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

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a powerful writer who believed on the abolition of slavery and that women’s voice should be heard. Stanton, along with other members of the woman suffrage movement recognized how the Christian Church supported men’s oppressive behavior toward women. She realized that women’s position in the Church became so deteriorated that horrifying acts against women became justified and accepted by the public. “The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote these lines in the Woman’s Bible as a wake up call for women who were accepting and taking for granted their own value in the eyes of God.

Moreover, Stanton was aware that she was fighting against an institution that has taken away women’s rights from its sacred books and conveniently has created a patriarchal nation that was the setting for a perpetuate abuse against women’s rights. The words of Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth century Christian theologian, summarizes what the Church and society itself followed and still believed during the 19th century: “ woman was created to be man’s help meet, but her unique role is in conception…since for other purposes men would be better assisted by other men.” Cady Stanton revises the Bible in 1881, considering that this action was needed, since no women participa...

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... not acceptable according to the Christian Holy book. Therefore, solutions to women’s issues regarding men’s oppressive acts can be heard and God’s word would not be hold responsible for sexist behaviors that keep women into the darkness of silence.

References

Blaney, Mary. Role of Women in the Catholic Church. 14 April 2004. http://www.votf.org/papers/A WomansPlace.html

Trinity Stores: Icons and Art, Religious Gifts, Catholic & Christian Products. 14 April 2004.

http://www.trinitystores.com/main.php4?detail=39&artist=1

Women and the World. 14 April 2004. http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/demeier/women/women.html

Schools of 19th Century Christian Feminism. 14 April 2004. http://www.erasofelegance.com/gender2.html

Stanton, Cady Elizabeth. The Woman’s Bible. The Complete Text in Two Volumes 14 April 2004

http://www.undelete.org/library/library0041.html