July 5 2025

Photo by Jay Turner on Unsplash

(This is an essay I submitted for my UNR Modern World compressed summer class. Loved that class!)

The shift to individualism alongside the invention of the printing press sparked the key theme of Enlightenment. Enlightenment led to feminism, with one not being possible without the other. Enlightenment eventually led to revolution and equality. Equality led to a declaration of rights; which led to first wave feminism leaders demanding equality and formal education for women. None of these periods would have happened as they did, or would have happened much slower, without the printing press. It’s important to look at the components of each of these in order to understand how they are connected. From Martin Luther’s challenges to the Catholic Church through Mary Wollstonecraft’s, Vindication of the Rights of Women, a society and culture built on patriarchy slightly weakened, leading to women demanding equal rights, education, a room of their own, and the first wave of feminism.

The Printing Press and Individualism → Enlightenment

Martin Luther’s 1520, The Three Walls, puts forth that individuals should be given the opportunity to read and learn, making decisions for themselves; rather than simply believing the messages of spiritual leaders and doing what they are told to do and living life how they are told to live. In doing this, Luther went against the established traditions of the Catholic Church. His ideas came about at the same time as the printing press was invented.

Luther was able to share his message with the masses and to print translations of the Bible in languages other than Latin. “By these and many other texts we should gain courage and freedom, and should not let the spirit of liberty (as St. Paul has it) be frightened away by the inventions of the popes; we should boldly judge what they do and what they leave undone by our own believing understanding of the Scriptures, and force them to follow the better understanding, and not their own.” (Luther Pg4)

Stemming from Martin Luther’s encouragement, a movement began of people desiring to read and educate themselves. Once this movement caught hold, citizens were not satisfied with only having the Bible to read, with their desire to read more growing the market for the printed word. Ideas spread much faster than in the past due to the printing press and with materials being produced in vernacular languages.

In 1784, over two hundred years later, Immanuel Kant expanded Luther’s message in What is Enlightenment?“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another.” (Kant Pg1) This continued the ideology of encouraging people to read, to think independently, to make their own decisions, and come to their own conclusions.

Pulling back and looking at this broadly and from our current period, we see that this meant escaping minority status and oppression for the middle and lower class. Kant relates doing what you’re told to do as living life as a child. With this comparison, we see how it begins to connect with the status of women, and how strict religious ideology and patriarchy wish to keep women childlike. Kant understands why folks resist this, but insists they need to be courageous. “ … his immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!” (Kant Pg1) This led us into the period known as Enlightenment.

Revolution and Equality → Declaration of Rights

Enlightenment brought with it a clear understanding of the distinction of classes, with the middle and lower classes pushing back against the absolute power and rule of the aristocracy. In 1789 Emmanuel Sieyes wrote What is The Third Estate? What he describes is essentially what we call the 99% today. “Thus, what is the third estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. ‘What would it be without the privileged order? Everything; but an everything free and flourishing.” (Sieyes p160-161) By its very nature, Enlightenment housed within it the beginning struggles of the 99% for equality. This in turn, led to revolution because the aristocracy did not want to give up money and power. “The third estate must perceive in the trend of opinions and circumstances that it can hope for nothing except from its own enlightenment and courage.” (Sieyes p162)

The French Revolution was fought for this reason. Following and alongside this, the Haitian Revolution was fought by slaves against their masters for the same reason. Equality. This directly connects to the inequality that women experienced. In fighting for class equality and an end to slavery, women were absolutely a part of these revolutions.

The idea of slavery being wrong and that every person is equal is another thought that changed. John Locke was against slavery, putting forth his reasoning in Two Treatises of Government. He did this two centuries before slaves were freed in America. With his ideas being written and printed, shared and read, this is an idea that spread. “Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world …” (Locke sec87) Slavery connects with the status of women, as both slaves and women were considered as and treated as less than (white) men. Their entire history was of being “othered”.

Following the end to slavery and equality won by way of these two revolutions, The National Assembly of France wrote in 1789 the Declaration of the Rights of Man. “The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration …” (National Pg1)

Then in 1791 Olympé de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman. “Woman, wake up! The tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the universe; recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to wish it. Let us pass now to the shocking tableau of what you have been in the past; and since national education is in the air at this moment, let us see whether our wise legislators will think judiciously about the education of women.” (de Gouges Pg4)

Equality and Education → First Wave Feminism

Without the Declaration of the Rights of Man, followed by the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, there likely would not have been a feminist movement and all that stemmed from it (or the movement would have happened much slower). Women’s rights were a seed planted and incubated within the Declaration of the Rights of Man to be fully birthed just a short time afterwards.

In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft writes a jarring statement in The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, “We might as well never have been born, unless it were necessary that we should be created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reason, the power of discerning good from evil, whilst we lie down in the dust from whence we were taken, never to rise again.” (Wollstonecraft p182) She was one of the pioneers of modern feminism, writing this piece about women after the French Revolution.

The feminist movement that was born from the French and Haitian Revolution, the radical political thinkers that spoke up, wrote their ideas and shared them through the use of the printing press has had a long-lasting impact on modern culture. It’s horrifying and sickening to witness society slipping back to political thinking that aligns more with pre-Individuliasm, pre-Enlightenment, and pre-French Revolution.

An unbreakable thread connects our current third wave feminism back to Martin Luther’s, The Three Walls, and the invention of the printing press. Individualism and Enlightenment combined with using the printing press were seeds planted and nourished by those who saw the benefit to society and believed in encouraging citizens to read and learn, and to arrive at their own conclusions. The seed blossomed and bore the fruit of revolution, individual rights, equality for all people, and first wave feminism. From Martin Luther’s challenges to the Catholic Church through Mary Wollstonecraft’s, Vindication of the Rights of Women, a society and culture built on patriarchy slightly weakened, leading to women demanding equal rights, education, a room of their own, and the first wave of feminism.

Works Cited

de Gouges, Olympé. “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Woman-Citizen” 1791.

Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question: “What is Enlightenment?” Konigsberg, Prussia, 30th September, 1784.

Locke, John. “Modern History Sourcebook: Two Treatises of Government, Chapter II: Of the State of Nature.” 1690.

Luther, Martin. “Modern History Sourcebook: Address To The Nobility of the German Nation, The Three Walls of the Romanists.” 1520.

National Assembly of France. “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” 1789.

Sieyes , Emmanuel. “What is the Third Estate?” 1789.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. “Vindication of the Rights of Women.” 1792