 150 –157

29 30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

branch, to Widegren, regarding the development of the Mexican branch, 5 December 1929, E I:2, Internationella Kvinnofo¨rbundet fo¨r Fred och Frihet (IKFF), KS. WILPF News Letter 14/8 (1939). Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents, pp. 138– 9; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915– 1938: A Venture in Internationalism (Geneva, 1938), p. 16; WILPF, 1924 and 1926 Congress Reports. Ett stort fo¨retag. Beskickningen till Kina fra˚n IKFF, E I:2, IKFF, KS; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915– 1938. ‘Delegates Sail for China’, Pax International 3/1 (1927); ‘Our Delegates to China’, Pax International 2/7 (1927). ‘Delegates Sail for China’, Pax International 3/1 (1927); Ett stort fo¨retag; and WILPF official correspondence to NC, Consultative members, executive committee, commissions and referents October 1927 – ‘Mission to China’, E I:2, IKFF, KS. ‘Our Delegates to China’, Pax International 2/7 (1927). ‘Delegates Sail for China’, Pax International 3/1 (1927); ‘Our Delegates To China, Letters from Port Said’, Pax International 3/2 (1927); ‘From our China Delegation En Route for Indo-China’, Pax International 3/3 (1928); ‘Souvenirs of Cochinchina’, Pax International 3/4 (1928). (Giao’s family lived in Macao.) ‘Delegates Sail for China’, Pax International 3/1 (1927); ‘Our Delegates to China, Notes from Edith Pye’s diary’, Pax International 3/4 (1928); Camille Drevet and Edith Pye, Report of the WILPF Delegation to China (Geneva: WILPF, 1928). Drevet and Pye, Report of the WILPF Delegation to China. Ibid. Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates to China, A Visit to Nankin’, Pax International 3/5 (1928). Ibid. Mr Ling was described as having been Prime Minister in the time of ‘Ynan Kai’, probably a reference to General Yuan Shikai, who became President of the Republic of China in 1912. See Edwin E. Moise, Modern China: A History (London: Longman, 1994). Edith M. Pye, ‘Our Delegates to China, Glimpses of Pekin’, Pax International 3/5 (1928). Ibid. ‘Women Quickly Win Freedom in New China, All Doors Now Thrown Open to Them, Says Peace Delegate to Shanghai’, The Christian Science Monitor, 11/02/29, Countries Collection, SSC. ‘Report from the University Women of China’, IFUW, 1924 Conference Report. National Sections, Japan, WILPF, 1921 Conference Report; Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China Journey Home, Fascinating Japan’, Pax International 3/7 (1928); Christine Ehrick, ‘Madrinas and missionaries: Uruguay and the PanAmerican women’s movement’, Gender and History 10/3 (1998), pp. 409 –10.

253

NOTES TO PAGES 158 –167 46 Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China Journey Home, Fascinating Japan’, Pax International 3/7 (1928); Program Sja¨tte Upplysningskurs StockholmUppsala 7– 11 January 1930, Accession. Kartonger. 1932, IKFF, KS; WILPF, 1926 and 1929 Congress Reports; ‘Reports of Missions and Commissions. Report on the Delegation to China’ by E.M. Pye. 47 ‘China’ by Irene Ho Tung, WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. 48 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915– 1938. 49 British Section, WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. 50 ‘Our Delegates To China Journey Home’, Pax International 3/7 (1928); and Pax International 3/9 (1928). 51 Camille Drevet, ‘Women in Indo-China’, Pax International 5/6 (1930). 52 Utla¨ndska brev 1920-talet, E I:2, IKFF, KS; Pax International 12/4 (1937). 53 WILPF, 1924 Congress Report; Fo¨redragsmanuskript En ny fo¨rsvarslinje 1920talet, F I:3, Utla¨ndska brev 1920-talet, E I:2. Kongressen i Zurich 1934, Accession. Kartonger. IKFF, KS. 54 IFUW, 1932 Conference Report; ‘Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence Visits South Africa’, Pax International 5/8 (1930). 55 IKFF ‘A˚rsbera¨ttelse 1934’, Kartong 1938 and Manuskript, F I:3, and International Executive meeting, Geneva 1929, by Sheepshanks, secretary, E I:2, IKFF, KS; WILPF, 1929 and 1932 Conference Reports; Josephine Schain to several representatives of Russia in the USA and travel agent (e.g., Mr. Alfred Zaidner, Intourist. Inc. N.Y., Mr. Mourasheff, Hotel National Moscow and Leonid Tolokovski, Consular General) 3 December 1934, JS Papers, SSC. 56 ICW, 1922– 24 Annual Report; ICW, Bulletin IV/1 (1925), IV/4 (1925), IIV/10 (1926), IV/8 (1926), V/1 (1926), V/4 (1926), V/5 (1927); Camille Drevet, ‘Our Delegates To China Journey Home, Fascinating Japan’, Pax International 3/7 (1928); Women in a Changing World, p. 56. 57 ICW, Bulletin IV/8 (1926). 58 Ibid. 59 Foster, Across New Worlds, p. 10; Leo Hamalian, Ladies on the Loose: Women Travellers of the 18th and 19th Centuries (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1981), p. xi. 60 ICW, 1922– 24 Annual Report; IFUW, 1936 Conference Report. 61 Schreiber and Mathieson, Journey, p. 44. 62 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 362– 4. 63 Grey Peck, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 362– 71; van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 74 – 5. 64 Recollections of international work and history of the IAW from 1904 and International Papers, MCA Papers, WL. 65 Voyage to India January 1935, Voyage to India, Palestine, Turkey 1935, MCA Papers, WL. 66 Ibid. 67 ‘An International Pilgrimage. Jerusalem’, IWSN JS, 29/6 (1935). 68 Voyage to India, Palestine, Turkey 1935, MCA Papers, WL. 254

NOTES TO PAGES 168 –174 69 ‘Report on the work and organisation of WILPF’ by Emily G. Balch, Secretarytreasurer. WILPF, 1921 Congress Report; Manuskript, F I:3 and A˚rsbera¨ttelse fo¨r Kvinnornas Fredsfo¨rbund Svenska avdelningen av IKFF 1922, L I a:1, IKFF, KS; WILPF, 1932 Congress Report; Pax International 5/7 (1930); ‘One Month in Mexico’ by Camille Drevet, Pax International 5/10 (1930); IFUW, Bulletin No. 15, October 1933 News Sheet; IFUW, 1922, 1924 and 1932 Conference Reports. 70 Estonian NCW to the Swedish NCW, 1930, E I, SKN, KS; Letters from Fusaye Ichikawa to foreign women in 1929, 015 1618– 1627, JWSM Collection, FIMA;A˚rsbera¨ttelse 1922, L I a:1, and International Work, Utla¨ndska brev 1920-talet, E I:2, IKFF, KS; Report from Sweden, ICW, 1922– 24 Annual Report; Stjernstedt to NWC of the USA, E I, SKN, KS; IFUW, 1926 Conference Report; Louise C.A. van Eeghen, ‘My Visit to South Africa and the Dominion Conference at Johannesburg’, ICW, Bulletin XV/7 (1937). 71 Lectures and Public Gatherings, E I:2 and O¨vriga a¨mnesomra˚den handlingar 2, 1918– 34, F II: 2, IKFF, KS. 72 WILPF, 1937 Congress Report. 73 IWSA, 1923 Congress Report. 74 ICW, Bulletin XII/8 (1934).

