The fight for power: historical women’s movements of Russia and Great Britain in comparison

Abstract

In the second half of the 19th century, women began to organize worldwide to achieve the goal of gender equality. National women’s movements emerged and were followed somewhat later by the first transnational political mobilization of women on a larger scale. The range of topics that were on the national and international agenda included, alongside the access to education and the enforcement of equal civil rights, as well as the fight for political participation, with the women’s right to vote taking center stage.1 The political, social, and cultural contexts, in which women raised their voices, varied. On the national level, female activists often had conflicting positions and their strategies reflected a wide spectrum; the chosen forms and the course of the protest, on the other hand, showed similarities.