Essay - American Social Thought on Women's Rights Abstract This Paper Compares...

American Social Thought on Women's Rights

Abstract

This paper compares and c*****trasts the arguments in favor of women's rights made by three pioneering American feminists: Judith Sargent Murray, Sarah Grimke, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This analysis reveals the centrality of religious argumentation to the feminism of all three. ***** and Grimke were both converts to varieties of evangelical Protestantism who drew considerable intellectual and emotional nourishment from strands of Christianity, which encouraged, or at least did not discourage, their personal development. Unlike Murray and Grimke, however, Stanton did not convert to evangelicalism. Instead, she launched upon a secularizing trajectory that took her beyond ***** to Comtean Positivism ***** rationalism. Unlike Murray and Grimke, moreover, ***** acknowledged the problems inherent in any attempt to square Christianity with fem*****ism. However, she never rejected the Bible completely, and she is appropriately viewed with respect today as a pioneer of feminist biblic*****l criticism. The paper concludes that although feminist thought demonstrates ***** progress in ***** century betwen Murray and Stanton, this progress was at odds with the growing influence ***** evangelical Christianity in American life as a *****le.

INTRODUCTION

***** paper compares, contr*****ts and places in their ***** intellectual context the thought of three pioneering American feminists. ***** ***** authors whose works are considered are Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), Sarah Moore Grimke (1792-1873), and ***** Cady Stanton (1815-1902). Examined side by *****, these writers illustr*****e the profound shift that occurred in United States intellectual history during the course of the nineteenth century. Murray's ***** exemplify ***** world of the Enlightenment. Her rationalism is apparent in an argument for ***** rights that is mainly concerned with female education. She pays less attention to the problem of Biblical texts for ***** subordination th***** does ***** *****, whose work appeared fifty years later. By the time Grimke was writing the United States was deep in the thrall of a religious revival. The nature of the religious *****, which drew on conservative romanticism's reaction aga*****st *****, brought ***** the *****e of social thought the authority of the Bible. Grimke, along with other contemporary feminists, ***** obliged to decisively confront ***** *****'s emphasis ***** female subordination. Stanton, whose main *****s were produced ***** years after those ***** Grimke, represents a more polarized phase of ***** culture. By the time ***** produced her major writings, she had been exposed to the most progressive currents of European thought. This put her greatly at odds with her fellow American feminists who, as the result of yet an***** religious revival, were even ***** steeped in Christianity than earlier generations of fem*****ists. Seeing the dangers of a feminism dominated by Christianity, Stanton went on ***** ********** in a central work in the feminist canon, ***** Woman's *****. *****'s literary activity in the 1890s reflects her perception that American ***** might soon be overwhelmed ***** women for whom religion w***** more important ***** emancipation.

***** Sargent, who converted from Congregationalism to Universalism in 1774, and therefore from the Calvinist theology of the salvation only *****