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Ideology Of Feminism

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Revolution, “Common Sense,” and a Lot of Paine When he was eleven years old, George Washington, the first United States president, owned slaves. After his father deceased, Washington inherited his 280-acre farm and ten slaves, and the number increased to seventeen by his twenties.Though United States citizens today increasingly look to founding fathers such as him for a sound, enduring ideological foundation to stand on, many do not know how different today’s ideas are from those of America’s genesis. Few people know, however, that the progressive ideals that most ascribe to the better-known founding fathers belonged not to them, but to Thomas Paine, the revolutionary of revolutionaries. Paine was a driving force in the American revolution …show more content…

The ideology of feminism is a defining liberation movement in both the current century and in Thomas Paine’s personal beliefs. Though it was never a major part of the Enlightenment, feminism had its roots in the it. However, the most modern and best-known wave began in the 1960s with Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique and an explosion of liberation culture with a feminine tint. Of course, today’s women’s rights movements have minute differences from Paine’s, but they are fundamentally the same, as they both had goals of equal rights and social standing. Though Paine’s ideas, especially about feminism, were similar to those today, they were exceptionally revolutionary to his own time’s largely male-dominated culture. Paine never addresses feminism directly in his “Common Sense,” but there exists a plethora of evidence that supports feminism. A key piece of this evidence is that Paine strongly adhered to Enlightenment ideals. Jay Freeman states this in his Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations by …show more content…

Unlike most other founding fathers, Paine was a passionate abolitionist. His writings are a prime example of this. One way by which Paine acted against slavery was by providing religious evidence against it. “Paine emphasized that (there was) the God-given, natural right for freedom,” writes Amanda Portfield in “Religion’s Impact on Social Issues” (Portfield 1). In this document, Portfield states biblical evidence that Paine and his peers used for abolitionist movements. Many used the writings of apostle Paul and the Old Testament stories of the Israelites’ deliverance as parallels to the abolition of slavery. Along with his decision to back up abolition with the Christian faith, Paine also was a devoted member of an anti-slavery society. In his or her “Founding Father Thomas Paine: He Genuinely Abhorred Slavery,” an anonymous author writes about this. “A year after Thomas Paine’s essay was published, the first antislavery society in the United States was formed in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine was an original member of this society,” he or she states (Anonymous 2). Thomas Paine was extremely outspoken about his beliefs on slavery. Though few at the time were not revolutionary, few would accept the abolition of slave labour. Thus, the stakes were high for Paine. Would he be a respectable figure among his peers if he believed something that different? Most of his

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