Chapter 7 The Challenge Of Regional Women’s Organisations from the Late 1920s 1 This is probably another name for the Pan-American Women’s Association, founded after the first Pan-American conference of women held in Baltimore in 1922. See Christine Ehrick, ‘Madrinas and missionaries: Uruguay and the PanAmerican women’s movement’, Gender and History, 10/3 (1998), pp. 406– 24. There were other inter-American women’s organisations formed in the interwar period, for example, the Pan American Round Table (PART) and Pan American International Women’s Committee (PAIWC), the latter collapsing in 1928 because of lack of interest and resources. For American women’s interests in cooperation with Latin American women see Megan Threlkeld, ‘How to “Make This Pan American Thing Go?” Interwar debates on U.S. women’s activism in the Western Hemisphere’, in K. Jensen and E. Kuhlman (eds), Women and Transnational Activism in Historical Perspective (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters, 2010), pp. 173– 92. 2 BCL, 1925 Conference Report; Handlingar Ro¨rande Internordiska Konferenser 1897– 1946, and Nordiska kvinnosaksfo¨reningars samorganisations konferens 1916, F III:1, SKN, KS; ICW, Bulletin XV, 5/6 (1937), XV/9 (1937). 3 BCL, 1925 Conference Report. 4 ‘Mexico’s Congress of Women’, in the Literary Digest for 5 September 1925, CC, SSC. 255

NOTES TO PAGES 175 –179 5 Louise C.A. van Eeghen, ‘My Visit to S. Africa and the Dominion Conference at Johannesburg’, ICW, Bulletin XV/7 (1937); History of the PPWA by Dr. Georgina Sweet, OBE, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; Eleanor M. Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’, Pax International 4/3 (1929); JWSM Collection, FIMA; Eleanor M. Hinder, ‘Pacific women: personnel of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, Honolulu, August 9 – 19, 1928’, Pacific Affairs 1/3 (1928); Anna Satterthwaite, Executive Secretary of the PPU, to Josephine Schain, 17 November 1937, JS Papers, SSC. 6 History of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) 1928 – 1997 (Washington, 1999); The International Road to Equality, Address by Doris Stevens, Chairman of the IACW, Before the Institute of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, 5 July 1934, reprinted from Equal Rights (July 1934), IACW Records, SSC. 7 Foreword by Ashoka Gupta, President AIWC, 26 November 1990, in Aparna Basu and Bharati Ray, Women’s Struggle: A History of the All India Women’s Conference 1927– 1990 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1990); ICW Biennial Report, ICW Records, SSC; Basu and Ray, Women’s Struggle, pp. 132– 3; All-Asian Women’s Conference, First Session, Lahore 19 – 25 January 1931 (Bombay, 1931), CC, SSC. 8 See Charlotte Weber, ‘Between nationalism and feminism: the Eastern Women’s Congresses of 1930 and 1932’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4/1 (2008). 9 All-Asian Women’s Conference Bulletin, No. 1 (July 1930), AAWC 1931 Report, and An All-Asian Conference of Women, Woman’s Outlook, January 1931; All-Asian Women’s Conference Bulletin, CC, SSC; ICW, Bulletin IX/4 (1930); Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 10 History of the Inter-American Commission of Women; Kongressen i Zurich 1934, Accession. Kartonger. 1932– 34, IKFF, KS; Clippings, 1928– 1956, and League of Nations, Status of Women, Proposal of Certain Delegations for Examination by the Assembly of the Status of Women as a whole and not merely in relation to Nationality, with Particular Reference to the Treaty signed at Montevideo on 26 December 1933, by Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador and Cuba. And The International Road to Equality, Address by Doris Stevens, Chairman of the IACW, Before the Institute of Public Affairs University of Virginia, 5 July 1934, reprinted from Equal Rights (July 1934), IACW Records, SSC. 11 BCL, 1925 Conference Report. 12 BCL, 1925 and 1927 Conference Reports. 13 BCL, 1925 Conference Report. 14 BCL, 1927 Conference Report. 15 Ibid. 16 Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Suffragism and internationalism: the enfranchisement of British and Indian women under an imperial state’, in I.C. Fletcher, L.E. Nym 256

NOTES TO PAGES 179 –182

17 18

19 20

21

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

Mayhall and P. Levine (eds), Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire (London; New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 233. Ibid. Mrinalini Sinha, Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 6 – 44; and ‘Reading Mother India: empire, nation, and the female voice’, Journal of Women’s History 6/2 (Summer 1994). BCL Conference Reports 1928 –39. BCL Conference Reports 1928– 39; M. Lake, Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism (St Leonards, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1999); A. Woollacott, ‘Australian women’s metropolitan activism: from suffrage, to imperial vanguard, to Commonwealth feminism’, in Fletcher, Nym Mayhall and Levine (eds), Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire, pp. 205– 33; Fiona Paisley, Loving Protection? Australian Feminism and Aboriginal Women’s Rights 1919– 1939 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), pp. 6, 9; Fiona Paisley, ‘Cultivating modernity: culture and internationalism in Australian feminism’s pacific age’, Journal of Women’s History 14/3 (2002), p. 122. A. Woollacott, ‘Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian women’s internationalist activism in the 1920s – 30s’, in M. Sinha., D.J. Guy. and A. Woollacott (eds), Feminisms and Internationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), p. 438. Constitution of the PPWA (n.d.), JS Papers, SSC. Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’. ‘Resolutions in the Pacific: aftermath of the Women’s Conference’, Pacific Affairs 1/5 (1928), pp. 20 – 2; Information for Delegates, Fourth PPWC, Vancouver, Canada, 12 – 24 July 1937, JS Papers, SSC; and History of the PPWA, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; ICW, Bulletin VIII/7 (1930). Eleanor Hinder quoted in Ellen Dubois, ‘Woman suffrage: the view from the Pacific’, The Pacific Historical Review 69/4 (2000), p. 548. Annual Meeting PPWA United States Mainland Committee, 14 June 1937, JS Papers, SSC. Presidential Address by Dr. Georgina Sweet, Third PPWC, Honolulu, August 1934, JS Papers, SSC; History of the PPWA, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. Badran, Feminists; Sinha, ‘Suffragism’, p. 233. ‘All-Asian Women’s Conference’, Pax International 6/5 (1931). See S.A. Raman, ‘Crossing cultural boundaries: Indian matriarchs and sisters in service’, Journal of Third World Studies 18/2 (Fall 2001), pp. 131– 48; G. Forbes, ‘The Indian women’s movement: a struggle for women’s rights or national liberation?’, in G. Minault (ed.), The Extended Family: Women and Political Participation in India and Pakistan (Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1981), pp. 49 – 82; M.E. Tusan, ‘Writing Stri Dharma: international feminism, nationalist politics, and women’s press advocacy in late colonial India’, Women’s History Review 12/4 (December 2003), pp. 623– 49; and Badran, Feminists on Arab feminists. 257

