Philosopher views

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON POLITICIAL ACTIVIST 1815 - 1902

Download 5.81 Mb. Page 402/432 Date 28.05.2018 Size 5.81 Mb. #50717

Navigate this page:

• Women’s Liberation as a Basic American Value
• But Was She a Feminist

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON POLITICIAL ACTIVIST 1815 - 1902 Life and Work Elizabeth Cady was born in Johnstown, New York. Her grandfather had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and her parents were well-to-do and educated, but suffered from the patriarchal mindset which ruled the times. Nevertheless, the wealth and intelligence of her family allowed her to explore the various questions of life which finally convinced her that women should have the same moral consideration as men. There was nothing “radical” to her about the idea; it was a simple logical extenuation of the revolutionary philosophy from which America had been made. Listening to her father’s legal encounters and reading from the myriad of books in her family library, Elizabeth was to develop a keen understanding of the political and legal forces which blocked women from fulfilling their roles as citizens of a democratic republic. After graduating from Willard’s Troy Seminary, an intellectually progressive women’s academy, she married the abolitionist activist Henry Brewster Stanton in 1840. Their honeymoon was spent in London at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. A furious controversy broke out at the convention concerning the role of women in the organizations. The American group was progressive in its attitude toward women, while many other countries, including Britain, forbade women to hold high decisionmaking posts. Elizabeth Cady Stanton began to believe that no one group could truly be liberated unless they supported the liberation of everyone else. Shortly after this, she met Susan B. Anthony, the suffragette. Their friendship and collaboration would last into the next century and produce oratories of unprecedented articulation and compassion for women’s causes. Women’s Liberation as a Basic American Value Stanton’s philosophy of liberation can be categorized as follows: (1) an adherence to the natural rights philosophy of the Founding Fathers, (2) a recognition of the interconnectedness of all liberatory struggles, and (3) an appeal for women to be independent and self-sufficient. The first and third of these reflect her belief in the individualism of the predominant democratic thinkers of her time, while the second, rather than being collectivist in motivation, was simply the pragmatic recognition of political reality. Stanton saw the American Revolution as the historic fulfillment of natural law. Thinkers such as Locke and Jefferson believed that certain rights were inalienable simply by virtue of our humanity. But most male individualists failed to recognize that these rights were equally natural for women, as well as men and women of color. The “Slave Clause” of the original Constitution, along with its denial of the status of full citizenship to women, was to Stanton evidence of its incompleteness rather than an essential defect. At the 1848 Seneca Falls convention on women’s rights, Stanton wrote the organizations manifesto in a language similar to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” she wrote, “that all men and women are created equal.” The exclusion of women was for Stanton a major violation of natural law, since the masculine and the feminine were necessary for each other, as evidenced in all of nature. To bold one over the other was contrary to what she saw as the essential design of the Creator: absolute harmony in life. Because of this inclusiveness, Stanton saw how hypocritical it was to be in favor of, say, liberation of Blacks and not women, or vice versa. As a believer in natural law, she held that all people were fundamentally similar, with overlapping needs, desires, capacities and rights. All the major reformist movements of the time embraced the idea of “perfectionism,” the belief that progress and human ideals were divinely inspired to improve society. But they were also pragmatist, more concerned with what would “work” than with speculative moral philosophy. For any of them to succeed, it was essential to have the support of comrades in other movements. For Stanton, pragmatism and her belief in the fundamental worth of all humans combined to make her convinced that all fronts must be attacked. The key to any such liberation for Stanton was found in “self-sovereignty,” the belief that dependence upon others was a major source of oppression. Women and Blacks had been denied opportunities for education and skills and because of this they allowed themselves to be enslaved. Moreover, women who married were threatened with destitution should their husbands die, become ill, or divorce them. Under this constant threat, no one could even envision the possibility of freedom. A woman who has no marketable skills will stay with an abusive husband out of economic necessity. In any case, for women to define themselves only in relation to their “masters” was a denial of the divinely endowed attributes and talents possessed by all human beings. But Was She a Feminist? Stanton was very influential to the Suffrage movement which culminated in the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. But was she a “feminist” in the sense we know it today? Several points suggest against this, and even hint that her philosophy, while understandable in its time and context, is not compatible with the aims of feminism today. Contemporary feminists see the entire American system as being fundamentally masculine; the idea of a public life separated from the private concerns of men and women has allowed even the most progressive male thinkers to remain fundamentally chauvinist in their personal outlook. Simply giving women the same rights as men makes little sense when the entire system is flawed. America was founded on the twin ideas of the exploitation of labor and the exploitation of the natural environment, both of which, for contemporary feminists, reflect the male need to control and dominate. Stanton’s upper class background did not teach her about the destructive underside of American ideals. This paradox is also reflected in Stanton’s adherence to natural law and individual sovereignty. Contemporary feminist thinkers see both of these as masculine patterns of thought The idea that there is a set of universal dictums governing all human action is, they say, distinctively “male;” one tries to control the world by inventing universal controlling principles. Similarly, “self-sufficiency” is a male illusion which hides our underlying mutual dependence on each other. Most feminists are communalists rather than individualists, because they see the essence of the feminine as bridging gaps between people rather than separating everyone into their own private spheres. The contemporary feminist phrase “the personal is political” suggests that everything we do is both affected by and affects others. By simply seeking to move women into the same sphere as men, none of the fundamental problems of patriarchy can be solved. While this judgment may be valid, it may also be irrelevant in the case of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was, after all, a product of her times, when most women didn’t even realize they wanted rights at all. Through her efforts women were given, at the very least, a freedom of thought and discourse which made possible the same feminism which currently criticizes early reformers like Stanton. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends: