Susan B. Anthony, Social Purity and WomenÆs Place
In a speech titled ôSocial Purity,ö Susan B. Anthony (7) stated that ôthe tap-root of our social problem lies deep down at the very foundations of society. It is womenÆs dependence. It is womenÆs subjection. Hence, the first and only efficient work must be to emancipate woman from her enslavement.ö 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 AnthonyÆs polemic is: to what extent did AnthonyÆs 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 AnthonyÆs (6) concern that men hold women to a higher code of morality that they themselves find necessary: should women abcept higher standards for ôsocial purityö 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 womenÆs role and proper ôplace.ö Whereas Anthony (5) calls for true equality between men and women, she nevertheless seems to frame her discussion in the same terms of patriarchy and gender that is used by males who defined womenÆs ôplaceö largely within the context of motherhood and the home. Determining how Anthony uses feminism to reframe gender is therefore a rhetorical task of significance.
AnthonyÆs (1) ôsocial purityö speech begins with a direct attack on the evils of drunkenness and licen...