NOTES TO PAGES 183 –190 31 Welcome Address by Mrs. N. Kunjan Pillai, Chairwoman, Reception Committee, AIWC 1935 – 36 Conference Report; ‘All-Asian Women’s Conference’ Pax International 6/5 (1931); and R. Ray, My Reminiscences, Social Development During the Gandhian Era and After (New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private Limited, 1982); Taki Fujita, Corresponding Secretary of Japan Women’s Committee for International Relations, to Madame Rani Laksmi bai G. Rajwade c/o Mrs. M.E. Cousins, Madras, India, 25 May 1931, JWSM Collection, FIMA. 32 AAWC, 1931 Report, CC, SSC. 33 Ibid.; and see Sinha, Specters of Mother India, for the controversy generated by Katherine Mayo’s Mother India published in 1927. 34 Weber, ‘Between nationalism and feminism’, p. 96. 35 Sinha, ‘Reading’, p. 29; Sinha, ‘Suffragism’, pp. 230, 233, 235; Catherine Candy, ‘The inscrutable Irish-Indian feminist management of Anglo-American hegemony, 1917– 1947’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 2/1 (2001). 36 AAWC, 1931 Report, CC, SSC. 37 ‘Madame Sarojini Naidu, an interview with the “Poet and Human Being” who has come to interpret modern India to Americans’ by Mildred Adams, The Woman’s Journal (January 1929), CC, SSC. 38 Candy, ‘The inscrutable Irish-Indian feminist’. 39 Ehrick, ‘Madrinas’, pp. 417– 19, 422. 40 AIWC, 1929 and 1935– 36 Conference Reports. 41 AIWC, 1935– 36 Conference Report. 42 AIWC, 1938– 39 Conference Report. 43 ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. 44 ‘All-Asian Women’s Conference’, Pax International 6/5 (1931); AAWC, 1931 Report, CC, SSC. 45 Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi, AAWC, 1931 Report, and F. Parmelee, ‘Ladies at Lahore, Impressions of the Fifth All-India Women’s Educational Conference and the First All-Asian Conference’, Woman’s Press (July 1931), CC, SSC. 46 ICW, Bulletin 9/8 (1931); Pax International 6/5 (1931); AIWC, 1935– 36 Conference Report. 47 Forbes, ‘Indian women’s movement’. 48 Nelly Las, Jewish Women in a Changing World: A History of the International Council of Jewish Women (ICJW) 1899– 1995 (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 16 – 35. 49 AIWC, 1929 Conference Report. 50 Kodsieh Ashraf, ‘Some glimpses of the past history and present progress of the woman’s movement in Persia’, ICW, Bulletin IX/5 (1931); ICW, Bulletin IX/1 (1930). 51 ICW, Bulletin IX/1, IX/2 and IX/3 (1930); XIII/5 (1935); History of the PPWA, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; ‘All-Asian Women’s Conference’ Pax International 6/5 (1931); All-Asian Women’s Conference, 19 – 25 January 1931, Bulletin No. 2, November 1930, The Hindustan Times Local Edition VIII/24 258

NOTES TO PAGES 190 –196

52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59

60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68

(1931), Letter from All-Asian Women’s Conference, 19 October 1930, AllAsian Women’s Conference, 6 February 1931, JWSM Collection, FIMA; BCL, 1924 and 1925 Conference Reports. ‘The Honolulu Congress’, Pax International 3/9 (1928). Hinder, ‘Pacific women’. Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’; E. Green, ‘The Pacific Technique, new clinical notes on its evolution: some aspects of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference (Honolulu, August 9 – 19) of interest to the Institute of Pacific Relations’, Pacific Affairs 1/4 (1928). AAWC, 1931 Report, CC, SSC. Ibid. ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. Ibid. AIWC, 1935– 36 Conference Report; PPWA, 1934 Conference Report. JS Papers, SSC; ICW, Bulletin XIII/5 (1935); PPWC, 1928 Report; Green, ‘The Pacific Technique’; Letter from Fusae Ichikawa, Japan Women’s Committee for International Relations, to Miss Ann Satterthwaite, PPU, Honolulu, Hawaii, 6 June 1930, JWSM Collection, FIMA; Voyage to India January 1935, Voyage to India, Palestine, Turkey 1935, MCA Papers, WL; Basu and Ray, Women’s Struggle, p. 3; B.N. Ramusack, ‘Catalysts or helpers? British feminists, Indian women’s rights and Indian independence’, in G. Minault (ed.), The Extended Family, p. 129; AIWC, 1929 Conference Report; and ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. Welcome Address by Mrs. N. Kunjan Pillai, Chairwoman, Reception Committee, AIWC, 1935 –36 Conference Report. Protokoll ha˚llet vid Nordiska Kvinnosaksmo¨tet i Stockholm den 5 – 7 mars 1937, F III:1, SKN, KS; Barbara Molony, ‘Ichikawa Fusae and Japan’s prewar women’s suffrage movement’ in Hiroko Tomida and Gordon Daniels (eds), Japanese Women: Emerging from Subservience, 1868 – 1945 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2005), p. 76; ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. ‘All Asian Women’s Conference’, Pax International 6/5 (1931); and ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. PPWC, 1928 Conference Report; Molony, ‘Ichikawa Fusae’, p. 76. Taeko Shibahara, ‘“The Private League of Nations”: the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference and Japanese feminists in 1928’, U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 41 (2011), p.11. Programs, reports, and notes, 1937, JS Papers, SSC. ‘The opportunities, limitations and problems of the international conference’, J. Merle Davis, General Secretary, Institute of Pacific Relations, PPWC, 1928 Report. Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’. Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference, 7 September, 1937, by Josephine Schain, JS Papers, SSC. 259

NOTES TO PAGES 196 – 201 69 Catherine E.B. Cox (Mrs. J.M. Cox), Chairman, Educational Section, PPWC, PPU Honolulu, to Miss Fusaye Ishikawa, Tokyo, Japan, 21 September 1925, Alexander Hume Ford, Director of the PPU, Honolulu, to Miss Fusaye Ichikawa, Tokyo Office of the International Labour Office, Tokyo, 21 October 1927, Alexander Ford to Ichikawa, 2 August 1928, Ann Y. Satterthwaite, Secretary PPWC to Mr Tatsu Naruse, Director, Pan-Pacific Association of Japan, Tokyo, London, Honolulu, 24 December 1927, JWSM Collection, FIMA; ‘All Asian Women’s Conference’, Pax International 6/5 (1931). 70 ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report. 71 BCL, 1929 Conference Report. 72 Louise C.A. van Eeghen (Hon. Secretary, ICW), ‘My Visit to S. Africa and the Dominion Conference at Johannesburg’, ICW, Bulletin XV/7 (1937). 73 International Topic Directors for 4th Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference. Vancouver, Canada, 12 – 24 July 1937, a number which have accepted, 9 December 1936, JS Papers, SSC; Shibahara, ‘The Private League of Nations’, p. 9; Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’; Greetings from National Delegations, China: Dr M.I. Ting and Japan: Mrs Tsune Gauntlett, PPWC 1928 Report. 74 Handwritten note which appears to be the draft of Fusae Ichikawa’s speech to the first PPWC, JWSM Collection, FIMA. 75 Stevens was succeeded by Ana Rosa S. de Martinez Guerrero from Argentina in 1939. See History of the Inter-American Commission of Women. 76 ICW, Bulletin V/1 (1926). Jane Addams was the chairman of the first PPWC, see Foreword, PPWC, 1928 Report; BCL, 1925 and 1928 Conference Reports; IAWSEC Congress Reports. 77 ICW, Bulletin XIII/5 (1935); and PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; PPWC, 1928 Report; and PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; Mary L. Bollert, Office of the Dean of Women, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, to Mme Matsu Jonji [name not clear], 24 July 1936, JWSM Collection, FIMA; Annual Meeting PPWA US Mainland Committee, JS Papers, SSC. An invitation from the Pan-Pacific Association in China to hold the 1930 conference had also been turned down (History of the PPWA, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report). 78 Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’. 79 Greetings from National Delegations, Australia: Mrs B.M. Rischbieth and ‘The Influence of Women in Government’, Mrs B.M. Rischbieth, Chairman of Australian Delegation, PPWC, 1928 Report. 80 Work of the W.I.L. National Sections, Australian Section, Pax International 4/3 (1929). 81 M. Lake, ‘Frontier feminism and the marauding white man’, in R.R. Pierson and N. Chaudhuri (eds), Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race (Bloomington; IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 94 –105. 82 M. Lake, ‘Between old worlds and new: feminist citizenship, nation and race, the destabilisation of identity’, in C. Daley and M. Nolan (eds), Suffrage and

