Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the price of antireligious iconoclasm
This week marks the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which finally gave American women the right to vote. Signed into law on August 26, 1920, the amendment bears the name of Susan B. Anthony. It does not bear the name of her close friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who actually started the American women's rights movement with a convention in Seneca Falls, NY, in 1848.
Stanton and Anthony remained close throughout their lives, and both were agnostics. Both saw orthodox religion as a major source of women's oppression. The difference between them was that Stanton refused to stop talking about the importance of religion to the subordination of women and Anthony held her tongue for fear of driving away women of faith from the suffragist cause and offending religious men who had the power to continue to deny women the vote..........................
2 comments:
Yes, Stanton was the more radical of the two. She and Anthony were also lovers in a "Boston marriage," not just "close friends."
Really? When?
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