Romanian society had stepped up its
\nmodernization process and its orientation towards the West in the second half
\nof the 19th century. Ever since, women’s right have been subject to
\ndebate in Romanian media. Such a valuable initiative was made possible thanks
\nto the activity of several feminist associations which at that time took
\naffirmative action in support of women’s rights to education as well as for
\nwomen’s right to vote. Accordingly,
\nthrough the initiative of several women intellectual women, women in their
\nentirety began questioning their traditional role which granted them limited,
\nif any, access beyond the private sphere. Feminist activist women also sought
\nto influence the public sphere. Among them, journalist, translator and novelist
\nSofia Nadejde, who was born in 1856 in Botosani. A collection of her feminist
\narticles has recently been brought out by the Paralela 45 publishers. The
\nvolume is titled About a woman’s brains and other demons and was jointly
\nedited by Maria Cernat and Adina Mocanu. <\/p>\n
Maria Cernat: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
She fought her battles
\non several fronts at a time. Apart from the fact that the family she had can
\ntoday be viewed as successful and numerous, as she had four girls and two boys,
\nplus another girl who had died in early childhood, all her children had
\nexceptional career. Furthermore, Sofia Nadejde was an activist woman and she
\nwouldn’t have favored being presented as a successful woman in the lifestyle
\nmagazines of her time. She was a serious woman, extremely focused in her
\nobservations and studies and was very close to the life of the poor simpletons.
\nShe would have liked it a lot to emancipate herself alongside all women in
\nRomania. She wasn’t fighting for the rights of privileged women. That is why it
\nseems a little bit odd she did not fight for women’s right to vote because,
\ngiven the census suffrage was in place, the right to vote would have been
\ngranted to a very limited number of women. Only the well-to-do had the right to
\nvote back then. Reason enough for Sofia Nadejde to pledge she was interested to
\nfight for all women and not for the privileged ones. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Some of women intellectuals who in the 19th
\ncentury took affirmative action for the emancipation of women advocated the
\nidea that, notwithstanding, women had to retain their traditional role yet some
\nextra rights should have been granted to them. Sofia N\u0103dejde wanted a thorough
\nchange of that paradigm. And it was not only that that set Sofia Nadejde apart
\nfrom the vast majority of the intellectuals of her time. Herself and her
\nhusband, Ioan Nadejde, were adepts of socialism, a marginal ideology in
\nRomania, at that time. <\/p>\n
Maria Cernat:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
She made her debut in
\nsocialist magazines that today maybe be described as feminist. One of them was
\nThe Romanian woman, and then she contributed to The Contemporary for a long
\ntime. That mainly happened in the last years of her life when she mainly wrote
\ntexts firmly supporting women’s rights. She shifted her focus to writing
\nliterature and, using literary means of expression, she did what is today known
\nas art for social purpose. Herself and her husband Ioan Nadejde, assumed art
\nfor social purposes together with other socialists of her time, such as Constantin
\nDobrogeanu-Gherea. So initially, Sofia Nadejde dealt with women’s rights, with
\nwomen’s status in Christianity, prostitution, the situation of the family,
\nthere were issues having to with political philosophy. Then Sofia Nadejde
\nprioritized her literary activity, without however ignoring her socialist
\nideology. She advocated women’s right to work, their independence, and not only
\nthe legal one, their education. According to Sofia Nadejde, women’s education
\nwent beyond the purpose of turning them into mothers who were capable of
\nraising the children of the nation. Sofia Nadejde also took affirmative action
\nfor women’s economic independence, for their right to have a job and financial
\nautonomy. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there were not just those ideas
\nalone by means of which Sofia Nadejde stepped out of the line, being a
\none-of-a-kind personality in her time. <\/p>\n
Maria Cernat:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The funny thing was that she
\nalso contributed articles with apparently very conservative principles. For
\nexample, she was against dancing. She described it as being a primitive habit, a
\nhabit of the savages. She was against preening. In today’s parlance, we could
\nsay, being somehow anachronistic, she was actually against relative beauty
\nstandards. She also criticizes balls, she did not favor balls where people gathered,
\ndanced and then caught pneumonia as they were in a sweat going out in the cold
\nweather outside. She also have principles that today may seem conservative, yet
\nshe advocated them as being part of women’s emancipation, She did not think
\nemancipation meant smoking cigars or going to the pub to get drunk or to have
\nmany lovers. In other words, you shouldn’t do what men did. For her, that was
\nnot emancipation. Instead, taking responsibility for the education of children
\nas seriously as possible, that, for her,
\nwas a perfect example of emancipation.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Obviously, Sofia Nadejde’s principles drew
\nher into all sorts of polemics, the most famous being that with Titu Maiorescu,
\na minister, a conservative MP, a philosopher and a literary critic, a towering
\nfigure in Romanian culture, past and present. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Maria Cernat: <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
There’s another interesting
\nepisode, when Sofia Nadejde contradicted Titu Maiorescu as regards the weight
\nof women’s brain. He disapproved of the idea whereby the fate of the nations be
\nleft entirely up to human beings whose brain is 10per cent lighter than men’s
\nbrain. If their brain is smaller, the conclusion we must draw from that is that
\nall women are less capable than men, intellectually. So, according to
\nMaiorescu, we need to adopt the sphere separation principle: women should remain
\nin the domestic sphere, while men should dominate the public one. Sofia Nadejde
\npointed to the fallacy he committed: making sheer weight the equivalent of
\nintelligence, that might lead up to the conclusion that the whale is smarter
\nbecause her brain is big and heavy.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In
\n1903, the novelist Sofia Nadejde scooped the Universul daily prize in 1903. The
\neditor in chief of a magazine, a translator and a columnist, Sofia Nadejde died
\nin 1946. Many of her ideas remain up-to-date to this day. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Socialist women intellectuals in the early 20th century<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":169523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45568,45567,45569],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-socialism","tag-sofia-nadejde","tag-universul"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n