260

NOTES TO PAGES 201 – 216

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1994), p. 86. F. Paisley, ‘Citizens of their world: Australian feminism and indigenous rights in the international context, 1920s and 1930s’, Feminist Review, No. 58 (Spring 1998), pp. 68 – 70, 79. Woollacott, ‘Inventing’, pp. 437– 8. Lake, ‘Between old worlds and new’, p. 80. Lake, Getting Equal, p. 133. Paisley, ‘Citizens’; Paisley, Loving Protection?; and Woollacott, ‘Inventing’. Bulletin of the Indian Women’s Movement, 1 (1934) and 3 (1935). Bulletin of the India Women’s Movement, 2 (1934); AIWC, 1934– 35 Conference Report; and AIWC, 1935– 36 Conference Report. Bulletin of the Indian Women’s Movement, 1 (1934) and 2 (1934); AAWC 1931 Report, CC, SSC. IWSN Jus Suffragii 29/5 (1935). AAWC, 1931 Conference Report and Parmelee, ‘Ladies at Lahore’, CC, SSC. Margaret Cousins was one of the AIWC founders and office-bearers during its first years. ‘India, Its Women’, PPWA, 1937 Conference Report; AAWC 1931 Report, CC, SSC; Ehrick, ‘Madrinas’; ICW, Bulletin 9/8 (1931). Pax International 3/5 (1928), 3/9 (1928), 5/8 (1930); ICW, Bulletin V/1 (1926), V/7 (1927), VIII/7 (1930); and IWSN Jus Suffragii 29/5 (1935); Moore, ‘Neighbours in the Pacific’; WILPF, 1929 Congress Report. AAWC 1931 Report, CC, SSC. ICW, Bulletin XIII/4 (1934). Courtney to Schain, 21 April 1939, JS Papers, SSC. IAWSEC, 1929 Congress Report. Parmelee, ‘Ladies at Lahore’, CC, SSC. Corbett Ashby’s remarks of Naidu at the 1935– 36 AIWC. Voyage to India January 1935, Voyage to India, Palestine, Turkey 1935, MCA Papers, WL. IAWSEC, 1929 Congress Report.

Chapter 8 Conclusion – An ‘International Sisterhood’? 1 More recently, violence against women has unified women of different backgrounds. For example, in 1986 there was a national demonstration in Britain of women opposing violence against women organised by the Network of Women (see www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/history.html). Moreover, ‘Women in Black’, which operates internationally, regularly organises protest against all forms of violence (see www.womeninblack.org.uk). See also Beth H. Richie, ‘A black feminist reflection on the antiviolence movement’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 25/4 (2000), pp. 1133– 7, for a critique of the perceived similarity of women’s experiences of violence. 261

NOTES TO PAGES 218 – 219 2 Class ‘affinity’ within the British Empire has been explored by Cannadine, who argues that the British upper classes sometimes felt greater affinity with similarly well-educated Indians than with people of other backgrounds at home. See David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2001). 3 Crystal Macmillan, IWSA, 1920 Congress Report.

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Others Notes from talk with Professor Sugimori at Japan Women’s University and current president of the Japanese branch of WILPF on 3 November 2004.

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INDEX

AAUW see American Association of University Women AAWC see All-Asian Women’s Conference Aberdeen, Ishbel HamiltonGordon, Lady 3, 33, 51, 62 –3, 135 and friendship 89, 97 and Japan 64 and regionalism 205 and rules 53– 4 and South America 149 and travel 163, 164 abolitionist movement 28–9, 45, 209 Aborigines 177, 179–80, 201–2, 214–15 Addams, Jane 44, 85, 101, 119, 135, 157 and regionalism 191, 198 and travel 144, 150 –1, 169 Afghanistan 189, 190 Africa 15, 24, 51, 83 AIWC see All-India Women’s Conference Albania 95 alcohol 29, 31, 187 Ali, Hamid 95

All-Asian Women’s Conference (AAWC) 172, 174, 182 –6, 187 –8, 190, 191 –2 and imperialism 215 and India 176, 204 All-India Muslim Ladies Conference (Anjumane-Khawatin-e-Islam) 42–3 All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC) 92, 171, 174, 176, 179, 185–7, 190 and Britain 202–3 and education 177 and IAW 133, 188 and independence 183, 193–4 and Islam 189 America see North America; South America; United States of America America Legion 49 American Association of University Women (AAUW) 112, 115, 116, 117, 119–20, 125–6, 127 Annesley, Lady 160

anti-feminist sentiment 5, 81, 87, 105, 122 anti-imperialism 73, 157, 158, 186, 207 anti-peace protests 49 anti-Semitism 96, 164 appearance 77, 90 Arab women 74, 87, 96, 141, 166 –7, 175 –6 Arab Women’s Union 166 Argentina 35, 61, 97, 123, 146, 157 and recruitment 148, 149 Ashraf, Kodsieh 189 Asia 14, 15, 24, 49, 122, 176, 211 and feminism 220 and recruitment 150 see also China; India; Japan Association of Collegiate Alumna 111 Atatu¨rk, Kemal 81 –2, 85 Augspurg, Anita 44 Australia 15, 30, 31, 44, 49, 122, 168 and ICW 35, 38 and indigenous rights 177, 179– 80, 214–15, 229n51

THE RISE OF WOMEN'S TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM and influence 220, 221 and nationalism 200 –2 and regionalism 190, 191 Austria 35, 44, 81, 159–60, 163, 164 Babcock, Elizabeth 145 Backer, Anna 52 Baer, Gertrud 161, 169 Balch, Emily 44, 59, 91, 167 Baochen, Shi 135 Baroda, Maharanee of 140 Bayi, Setu Parvati 187, 203 BCL see British Commonwealth League Bedford College 110, 111, 130 Begtrup, Bodil 169 Bekir, Latife 92 Belgium 35, 44, 51 Bermuda 47, 190 Besant, Annie 42 Beskow, Ester 160 BFUW see British Federation of University Women Binxia, Hu 133 birth control 132 Blatch, Harriet Stanton 132 Boe¨l, Baroness 97 Bolivia 61, 148, 149 Bosanquet, Theodora 116–17 Brazil 50, 58, 61, 88, 95, 123, 146 –7 and recruitment 148, 149 Brinton, Ellen 149 –50 Britain see Great Britain British Commonwealth League (BCL) 171, 173–4, 177, 178–80, 196, 197 and Empire 198–9, 200, 214 and India 202–3 and racism 208

