Women Called to Witness by Nancy a. Hardesty, Second Edition
The biblical feminists of today reinterpret the original scriptures with reference to women while trying to find religious reasons for their actions. An example of this is Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Nineteenth Century by Nancy Hardesty, as also other writers like Lucretia Mott, the Grimke sisters and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It is suggested by the book that the motivation of women leading the fights for temperance, female ordination, abolition and women suffrage in the beginning of the nineteenth century was from their evangelical Christian faith. 1 The Second Great awakening revivals touched the lives of each of these great warriors. The author proves that the traditional, evangelical activist was as intelligent as the Christian feminist. The differences between public and private, male and female, and politics and religion that were defined through the Industrial Revolution were deliberately de-emphasized by women like Frances Willard, Antionette Brown, and Phoebe Palmer.
This was an expression of the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls to make them perfect. The question arises today as to how it can be an inspiration for today's Christian feminists to acquire knowledge about the religious and social issues that confronted the nineteenth century woman activist. The leadership in this is provided by the second generation of biblical feminists, and their efforts. The same interpretations of the bible and the inherently same spirit of Christianity should be our inspiration.
1. Nancy A, Hardesty. Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Nineteenth Century. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.
Our response to the religion less society of this century should get the same impact from our efforts, as was the impact of the first generation of feminists. The combined reading of this book Women Called to Witness along with the manifestoes given out by the second generation of feminists would provide an individual with a richer concept of the historical continuity and discontinuities of the movement.
Sarah Grimke was an abolitionist in the nineteenth century and was the first among the followers of evangelical feminism to bring it to the level of a movement. She started in the 1830s to preach, along with the early leaders of the movement, that the Bible had been mistranslated and misinterpreted by men. This error made it seem that the subordination of women was a biblical norm. There was a belief at that time that the Bible also opposes slavery, and the feminist belief became a part of it. The pro-slavery group of course had a lot of proof in the text of the Bible to continue to retain slaves. The Christian evangelists of the time, like Sarah Grimke initially spoke in public against slavery, and this probably started the feminist movement as they also had to defend their own right as women to speak in public. In a few respects, the women's liberation of the twentieth century has given ideas to the evangelical feminists, but, it has not borrowed much from the liberation movement that had started in the 1960s and 70s.
There are a number of radical feminist religions that have come up, but the evangelical feminists do not find them as suitable alternatives - the New Age-type spiritualities. It is still content to proceed along the path that it has been going on for the last two hundred years. Evangelical feminism may also be called the principle of biblical equality. The principle in the Bible of the equality of all human beings before God is the main message that they try to teach and implement. This principle is interpreted to say that there is no moral or religious reason why there may be a permanent status, privilege or prerogative granted to any person solely based on the individual's race, class or gender. One of their main disagreements is with the concept of the traditionalists that the principle of female subordination to male spiritual authority within the church and home is a teaching of the Bible. They feel that since Christ believed in the equality of all believers in him, the women should get an equal opportunity with men to be ordained as ministers in the Church. In the home, they should be able to share authority and submission with their husbands, mutually.
Evangelical feminism is different from the other varieties of religious feminism...
Woman's Suffrage Women in the United States made the fight for suffrage their most fundamental demand because they saw it as the defining feature of full citizenship. The philosophy underlying women's suffrage was the belief in "natural rights" to govern themselves and choose their own representatives. Woman's suffrage asserted that women should enjoy individual rights of self-government, rather than relying on indirect civic participation as the mothers, sisters, or daughters of
In 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, another prominent 19th century suffragist, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to collectively lobby for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. The NWSA also focused their attention on universal suffrage for African-Americans. Their efforts toward abolition succeeded first, as the 15th Amendment passed in 1871. Also in 1869 Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and other suffragists formed a separate suffragist
Suffrage Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Amelia Bloomer were all instrumental in shifting the status of women in American society. Their writings reveal the personalities, assumptions, and values of the authors. Each of these women took incredible personal risks by challenging the underlying assumptions in the society that women were not valid, valuable members of society. The place of women in American society prior to suffrage was no better
149-150). References Balu, R. (Fall 1995). History comes alive: How women won the right to vote. Human Rights, 22(4). Retrieved March 23, 2005, from Academic Search Premier database. Colorado: Popularism, panic and persistence. (No date). Retrieved March 23, 2005, at http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suffrage_co.html. Marilley, S.M. (1996). Woman suffrage and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States, 1820-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Suffrage appeals to lawless and hysterical women. (30 May 1913). New York
The authors further point out that at the time, NWSA did not accept male membership as its focus was firmly trained on securing the voting rights of women nationwide. As their push for the enfranchisement of women at the federal level became more and more untenable, NWSA shifted its focus to individual states. In so doing, it planned to create a ripple effect that could ease the attainment of
Women The sphere of women's work had been strictly confined to the domestic realm, prior to the Industrial Revolution. Social isolation, financial dependence, and political disenfranchisement characterized the female experience prior to the twentieth century. The suffrage movement was certainly the first sign of the dismantling of the institutionalization of patriarchy, followed by universal access to education, and finally, the civil rights movement. Opportunities for women have gradually unfolded since the
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