Wheeler and Thompson's Appeal : The Rhetorical Re-visioning of Gender

In 1825, the Irishman William Thompson published a text with the ponderous title of Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery; In Reply to a Paragraph of Mr. Mill's Celebrated "Argument on Government." This book is a carefully reasoned refutation of Utilitarian philosopher James Mill's statement, in his essay "On Government," that women do not need "political rights"—that is, the right to vote, to be represented, and to hold office—because their interests are tied up with and adequately represented by those of men. The book champions not just political, but also civil rights for women: equitable laws, educational opportunities, reform of marriage customs, and so on. Concomitant with this advocacy, the text also recommends the abolition of the system of "individual competition"—in other words, capitalism—and its replacement with the system of "mutual cooperation." For these reasons, the Appeal has been referred to as "the first detailed statement of socialist feminism."¹

On the frontispiece of this book was a portrait of Thompson's countrywoman, Anna Doyle Wheeler. As Thompson discloses in the "Introductory Letter to Mrs. Wheeler," she is the co-author of the text, though not listed as such on the title page, and is responsible for many of its ideas. By placing her portrait so prominently in the book and by acknowledging her contributions in the introductory letter, Thompson implicitly includes Wheeler in the authorship of the text despite the fact that women of the time were ideologically discouraged from such authorship at this period, particularly of politicized texts such as this one.

Through its support of and, indeed, equation of socialism and civil-political rights for women, Thompson and Wheeler's text advocates the radical reform of Britain's intertwined economic and gender-role systems—that is, the capitalist patriarchy. The treatise offers a significant challenge to the ostensible restrictions on women's participation in the public sphere. Yet the text goes further in defying the increasingly accepted paradigm of "male public/female private." The body of the Appeal is framed by an introduction and a conclusion that enact the socioeconomic change advocated throughout the text. In the introduction, the male author, Thompson, takes on a conventionally female role: that of scribe. Conversely, the author of the conclusion, apparently Wheeler, plays a part generally prohibited to women: that of public speaker. Just at a time when contemporary notions of gender roles were seemingly becoming solidified, the Appeal makes the deliberate move of reversing those roles.

However, while Thompson's introduction transposes gender positions, it does not challenge the power differential inherent in patriarchal capitalism. The section evidently written by Wheeler, on the other hand, dissolves that differential through the use of the language of mutuality and through her refusal to assume a position of superiority in relation to her audience. This emphasis on gender equity thus mirrors the theoretically classless nature of the socialist economic system recommended throughout the Appeal. While the body of the text, then, champions the radical reform of sociopolitical institutions that oppress women, the frame of the text—and especially the conclusion—embodies that reform by re-visioning the system of gender roles that functioned to keep women in positions of subservience.

Wheeler and Thompson wrote at a time when the Enlightenment ideals of human freedom and equality were increasingly seen as applicable to subjects other than white, upper- and middle-class men. Born in 1775 to an Ascendancy family in Cork City, Thompson educated himself in philosophy, politics, political economics, education, and the history of women's quest for equality.² Thompson was very much concerned with the welfare of the working class and became active in the development of the Cork Institution; modeled on the "Mechanics' Institutes" in England and Dublin, the goal of the Cork Institution was to advance practical education for all classes. Unlike most Mechanics' Institutes, however, Thompson intended that women should be included in this education and attend the same courses as men...