284

British Dominions Women Citizen’s Union 173 British Empire 174, 178, 199, 200 and class 227n35, 262n2 British Federation of University Women (BFUW) 111, 116, 120, 124, 129, 168 British Overseas Committee 174 British Universities Mission 110, 111 British West Indies 190 broadcasting 86 Bryn Mawr College 115 Bulgaria 35, 44, 56, 163 Bulletin (magazine) 52, 53, 56, 64, 84, 203 and the East 92, 93 and internationalism 61, 62 and regionalism 205 and South America 148–9 Bulletin of the Indian Women’s Movement (magazine) 202–3 Burma 139, 190 Cadbury, Dame Elizabeth 85, 93 –4 ‘Call to the Women of All Nations’ (Jacobs) 43 Canada 29, 31, 33, 35, 44 and education 111 and regionalism 190 careers 118, 119 Catholics 48, 147, 149 Catt, Carrie Chapman 1, 37, 41, 60, 68, 132 and Asia 61 and peace 85 –6, 101 and sisterhood 65 and travel 139–42, 143, 144–8, 149, 164–5 Ceylon 48, 50, 139, 190 Chattopadhyaya, Kamaladevi 59, 176

Chen, Soume´ 131, 133, 157 Chiang Kaishek 135, 153 child marriage 41, 189, 203 children 86, 174, 187 Chile 56, 120, 133, 146, 148, 149 China 36, 43, 50, 51, 95, 218 and education 23, 40–1 and expenses 82 and feminism 130, 139 and higher education 124–5, 126, 128, 129, 131, 133, 134–5 and ICW 87, 88, 92 and inexperience 69–70 and journals 61 and male reforms 25 and peace movement 100 and recruitment 150, 151, 152, 153–6, 157–9 and regionalism 190 and temperance 30, 31 and the West 199 and WILPF 59 and YWCA 123 Christianity 10, 18, 29, 31–2, 48, 65, 218 and education 129 and ICW 149 see also Catholics; Protestants citizenship 32, 187 Clark, Mrs Grover 153 Clark, Rosamond 51, 58– 9 class 4, 9–11, 33–4, 45, 65, 78–9, 217 and Empire 227n35, 262n2 and new women 22 clothing 15, 67, 76– 7, 89–90, 95 academic 113–14 and the veil 94–5, 141, 142, 189 clubhouses 119–20, 127 Cohen, Mark 174

INDEX colonialism 11, 14, 24– 5, 36–7, 49, 98–9, 143–4 and criticism 73 and war 96 Columbia University 118, 132, 133 Communism 49, 155, 162 concubinage 41 congresses 83–4, 217 contraception 116 Cooke, Constance 180 Corbett Ashby, Margery 58, 76, 77, 93, 96, 101 and disarmament 102– 3 and IFUW 119 and politics 115 and regionalism 173, 178, 198, 203, 206–7 and travel 165–7, 169 correspondence 62–4, 84–5, 217 Courtney, Kathleen 205–6 Cousins, Margaret Gillespie 23, 42, 176, 186 Cuba 47, 56, 175, 205 –6 Cullis, Winifred 168 culture 15, 24, 39, 67, 195–6, 219 and India 183–4, 186 Czechoslovakia 81, 100, 165, 172 Daughters of the American Revolution 49 Davies, J. Merle 195–6 DCWIO see Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International Organisations De Hewett, Lebarca 133 Denmark 33, 44, 82, 100 Despard, Charlotte 44 Devi, Shrimati Kamala 96 Dingham, Mary 99– 100 disarmament 49, 50, 82, 85–6, 99–100, 101–2, 212

and IFUW 115–16 Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International Organisations (DCWIO) 99–100, 102 Doctrine of Chastity, The (Yosano) 41 documentation 16–18 Doll’s House, A (Ibsen) 22, 28, 41 domesticity 5, 22, 26–7, 118 Drevet, Camille 131, 156, 157, 167 and China 151, 152 –5, 158, 159 Dutch East Indies 48, 50, 88, 95, 139, 199 East– West terminology 14–16, 69, 89 economics 38, 42, 98 and depression 80, 84, 160, 212 education 2, 22 –4, 32, 65, 109, 121, 187 and China 40–1 and Japan 26 –7 and the West 197–8, 218 Western-style 10 see also higher education Eeghen, Louise van 67, 144, 148, 163, 164, 169, 197 Egypt 27–8, 32, 50, 87, 218 and feminism 39, 139 – 40, 177, 182 and higher education 123, 124, 131 and IAW 57, 58, 88 and imperialism 73, 220 and journals 61–2 and recruitment 160 and regionalism 190 and support 165, 166

and the veil 76 Ekrem, Selma 90 –1 emancipation 2, 8, 28, 32, 112, 213, 216 and the East 105– 6 employment 2, 22, 27, 83 enfranchisement 60, 69, 71–2, 178 Engkvist, Greta 160 English Woman’s Journal 27 Entente des Femmes 172, 173 equal pay 48, 115 equal rights 23, 41, 86, 94, 104 Equal Rights International 225n8 equality 1– 2, 6, 37, 54, 86, 115 Estonia 161 Europe 2, 3, 9, 15, 49, 122, 220–1 and 1930s 81 and new women 22–3 and values 30 –1 and WILPF 157, 159–60, 161–2 exchange trips 119, 128 –9, 218 expenses 51– 2, 56, 72, 82 family 41, 115 fascism 80, 164 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett 178 fellowships 120, 129 feminism 2, 5–7, 22, 112, 117, 212, 220 and Australia 180 and Britain 39–40 and education 130, 132 and India 185–6, 204 and literature 27– 8 and regionality 177–8 and suffrage 120 and the West 183–4, 208 see also anti-feminist sentiment

285

THE RISE OF WOMEN'S TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM feminist orientalism 10–14, 36, 45 Fiji 59, 199 Finland 38, 44, 62, 82, 161, 168 foot-binding 24, 25, 41 Forchhammer, Miss 163 Ford, Alexander Hume 174, 191 Fox, Marian 160 France 29, 35, 42, 44, 159–60, 234n56 and higher education 119–20 and peace movement 102, 168 and postwar 51 Franklin, Mrs 163– 4 freedom of movement 32–3 Friberg, Maikki 168 friendship 66 –7, 78–9, 89, 97–8, 106, 211 and education 114, 120 Fu Yan University 153 Fujita, Taki 183 Gandhi, Mahatma 99, 165, 166 Gauntlett, Tsune 93, 182, 192, 198, 217 gender roles 6, 11, 24–5, 93 Geneva Convention 54 Germany 29, 33, 35, 44, 62, 165 and employment 83 and higher education 118 and Nazi regime 81 and peace movement 102, 168 and postwar 51 Giao, Duong van 152 Gildersleeve, Virginia 110–11, 112, 115, 117–18, 125–6 Gleditsch, Ellen 126 Gordon, Ogilvie 163 Great Britain 2, 33, 35, 37, 44

