Susan B. Anthony- Social Purity and Women's Place

Susan B. Anthony, Social Purity and Women's Place

In a speech titled "Social Purity," Susan B. Anthony (7) stated that "the tap-root of our social problem lies deep down at the very foundations of society. It is women's dependence. It is women's subjection. Hence, the first and only efficient work must be to emancipate woman from her enslavement." In this speech, delivered in Chicago on March 14, 1875, Anthony (1) attacked a number of major social evils, including drunkenness, prostitution, gender inequality, the abuse of women by husbands and others, the abandonment of minor children by mothers who are unable to care for them, and the evils of syphilis.

The research question emerging from a close reading of Anthony's polemic is: to what extent did Anthony's emphasis on social corruption as the primary artifact of gender inequality establish an environment in which feminism found cause for activism? A related question is centered upon Anthony's (6) concern that men hold women to a higher code of morality that they themselves find necessary: should women abcept higher standards for "social purity" than men in the interests of furthering their own advancement?

These questions are significant in that as one considers the rhetoric of the early feminist movement in the United States, one must discern the degree to which even the most ardent feminists like Anthony accepted a gendered understanding of women's role and proper "place." Whereas Anthony (5) ca

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rdalities as well. Contemporary feminist criticism, as described by Ginette Castro (28-29), departs from the early feminist attitudes of militants such as Angelina and Sarah Grimky and Susan B. Anthony by calling specifically for the reclaiming of myth, ideas, and gender itself and the opening of an equal dialogue between men and women in which women do not give ground on questions related to gender roles and "place." Moving from the glory and repression of a Susan B. Anthony to the contemporary era, Castro (36) calls for placing women's history under the sign of oppression and rejecting continued oppression by an affirmation of total independence. A feminist criticism of Anthony's concepts requires the recognition that in her time and place, the family was the main sphere of influence in which women could exercise some degree of power and authority (Rendel, 17). More recently, as Margherita Rendel (17) notes, feminism calls for a complete rejection of the civil death imposed on married women which was present in Anthony's time. Indeed, Rendel (20) departs from Anthony by arguing that "the social division of labor for raising the next generation is not inevitable." These issues will be discussed below. Findings of the

Category: History - S