Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Challenging Religion through the Women’s Right Movement

In the late Nineteenth century, women were beginning to become more progressive in their actions. They began to stand up for themselves and fight for their rights. In the late 1850’s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the more prominent women to do so. She worked with Susan B. Anthony to deliver a majority of the population the rights that they rightfully deserved. Her actions are important in the United States’ History because they helped to encourage women to form the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Many Scholars have written about her, but simply with a different lens of focus. For example, they have written about her use of the bicycle in her campaign and her unique stance on religion. It is important to continue studying her actions because the issues she was fighting for back then, such as: the abolition of capital punishment, and an end to police brutality, are still issues today. Perhaps if the people of the United States today collectively took after her intrepid and forward thinking attitude in life, there could be more positive change in this country.

This document has a very distinct pathetic appeal created by the passion and determination for freedom. For example, Stanton says, “In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband... the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty.” This sentence conveys to the readers that women are nothing but servants to their “master.” It also shows how women are just known as “objects” that men can use.

Stanton begins her declaration by explaining her understanding for an explanation of the actions of herself and her associates. She appeals to the intellect by quoting the Declaration of Independence and by specifically adding “women” to the phrase, “We hold

Throughout my selected text, Johnson focuses on the church along with the subsequent androcentric image of God, and how it impacts woman around the world. She explains that throughout history, with the help of the church’s patriarchal nature and society’s values as a whole, woman have been seen “as a ‘defective male’…that must live in obedience to her [male counterpart,]…[ and who are often also referred to as the] ‘second sex’” (Johnson 92). This

The biblical allusions Gwynn makes are used to expose the problem of societal pressures women face as a result of biblical teachings. When unhappy and doubtful of such teachings, the church “instantly referred [her] to text in Romans/ And Peter’s First Epistle, chapter III.” (7-8), a biblical reading that preaches the act of suffering for God’s will and the obedience of a woman to her husband as she is the “feebler vessel”. However, Gwynn points out the flaw of this instruction when he portrays what a sinner her husband is as he “grabbed [his] pitchforks, donned [his] horns, / and sped to the contravene the hopes of heaven, / Sowing the neighbors’ lawns with tares and thorns.” (10-12).

Ironically, "Sarah was formally chastised in print by Catherine Beecher, a prominent educator who objected not only to her position for immediate abolition but also to her "unwomanliness" in defending it in public (Intro.Pg1046). This pushed Sarah to her highest limitations and encouraged her to write Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman. Sarah angry at the way woman has been treated, makes a powerful statement-hoping woman will wake up. She writes, "Women has inflicted an injury upon herself by submitting to be thus regarded; and she is now called upon to rise from the station where man, not God, has placed her, and claim those sacred and inalienable rights, as a moral and responsible being, with which her Creator has invested her (Letters on the Equality of Sexes Pg.1053 col.2)

Women’s suffrage was at the root of the reform. Women sought to equalize voting rights and expand their roles in the workforce. Equal rights was at the basis and heart of democratic ideals and this was what women were working towards in their reform. Document I supports the idea of women vouching for equal rights in order to give them an equal say in the government. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the speaker in document I, is attempting to mend the government and better society by speaking out for her rights as a woman. This is an example of a reformation that was seeking to expand democratic ideals by expanding equality. The Women’s rights movement didn’t end here, in fact it continued to be a rising issue, women didn’t receive the right to vote until

The church has ever opposed the progress of woman on the ground that her freedom would lead to immorality. We ask the church to have more confidence in women. We ask the opponents of this movement to reverse the methods of the church, which aims to keep women moral by keeping them in fear and in ignorance, and to inculcate into them a

One of the many women who were angered at the lack of women’s rights and recognition was Susan B. Anthony who was a major influence in the life of Stanton and together led a movement to give women the right to vote. Anthony was heavily involved in temperance, the movement to reduce or prohibit the use of alcoholic beverages as a result of the many social and economic problems that were occurring, including the physical abuse of wives at the hands of their drunken husbands. Together they campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and retain their own earnings.

When Stanton wrote this document, women had many different expectations than men did, many of them just kept their head down and followed the orders of men as if men were shepherds and women were merely sheep. Stanton writes, “He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her and her god.” (Stanton 2) As Stanton wove ethos into her writing, she complimented it with the symbolism of the sphere of action that represents the actions a women is allowed to take. Stanton takes the idea that people, including women, should

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a firm believer in women's rights. The Destructive Male is a speech that was given by Stanton in 1868 to campaign for women's rights. She pushed for women’s rights for over half a century (The History Place Online).Stanton shows her persuasive writing ability in her speech, The Destructive Male, by using several different writing styles including repetition, emphasis, description, similes, and metaphors.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. - Matthew 6:9. The idea of “God the father” is one that is rooted deep in our society predominantly the ways in which it rejoices men. The almighty all and powerful God is outlined as a male figure in the bible, constructed using almost entirely masculine language. This simple fact has provoked men to assume the position of authority, to oversee over his family. This simple fact leads to an imbalance of power between men and women subconsciously oppressing women within our society. In Mary Daly’s “After the Death of God the Father,” Mary explains how the Judeo-Christian culture has served to bring structure to a sexually imbalanced man driven culture." This male-controlled society has its establishments in the most discernible parts of Christianity.” Mary’s work is a continuation of what is known as “The women's liberation movement” furthering the conversation of societies hold on a woman and bringing change. In this critical evaluation of Mary Daly's work, I will discuss the thesis and argument of the reading, along with an analysis of its assumptions and implications.

With few exceptions, our male dominated society has traditionally feared, repressed, and stymied the growth of women. As exemplified in history, man has always enjoyed a superior position. According to Genesis in the Old Testament, the fact that man was created first has led to the perception that man should rule. However, since woman was created from man’s rib, there is a strong argument that woman was meant to work along side with man as an equal partner. As James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Behold de Rib,” clearly illustrates, if God had intended for woman to be dominated, then she would have been created from a bone in the foot, but “he

In 1848, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton set up a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss their rights as women. In this meeting, they discussed that their rights is as important as men are and they shouldn’t have to fight for basic rights such as the right to vote. This was simply the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. In the keynote address at the first Women’s Rights Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton uses concrete detail and diction to persuade her audience that they need to fight for equal rights, to have an equal voice. Demanding the freedom and representation that women utterly deserve.

It is tough to get a clear look into the ways Meyers interprets textual evidence since her focus on women’s religion is often marginalized. Nonetheless, she does with what she has to make a full and convincing argument. Meyers identifies that feminist biblical study is masculinized, so she decides to uncover the role of women in the sanctuary through the Deuteronomic use of unisexual terms such as “you” and “person”. In doing so, she concludes that both women and men were to engage in communal events and offerings (Meyers 2002, 279-280).