286

and disarmament 100 and education 23, 110, 116 and feminism 5 – 6, 39 – 40 and India 12, 13, 62 and peace movement 102 and temperance 29, 31 Greece 35, 56, 163, 172 Gregg, Marie 33 Guatemala 148 Haiti 51 Hamada, Nour 190 Haque, Mazharul 189 harems 141 Harrison, Agatha 23 Hawaii 31, 150, 174–5, 190 Hayashi, Miss 93 health 89, 187 Hesselgren, Kerstin 104 Heymann, Lida Gustava 44 higher education 23, 110–11, 113, 117, 122–3, 136 and the East 26, 127–8 and the West 129–35 see also International Federation of University Women Hinder, Eleanor 181, 191 Hinduism 74 Hiratsuka Raicho 41, 42 Hitler, Adolf 81, 118 Ho Tung, Irene 59, 70, 134 honorary appointments 55 Hoon, Pierra 131 housing 89 Huda, Abul 132 human rights 7, 180, 212 Hungary 35, 38, 44, 112, 164–5 IACW see Inter-American Commission of Women IAW see International Alliance of Women

Iceland 29, 82 Ichikawa, Fusae 64, 84– 5, 135, 174 –5, 193, 195, 196 and politics 198 ICW see International Council of Women IFUW see International Federation of University Women Ilangakoon, S.W. 183–4, 185, 186 ILIHAW see International League of Iberian and Hispanic-American Women imperialism 12, 24–5, 36–7, 95, 142–3, 220; see also anti-imperialism India 12, 13, 27, 50, 51, 60–1, 139 and equality 92, 94 and expenses 82 and feminism 42 –3, 140, 179 and funding 72 and higher education 116, 123, 129, 133 and IAW 58, 87 and ICW 53, 88, 92 and imperialism 73, 220 and independence 96, 165–6, 193 –4, 203–4, 206 –7 and journals 62 and male reforms 25 and missionaries 23, 24 and nationalism 183 –6, 188, 192, 213–14 and recruitment 150 and regionalism 175 –6, 190 and religion 74 and sisterhood 36 –7 and social reforms 93–4 and temperance 30, 31 and the West 199 and women’s rights 89

INDEX indigenous people 24, 71, 177, 179–80, 201–2, 214–15 Indochina 151, 157, 159 industrialisation 38 inequality 11, 57–8, 65, 210 infant mortality 89 Inoue, Mrs 156 Inouye, Miss 119, 193 Inter-American Commission of Women (IACW) 172, 174, 175, 177–8, 190, 198 Inter-American Union of Women for the North and South American Continents 171 International Alliance of Women (IAW) 1, 2–3, 34, 48, 49, 188, 210 and culture 143 and the East 57–9, 60–1, 72 and education 120, 121 and equality 86 and expansion 50, 52–3, 144, 211 and expenses 82 and feminism 5, 6 and peace movement 86 and regionalism 205, 206, 207 and sisterhood 8, 9 and South America 145– 7, 148 and travel 138, 139, 164–5 and women’s rights 215 and World War I 47 International Association of Women 33 International Committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae 110 International Conference of American States (ICAS) 175

International Council of Women (ICW) 2–4, 33–8, 43–4, 49, 87–8, 114, 210 and conservatism 215 and education 120 and emancipation 216 and expansion 144, 145 and expenses 56, 82 and feminism 6, 7 and honorary appointments 55 and internationalism 61, 62–4 and Japan 83 and religion 48 and rules 53 and sisterhood 9 and South America 148–9 and support 163, 164 and travel 138 and war 66 and World War I 47 International Fancy Fair 67 International Federation of University Women (IFUW) 1, 3–4, 18, 109–20, 135–6, 191, 210 and the East 126– 7 and education 215, 216, 217 and exchange trips 128–9 and expansion 122 –6, 144 and feminism 5, 6, 7 and sisterhood 8, 9 and travel 168 International League of Iberian and HispanicAmerican Women (ILIHAW) 186, 204 international sisterhood 7–9, 10, 31, 66, 67, 106, 215 –23 and colonialism 12–14, 36–7

International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) 35–6, 37–8, 41, 43, 44, 174 and Egypt 76 and postwar 47–8 see also International Alliance of Women International Woman Suffrage News (IWSN) (magazine) 36, 52, 53, 61–2, 84, 205 International Women’s Day 154–5 internationalism 2, 4– 5, 38, 172, 177, 179, 209 and India 185 Iran 61, 87, 95, 133, 189, 190 Ireland 44, 151 Ishimoto, Shidzue 89– 91, 92, 132 Islam 32, 42–3, 74, 88, 184 and education 123 and purdah 189 and the veil 94, 141, 142 see also Arab women Italy 29, 33, 44, 51, 81, 164 IWSA see International Woman Suffrage Alliance Jacobs, Aletta 41, 43, 55 and travel 139, 140 –2, 143 Jamaica 95, 218 Japan 24, 40, 50, 51, 54, 87, 139, 218 and China 199 and Christianity 31–2 and conferences 75– 6 and correspondence 64 and disarmament 100 and education 23, 121 and feminism 41 –2, 43, 141

287

THE RISE OF WOMEN'S TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM and higher education 119, 123, 124, 129, 130, 131, 132 and IAW 58 –9 and ICW 83 and journals 61 and literature 28 and Manchuria 92 and new women 22 and politics 81, 84– 5 and recruitment 150 –1, 156–7, 159 and reforms 25– 7 and regionalism 190, 191, 193, 195, 196 and suffrage 39, 97 and temperance 29, 30, 31 Java 190, 204 Jewish Women’s Equal Rights Association 166 Jinarajadasa, Dorothy 42, 62 Jodai, Tano 59, 64, 84 –5, 92–3, 100, 135, 156 and education 121, 132–3 and IFUW 119 Johannesburg Star, The (newspaper) 160 Joint Standing Committee of Women’s International Organisations 114 journals 52–3, 61–2 Judaism 123, 164, 188 and Germany 81, 101, 113, 118 and Palestine 74, 87, 96, 166–7 Jus Suffragii (magazine) 36, 43, 139 Kajiko, Yajima 31 Kamel, Zeinab 131 Kane, Amy 198 Karpeles, Suzanne 92 Karwai, Michi 124, 132

288

Kaur, Rajkumari Amrit 176, 203 Kenya 190 Kerty, Anna 165 Key, Ellen 22, 28, 42 Kin-yn-yu, J. B. 59 Kingsley, Mary 143 Kjelsberg, Betzy 169 Koh, Zen Way 192 Korea 139, 150, 190 Kydd, Winnifred 85 language 15, 30, 59, 67–8, 91, 219 and regionalism 173, 194 Latin America 51, 123, 149–50, 186, 211 Latvia 56, 160, 161 Law, Yan Isit 154 LCWIO see Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations League of Jewish Women 224n8 League of Nations 51, 54, 58, 81, 99, 212 and disarmament 101, 103 and education 121 and equal rights 178 and IFUW 115 and women’s rights 103–5, 106, 187 Leavitt, Mary 31 Lebanon 190 legal rights 2, 32, 65, 86, 178, 187 Lennep, Anita van 145 Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations (LCWIO) 99, 103, 114 Liang, Suiying Lone 70 Lin, Margaret 153 Ling, Hsuing Hsi 154 literature 22, 27–8, 41

