Roots of Womanhood: Feminist Figures in 19th-Century America - Essay Example

? The Roots of Womanhood: Feminist Figures in the 19th Century America (YOUR (THE Sarah Girmke’s “Letters on the Equality of Sexes and the Condition of Woman”, Catherine E. Beecher’s “The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women” and the Declaration of Sentiments are interesting primary sources about the feminist movements in the early 19th century America. These documents are considered today as important basis for the shaping of early liberal and progressive movements in the American society directly after the establishment of American independence. It gives insights to what the American society was after the notion of democracy had ruled over the people and how some fought in order to supress the emergent gender and racial inequality that had been prevalent at the turn of the early 19th century.1 Girmke can be seen as one of the pioneers of liberalism in America. She was a staunch defender of the true message and essence of the Declaration of Independence. As others saw the independence movement as the liberation of the American people from the colonial government and the dominion of great American men in shaping the nation’s early history, women activists such as Girmke were critiques of men’s monopoly over the political affairs of the country. She published her letters in 1838 during the administration of President Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. The historical context of her letters was indeed important because the existing federal government supported the policy of slavery in the southern states. Girmke’s letters, in line with the liberal principles of the Abolitionist movements, were justifiable as women were looked down upon not only in terms of political field but also in the society. The collection of Girmke’s letters was addressed to the president of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Mary S. Parker. In this respect, the prominent activist was addressing her concerns to the whole women population of the American nation who, like her, experienced discrimination and oppression based on gender biases.2 In her first letter to Parker entitled “The Original Equality of Woman”, she admits that according to the Bible God (Jehovah addressed in her letters) created man as the resident and caretaker of His Paradise. This means that man is superior to all living things including animals, plants and others that dwell in the world. However, the Scriptures tell that the opposite sex is not an inferior being to man. God created woman second to man in this chronological order alone, but never second in God’s favour. Girmke goes on by citing Biblical stories to defend her thesis. She retells the case of Adam and Eve as her example. She argues that Adam and Eve fell into sin and damnation but never from equality. The author admits that it was woman who commits sin first and influences man into temptation by following her example of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Therefore, man and woman worked hand-in-hand in their decline from God’s Word. Inequality and bias towards men would only be justified if Adam had scolded Eve in her succumbing to temptation and ultimately if Adam had persuaded Eve to repent and ask God for forgiveness.3 In her second letter to Parker entitled “Woman Subject only to God”, Girmke deepens her argument not only with the illegitimate construct of man dominating the woman but also with the thought that woman was never subject to man’s obedience. She argues that before the establishment of a patriarchal society, the Scriptures themselves manifest that woman was created as an independent being, free from the clutches of men.4 Clearly, the examples of Girmke’s letters take evidence from the Scriptures which make her thesis more compelling due to the gravity of the Holy Word. She makes use of Biblical cases that clearly show that from the very beginning, there was no formal or official establishment of a patriarchal society. She makes it clear that God had created man and woman in equal terms and was supposed to treat one another as what had God willed for His creations to live a harmonious existence. She also makes it a point that man’s nature of competitiveness and his greed for dominion had formed this superiority complex amongst the women in their society. Ultimately, the patriarchal society and the notion of man over woman is simply his creation that has transcended over time. Another essay of Sarah Girmke’s contemporary shows a significant defense for the welfare of women during the early 19th century America. Catherine E. Beecher’s “The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women” deals not on the Biblical evidence but on the civil connotation of the equality of men and women. Related to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the famous Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she exposed the filth and injustice of gender inequality and its negative effects unto the people of the supposedly “civilized” society. The publication of Beecher’s writing in 1941 was during the consecutive administrations of two Whig presidents, William Harrison and John Tyler.5 Beecher’s defense on equality and the adherence to the idea of democracy which was the reason of America’s independence in 1775 was, indeed, justified by the political developments during most of the Tyler administration. This manifested with the establishment of several progressive political parties such as the Liberal Party (composed of Abolitionists), the Conscience Whigs, the Free Labor Democrats and the Free Soil Party. The proliferation of liberal groups was beneficial to Beecher’s campaign on