The women at Bangsbo

You might say that the Danish fight for women’s rights moves like waves. At the beginning gender equality, women’s liberation and rights are not important topics, but gradually as time changes their importance grows and when the wave finally breaks they wash over the whole society, and that is the way it is today.

The primary focus in the first wave of the Danish fight for women’s rights which started from approx. 1848 to 1920 was the right to be seen as individuals – not just as appendages to men or as breeding machines for the next generations.

Women wanted equal possibilities for work and education. In the 19th century women admittedly were allowed to work in the fields, as housemaids or take whatever jobs there were in industry but they were not allowed to the greater part of educations or jobs in the public sector.

The husband managed the money for housekeeping; he had power over the whole family – including his wife. To a large extent married women were treated like children. Women were looked upon as inferior to men and therefore the first wave of the Danish fight for women’s rights focused on the fact that women were not inferior to men by nature but deserved equal rights and recognition from the whole society.

Establishing the Danish Woman’s Society in 1871 stimulated the Danish fight for women’s rights and the efforts become more structured despite the fact that women still had to bow down to certain social norms in order to be heard – the so-called “feminine style” where women speakers were in a rhetorical dilemma. In order to get political influence they had to argue focused and effectively but at the same time it was not strategically wise to deviate too much from the norms for women’s behaviour and speaking in public where they were expected to be restrained and discreet.

Especially women from the upper social and literary circles led the way in the fight and it is therefore in this context we shall look at “The Women at Bangsbo”. The women we are dealing with were the women centred around Johan Knudsen’s Bangbo – either as servants or as friends of the house.

There were women from the bourgeoisie such as Eva Drachmann, Betty Nansen and Agnes Slott-Møller and from the lower social classes such as Ms. Eggers and Abelone (Laura Christine Jensen).

They all had in common that they were strong women who did not accept the social standards they were subjected to and therefore they were part in promoting the fight for rights.