Lithuania 160, 161 Liu, Mrs Herman C.E. 130, 133 Llano, Josefa 77 Lo Chong, Madame 55, 77 Lo, Mrs 192– 3 London Graduates’ Union for Women’s Suffrage 130 Love and Marriage (Key) 28 Luisi, Paulina 58 Lutz, Bertha 92, 145, 146 MacDonald, Ramsay 101, 114 Macmillan, Crystal 60 McTyeire School 153 Mahamandal 42 Malaya 190 Manus, Rosa 68, 88, 96, 145, 146, 164 marriage 2, 22, 32, 34, 48, 86 and work 116 see also child marriage Marshall, Catherine 169 Masaryk, Toma´sˇ 165 maternity rights 86 Matthias, Frau 118 Mayo, Katherine 179, 183–4 media, the 101, 111, 114 Medical Women’s International Association 224n8 Mehta, Hansa 133 Mei, Mrs H.C. 192 Me´lin, Jeanne 169 men 8, 65–6, 112, 185–6, 194–5, 214, 221 and education 117–18 and reforms 25– 6 Mexico 50, 56, 61, 123 and regionalism 174, 190 and support 163, 167 and WILPF 59, 133, 150 middle classes 12, 13, 23, 32–3

INDEX Middle East 14, 15, 49, 122, 139, 211 and feminism 220 and regionality 176–7 militarism 121 Mill, John Stuart 28 missionaries 11, 23–4, 31, 133, 139 Mitra, Kumudini 140 mixed clubs 32–3, 44, 172 modernisation 38, 45 Moore, Eleanor 196, 200 morality 32, 39, 86, 178 Moss, Mrs 85 Mother India (Mayo) 179, 183–4 mother– daughter relationships 12, 13, 68 motherhood 23, 42, 118, 119 Muslims see Islam Mussolini, Benito 164 Naidu, Sarojini 176, 183, 185–6, 206–7 National Council of Women (NCW) 51, 56, 62–3, 83, 116, 163 and Germany 81 and India 95 and Sweden 169, 173 National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) 233n43 nationalism 43, 73, 80, 105, 167, 172 and independence 182–3, 204, 208, 213–14 Nazi Germany 81, 102, 118 NCW see National Council of Women Neilson, William Allen 114 Netherlands, the 33, 35, 44, 142 new feminism 6, 7 new women 22 –3, 27, 35, 38

New Zealand 15, 30, 31, 33, 49, 122, 174 and influence 220, 221 and regionalism 190, 191 Newman, Mrs 92 NFOU see Northern Feminist Organisations’ Union Nitobe, Inazo 156 Nobel Peace Prize 101 Nordenson, Bertha 62 –3 North America 2, 3, 9, 15, 49, 122 and Asia 37 and new women 22 and PPWC 199 see also Canada; United States of America Northern Feminist Organisations’ Union (NFOU) 172, 173, 194 Northern Women’s Congress 171 Norway 35, 38, 44, 52, 116, 121 nutrition 86 Ohashi, Hiro 59 Oriental Congress of Women 172, 184, 190 orientalism 10–14, 36, 45 Oxford University 132, 133 Palestine 15, 16, 50, 53, 139, 182 and education 123 and IAW 58, 87, 88 and ICW 92 and Jews 96 and regionalism 190 and religion 74 and support 163, 166–7 Pallam, Muthammah Thillayam 59 Palme, Ingegerd 169 Pan American Round Table (PART) 255n1

Pan-American Women’s Association 255n1 Pan-Pacific Union (PPU) 174–5, 181, 191 Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA) 171–2, 174, 181 –2, 190, 192 –3, 195, 214 and Australia 180 and conservatism 215 and education 177 and foundation 150, 175 and IAW 206, 207 and the West 196, 199, 200 Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference (PPWC) 174, 175, 191, 193, 195–6, 198 and the West 199, 200 Pankhurst, Emmeline 233n43 Paranjpye, Miss 59 Park, Maud Wood 1 Pax International (magazine) 53, 54, 62, 84, 204–5 and travels 152, 153– 4, 159, 160 Peace and Disarmament Committee 114– 15 Peace Committee 159 peace movement 54, 59, 66, 102, 111, 121; see also disarmament Persia see Iran Persian Women’s Association for HomeWelfare 189 Peru 47, 58, 59, 61, 97, 163 and class 147 and equality 220 and ICW 87, 88 and recruitment 148, 149 Pethick-Lawrence, Mrs 160 Petite Entente des Femmes 171

289

THE RISE OF WOMEN'S TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM philanthropy 23, 28, 45, 164, 209 Philippines, the 37, 77, 139, 150, 190 Phu Nu Tan Van (magazine) 159 Plaminkova, Frantiska 165 Poland 38, 44, 51, 53–4, 172 police women 197 politics 32, 34, 38, 45, 65, 115, 194, 210 and Australia 201 and instability 80–2, 98, 160, 164, 212 and rights 198 polygamy 24, 43, 141, 189 Portugal 35 PPU see Pan-Pacific Union PPWA see Pan-Pacific Women’s Association PPWC see Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference prejudice 96 Premchard, Maneklal 92 prizes 85 property rights 22, 41–2 prostitution 29, 31, 41, 42, 86, 141 Protest Committee of NonJewish Women against the Persecution of Jews in Germany 101 Protestants 133 public support 34, 49, 67, 85, 101, 114 Puerto Rico 47 purdah 43, 74, 189, 193 Pye, Edith 93, 131, 156–7 and China 151, 152 –3, 154–5, 157 –8, 159 race 11, 39, 95, 112–13, 136, 197, 208 and Empire 227n35 and indigenous women 180, 214

290

radicalism 49 Rajwade, Lakshmibai G. 183 Ranaday, S.G. 140 Rathbone, Eleanor 203 Rau, Dhanvanthi Rama 92 Ray, Renuka 129, 133 Ray, Sarala 176 recruitment 144–62 Red Cross 31 Reddi, Muthulakshmi 176, 187–8, 206 religion 11, 32, 34, 38, 45, 112–13, 136; see also Christianity; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; missionaries reports 73 –4, 84 Reserve Officers’ Association 49 Rhodesia 48, 50 Rischbieth, Mrs 198, 200 Riza, Selma Hanum 55 Romania 113, 163, 172 Roosevelt, Eleanor 85 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 101 Royden, Maude 44, 165, 166, 203 rules 53–6, 124, 211 rural welfare 89 Russell, Alys 160 Russia 36, 38; see also Soviet Union Rydh, Hanna 120 Sa¨fverstro¨m, Miss 168 Sahlbom, Naima 113, 160, 169 Sainte-Croix, Avril de 163 Salvation Army 31 Samoa 190 Sanford, Mrs 163 Sanger, Margaret 132 Satterthwaite, Ann 175 Scandinavia 29, 31, 54, 62, 120, 173; see also Denmark; Norway; Sweden