women’s rights at that time. In fact, her article first states that it was inherent by God’s Law that men and women were created equal – on that stands consistent with Girmke’s defense on women’s equality. She also cites the Declaration of Independence of America that constituted a democratic institution upon a country where “all men were created equal” and the each are entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Hence, Beecher creates the assumption that the principles of democracy are the same as that of the principles of Christianity. She argues that in the society, there naturally exists the notion of ascendancy or the notion of inferiority and superiority in terms of duties. This is shown in the constructs of teacher and student, ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife and employer and employee. She says that the existing society could not go on harmoniously without the utter identification which task should take the superior or the inferior roles.6 It was made clear by Beecher that although inferiority and superiority in respective tasks and roles may exist in the society, this does not justify the idea of subordination of one being under the other. It does not allow the creation of a woman being subjugated under man’s prowess in terms of their respective capabilities in the society. She states in her essay that women have freewill and they are free to choose whether or not to obey their husbands; they are also free to choose superior or inferior roles in the society. Beecher argues that democracy is rightfully fulfilled when the masses that recognize it are duly educated and morally upright. Conversely, if the masses that experience democracy are illiterate and immoral, then democracy becomes a tool for usurpation and corruption. Beecher associates the moulding of the masses into the right type of intellectual and moral group of people to the basic construct of the society – the family. Every individual, hence, is honed by the master of the household, not the father but rather the mother – the one who teaches her child how to act accordingly, how to become a civilized individual of the society and how to grow into independence once in the state of maturity. It is in this context that Beecher strengthens her argument that the propagation of a democratic nation, which is the US, is in the bonds of womanhood.7 As Beecher’s article tells about the role of women in the society and the importance of equality to justify the creation of American democracy, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott’s leadership in the first Women’s Rights Conference in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 opened the offensive against discrimination and the outright condemnation of inequality in the American society through the signing of the Declaration of Sentiments. Signed by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men, the Declaration of Sentiments was greatly patterned after the Declaration of Independence. The contents of the document highly resemble that of the structure of the Declaration of Independence. It replaces the role of the despotic British colonial empire with the despotism of inequality happening to women at that time. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Sentiments deems it appropriate for women and sympathetic men to commit treason and insubordination in order to end the gender discrimination which exists amidst the supposed establishment of democracy in the American nation.8 Unlike Girmke and Beecher’s documents, the Declaration of Sentiments directly attacks the staunch defenders of the patriarchal society. It outlines the deprivation of suffrage from women which makes her indispensible in the important political and social affairs of the nation. The document suggests that women are forcibly subjugated unto the laws of the society created by men and men alone. Hence, the voices of women’s needs and concerns are deliberately silenced in the American legislation due to the indifference in women’s political representation and the unjust underestimation of her possible contributions to the nation’s political affairs. The Declaration of Sentiments goes further by exploring the dire state of womanhood once bound into the covenant of marriage. It states that the woman is civilly dead once married and that she is forever a servant to her husband, her master. Also, the document condemns the inequality given to women in terms of denying her the proper wages, the equal opportunity in professional jobs, the rightful access to education and the chance for a deeper service in the Church.9 The Declaration of Sentiments is an important historical artifact because it calls all women activists of the early 19th century to be aware of the realities of their time and prepares them for a possibility of breaking away from a state or a government that they find despotic and harmful to their democratic rights. Unlike those documents that have been examined, this declaration was a unanimous consensus of a large group of women and men who find gender discrimination as a distortion of the true essence of freedom that the Americans had fought for since 1775. Bibliography Beecher, Catherine E. “The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women”, Reforming America. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2009. Girmke, Sarah. “Letters on the Equality of Sexes and the Condition of Woman”, Reforming America. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2009. Rothman, Joshua. Reforming America. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2009. “The Declaration of Sentiments”, Reforming America. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2009. Read More