Tocqueville

Blog – Engaging the Text #2 on p. 380

According to Tocqueville, women in America are less equal in society than their counterparts in Europe, but women in America are glorified in their own way. First and foremost, Americans set out to protect the dignity and innocence of women. As he mentioned, "that in the presence of a woman the most guarded language is used, lest her ear should be offended by an expression. In America, a young unmarried woman may, alone and without fear, undertake a long journey. The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated almost all the penalties of criminal law, still make a rape a capital offense, and no crime is visited with more inexorable severity by public opinion." Tocqueville is essentially saying that women in America are treated as if they are perfect, but in Europe they are, "considered seductive but imperfect beings". Tocqueville admits that "women in the United States are confined withing the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is, in some respects, one of extreme dependence." However, he says, "I have nowhere seen women a loftier position" than in America. This is why he suggests that American democracy is enabling women to become "more and more the equal of man" - because they are treated so honorably. It is only a matter of time before the social equality comes about.