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The big increases in the age of consent happen in 1885 in the UK and between 1900-1920 in the US - by 1920 the (hetrosexual) age of consent in the UK had reached its current level 16, with an attempt to raise it to 17 failing in 1917, and it was 16 or 18 in every US state except Georgia. In the UK at least, this is part of the Victorian re-moralisation movement, which was heavily driven by women but explicitly dissociated itself from the first-wave feminists, who were still something of a joke. In the US, the timing suggests it was a Progressive thing - I don't know enough about Progressive-era US politics to understand the relationship between Progressivism and first-wave feminism, but they seem to have been allies. So on net I wouldn't say that age of consent laws were feminist laws.
During the sexual revolution, there are attempts (supported by some but no means all feminists) to reduce ages of consent or to undermine enforcement. In the UK, for example, Gillick (doctors can prescribe contraceptives to girls under 16 without the parents knowledge or consent) was widely supported by feminists on harm reduction grounds. Again, age of consent laws are not feminist laws. More recently, you see third wave feminism focussing on abuse of authority (such as teachers banging students) rather than how young the girl is.
As a separate point, the only licit sex with under-16 girls in the pre-age-of-consent era was after marrying them with the father's permission. It has never been socially acceptable for a man to seduce a 14-year-old girl.
I don’t see how this is evidence of anyone attempting to lower the age of consent or reduce enforcement? Age of consent laws in practice have never focused on minors of similar ages having sex with each other. The focus has always been on people over the age of consent having sex with those below it (with some allowances in jurisdictions with Romeo and Juliet laws), along with the occasional case of minors with significant age gaps.
The most common situation a doctor is prescribing birth control to a girl under 16 is when she wants to have/is having sex with her boy friend who’s about the same as her.
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Women like Helen Gardener (a suffragette and early advocate of atheism), Josephine Butler (also a suffragette and anti-coverture activist), and Frances Willard (also also a suffragette and president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, yes the one that successfully pushed alcohol prohibition (which was also a policy commonly promoted on women's welfare grounds, that male "drunkards" were a threat to women) as well), three of the biggest advocates of raising the age of consent in the 1800s in the UK and US, were absolutely feminists of the genealogy leading directly to modern feminism, even if some of them later may have felt that other feminists went "too far" (though as demonstrated in many if not most cases they did support women voting, so they wouldn't have disavowed later feminists on those grounds). (Second-wave feminists often disavow modern third-wave feminists, also feeling that they've gone "too far", because of their support of transsexuality; are these in some cases contemporaries of Andrea Dworkin not actually feminists then? Or they never were? Despite being as pro-matriarchal, anti-patriarchal, and in many cases straight up anti-man as it gets?)
So unfortunately I'm afraid your information is incomplete/incorrect. Of course there were general prudish Victorian anti-sex types (like Ellice Hopkins, who was still feminist in function but not all that explicitly, nor do I think she had much real intention of upsetting masculine authority or traditional gender roles, though she died in 1904 and might have become a suffragette eventually) mixed in (though even these were still usually women thinking they could dictate to men, which is de facto feminist), and of course because of the time period involved some of even the explicit feminists were organized according to Christian principles, but they were still feminists (that is, to be clear, many/most of them explicitly called themselves "feminist" (a term coined in the early 19th century), even again if some of them would eventually denounce other later women who also called themselves feminists. (Isn't it the inevitable end of many if not most progressives to feel that other later progressives have eventually gone "too far"? "I wanted X sure, but Y's crazy!" Were the Old Bolsheviks not real socialists or Soviet patriots in the end because they probably didn't much appreciate Stalin later purging them all?)
The fact that almost all age of consent raising advocacy of the time focused on the alleged welfare of women and girls as opposed to men/boys is proof enough of this. If biased gynosupremacy and gynocentrism isn't allowed to be considered feminist, then what is?
So yes on net modern age of consent laws are absolutely feminist in origin in that they are the product of gynocentric and gynocratic political organization and advocacy (quite often, again, by women who explicitly called themselves "feminist" at the time again even if in some cases they didn't necessarily agree with every other woman who would later identify as one). Only a modern man would even try to deny that. "Well, sure, they were women thinking they could dictate public policy to men on the grounds of alleged 'women's rights', but they weren't, like, burning bras or anything crazy!"
Even the purely "remoralization"-oriented stuff you highlight was mostly feminist in practice (even if not explicitly) as it was significantly feminized in terms of the composition of its supporters, policy aims, and rhetorical practices. Women thinking they know better than men what morality is and that they can or should dictate their emotionalized "care"-based "morality" over men's virtue-and-honor-based morality is feminist no matter what terms they couch it in and even if they pretend it's not explicitly pro-woman (even though in most cases as highlighted it was).
Were they totally feminists in a strictly modern sense? Well of course not because full modern context necessary for them to be so didn't exist. But modern feminists are even more extreme about the issue and often more supportive of higher ages of consent than ever before (as I've seen calls by some to raise it to 21, 25, etc.), so that still kind of proves the opposite of your point.
And again, a significant portion of them if not the majority of them were at least (usually not even only later but at the same time) very early suffragettes (which means most of them denouncing first-wave feminism seems unlikely, so I think you're wrong on that point) and thus I'd say that firmly qualifies them as feminists, given that the modern feminism movement still tends to claim women gaining the ability to vote as its own achievement.
This is true but this was driven mostly by (often gay) men (organizations like NAMBLA, Vereniging Martijn, etc., overwhelmingly male-led organizations), not feminists.
This has nothing to do with age of consent. You do realize that underage people can have sex with other underage people right? This is just general sexual liberalization stuff (which tends to not include stuff that men will actually benefit from, so no properly restoring men's dominion over younger girls/women in general).
Yeah, no. I'm afraid this is the point where anyone who reads stuff on social media outside of this site is going to instinctively call bullshit on you. Modern feminists and woke types have become utterly obsessed with anti-"age gap" rhetoric (when it's in the man's favor), like literally getting mad at a 27 year old man for dating a 22 year old woman-tier even when there's no authority-based relationship between them. Just search "age gap" on Reddit.
This is irrelevant. You conventionally sought the father's consent to marry women/girls of any age in those eras (outside of which sex was taboo for everyone of every age assuming a relatively modern monogamy-oriented culture), because a female was considered her father's property/ward before she became her husband's.
Again, no. Asking the father for permission to marry a girl/woman was a part of the courtship process which would have been considered (the acceptable version of) seduction back then. And you've already admitted that this was acceptable for most of human history. So it was definitely acceptable. (And that's not even getting into prostitutes, slaves, etc. where if anybody had any objections to having sex with them then it was almost certainly on the grounds of fornication/adultery/promiscuity, not their age if they were young.)
So I must regretfully say that I do consider your post basically entirely incorrect and confused about the facts in almost all areas.
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