Schain, Josephine 161 – 2, 196 scholarships 120, 127, 128, 129, 218 Schreiner, Olive 42 Schwimmer, Rosika 44 segregation 142 Seito (Bluestocking) (magazine) 42 Serbia 35 sexuality 32 Shaarawi, Huda 62, 77, 92, 165, 166, 217 and prejudice 96, 97 and reforms 58 and the veil 76 Sheepshanks, Mary 43, 44, 159 Shepherd, Mrs Murray 148 Shuching, Ding 132 Siam 59, 131 Sidgwick, Rose 111 Silfverbrand, Mrs 159–60 Singh, Sir Jogendra 191 –2 sisterhood 45, 64– 79; see also international sisterhood Six Point Group 116 slavery 86 Smith, Lydia 160 Smith College 114 social reforms 7, 22–3, 29, 45, 187, 210 socialists 9, 22, 33 –4, 49 Sorabji, Cornelia 55, 92, 95, 98, 140 and IFUW 119, 133 Sorbonne, the 119, 131, 133 South Africa 15, 16, 31, 35, 36, 139 and education 123 and expenses 56 and recruitment 160 and regionalism 197 and support 163 –4 South America 15, 16, 47, 49, 82, 122, 190 and feminism 220

INDEX and recruitment 145 –50 Soviet Union 123, 161– 2 Spain 81, 91 Spurgeon, Caroline 1, 109, 110–11, 112, 122–3, 128 Stevens, Doris 198 Stri Dharma (magazine) 60, 62, 179 study tours 60 Subjection of Women, The (Mill) 28 suffrage 2, 28, 32, 34 –6, 43, 115 and the East 75–6 and India 184 and victories 53, 72, 219–20 summer schools 49, 51 Sun Yat Sen 153, 154 Sweden 33, 35, 44, 51 –2, 56, 85 and disarmament 100 and expenses 82 and higher education 129 and language 91 and NCW 62–3 and Norway 38 and recruitment 161 Sweet, Georgina 187, 192, 197 Switzerland 29, 33, 35, 44, 60, 160 and disarmament 100 Syria 48, 50, 59, 87, 95, 139 and regionalism 190 Taisho era 151, 157 Tata, Lady 92, 95, 119, 133 temperance movement 29–31, 45, 209 Ting, Dr 198 Togugawa, Prince of Japan 195 Tokyo Reform Society 31–2 Tolstoy, Leo 42 trafficking 181, 187

Transjordan 88 transnationalism 4– 5, 209, 212, 213 travel 11, 18, 137 –8, 170, 211, 217 fact-finding 138–44 and recruitment 144 –62 and support 162 –9 Tumova´, Maria 165 Tunisia 87, 167 Turkey 47, 58, 61, 70, 77, 123, 189, 218 and higher education 131 and ICW 87 and politics 81–2 and regionalism 190 and women’s rights 93 Tuyell, Baroness van 148 Ukraine 50, 51, 56 unemployment 83 Union of Turkish Women 82 United States of America 35, 44, 49, 56, 142 and education 110–11, 127 and expenses 82 and higher education 123, 132– 3 and IAW 88 and indigenous women 229n51 and Jews 188 and regionalism 190 and temperance 29, 31 and WILPF 157 University of London War and Peace Society 130 university see higher education; International Federation of University Women Upmark, Eva 77 Uruguay 58, 59, 123, 146, 148, 149 US National Woman Suffrage Association 33

Vegra, Sofia R. de 198 voting rights 2, 5, 32, 39, 48, 54 and British Empire 178 and South America 149 wages 83 Wa¨gner, Elin 160 war 8, 29, 54, 66, 96; see also World War I WCTU see Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Westerdyk, Johanna 117 WIA see Women’s Indian Association Widegren, Matilda 67, 85, 159–60, 168, 169 Wilberforce, Basil 30 Williams, Wilhelmina 150 WILPF see Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Woman Citizen, The (magazine) 139, 147 Woman Movement, The (Key) 28 Woman Suffrage Association of Japan 75 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) 29– 31, 33, 45, 48, 139, 210, 218 and Japan 75 and South America 149 Women and Work (Schreiner) 42 women writers 11, 12 Women’s Association in Japan for International Friendship 121 Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality 103, 104, 114 Women’s Cooperative Guild 34 Women’s Indian Association (WIA) 42, 60, 179

291

THE RISE OF WOMEN'S TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISM Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) 2–3, 4, 43–4, 48–9, 114, 210, 215 and China 71, 150 –6, 157–9 and disarmament 99–100, 102 and education 120–1 and Europe 159 –60, 161–2 and expansion 50 –1, 59–60, 82 –3, 144 and expenses 52 and feminism 6 and imperialism 98 and Japan 132, 156–7, 159 and peace 66, 73, 86 and regionalism 205 and rules 54– 5 and sisterhood 8, 9

292

and South America 149–50 and support 167 –8 Women’s Normal School (Japan) 26 Women’s Peace Crusade 102 women’s rights 32, 33, 39, 80, 103, 215 and China 41 and education 117–18 and India 187–8 and location 172 and politics 177–8 and setbacks 83 Women’s Suffrage League of Japan 64, 82 Woodsmall, Miss 89 working classes 11, 34, 79 world tours 37 –8, 138– 9, 144 World War I 2, 5, 8, 43–4, 47, 210 and aftermath 51, 165

Yamada Waka 41, 42 Yamakawa Kikue 41– 2 Yang, Grace 124 –5, 127, 130, 156, 191 Yosano Akiko 41, 42 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) 31, 33, 61, 99, 114, 218 and China 123, 132 and education 129, 131 and South America 149 Youssouf, Mlle 70, 77 Yugoslavia 163 YWCA see Young Women’s Christian Association Zagloul, Sophia 85 Zhongguo xinnujie zazhi (New Chinese Women’s Magazine) 40 Zimmern, Elsie 64

1

Scandinavian delegates at the 1937 WILPF Luhacovice Congress

2

Participants at the 1924 IFUW Conference in Kristiania

3 Madame Puech, the French Government delegate, and Miss Grace Yang, representative of China, to the 1924 IFUW Conference in Kristiania

4 Journey home following WILPF’s mission to China – Edith Pye and Camille Drevet at Welcome Party in Japan hosted at Dr Inazo Nitobe’s House in March 1928

5

Session at the 1935 IAW congress in Istanbul

6

Japanese delegates to the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in 1928

7

Opening meeting at the 1930 ICW Conference in Vienna

8

Hamid Ali, Indian delegate to the 1937 WILPF Luhacovice Congress

9

1936 IAW Board Meeting in Amsterdam

10 Procession of delegates through the streets of Rome at the 1923 IAW Congress

11 WILPF and the World Disarmament Campaign in 1932 with British activist Margaret Bondfield in the centre

12 Margery Corbett Ashby, President of the IAW 1923–46, and Rosa Manus, prominent member of both the IAW and WILPF

13 Huda Shaarawi, pioneering Egyptian feminist leader who founded both the Egyptian Feminist and the Arab Feminist Unions. She was also active in the IAW

14

Bertha Lutz, leading Brazilian feminist and member of the IAW

15

Paulina Luisi, leading Uruguayan feminist and member of the IAW

16 Sarojin Naidu, the first president of the AAWC, active in the AIWC and well-known Indian nationalist