To be a feminist when there was no feminism

 I would like to tell you the story of the person who inspires me. I wrote my bachelor's thesis about her. She was so brave but everyone has forgotten her, even her family. Also there is no picture of her.

Amélie Weiler was born on April 1822 in a Protestant family in Strasbourg (France). She was a bourgeois and was destined to be a good wife, mother and housewife. In the first half of the 19th century, women had no choice. Their fate was in the hands of men. Without a husband, they had no chance of a better life because women were not allowed to go to normal school. They studied only in schools run by other women or clergy. They learned to read, write, sew and good manners as a wife or mother. Every bourgeois woman also had to be able to play an instrument, most often a piano. Education like this limited women. They could't be scientists or decide their future. 

In this era Amélie was born. She was ambitious and wanted to be femme de lettres (educated). Her biggest dream was to become a governess. She wanted to be neither wife nor mother. Don't forget that this was the age of romanticism. Romantic literature had a great influence on women. They began to think of true love, not arranged marriages. They wanted to be truly loved but the reality wa terrible. Men got married for more money or prestige. Amélie was disgusted by this. She saw injustice. She wanted to make a career and be educated like a man. In her diary she wrote: 

The young man freely follows his career; asks the vastness of the seas when the road is too narrow. [...] Perhaps I have all the advantages that make me a good charwoman, an ordinary woman, recognizing only the fulfillment of my female duties. What men, egoists and tyrants call women's responsibilities?

Her views were radical for that time. The feminism was at the beginning of its development. Such word weren't heard everywhere from women. All her friends got married but she didn't want to. She resisted and decided to make her own decisions about her life. It wasn't easy because her family disapproved of her decisions. She became a governess and went to Prussia, and then to Russia. It isn't known when she returned to Strasbourg. She never got married and at the end of her life she lived in poverty. She stayed true to her convictions, which is why she is an inspiration to me.