Angelina Grimke Quotes
If we surrender the right to speak in public this year, we must surrender the right to petition next year, and the right to write the year after that ... What then can women do for the slave, when she herself is under the feet of man and shamed into silence?
Grimke was an amazing orator once speaking for 6 successive evenings at the Boston Opera House. Some male abolitionists suggested that she should not speak publicly because a female speaker might offend some in the audience.
Angelina Grimke, 1805-1879, Abolitionist & Suffragette, Quoted in Howard Zinn, 1922-2010, A People's History of the United States
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Stewart a Black, female journalist wrote at a pre Civil War time when most people were little interested in the writings of either Blacks or women.
There were no women’s shelters in the 19th century, and the police or sheriffs would not entertain a complaint from a wife for assault, sexual or otherwise. She compared the state of women to that of fugitive slaves a few decades earlier. Then there was the Underground Railroad and other institutions which would shelter and help the slaves. There was no such mechanism for women abused in their marriage.
The following year, women got the right to vote, the first nation to reach that level of enlightenment.
This is one of the biblical passages which cause some Christian Fundamentalists to prescribe a secondary and subjugated role for women. Also the view that women, like children, should be seen and not heard. Also it supports those who object to women in the ministry or the priesthood or in senior teaching positions. See {587063}. It is useful to note that much of Islam which preaches a similar view of females, probably learned it from Christianity which preceded Islam by almost 600 years.
Some Muslim women in Holland are virtual prisoners of their husbands and families. Many are beaten in conformity with a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran. Some are even killed. Under previous concepts of Dutch tolerance and respect for pluralism the Muslims in Holland were not interfered with. However, due to her efforts, the rights of the women are now taking a higher priority and are not being subjugated to tolerance of Islam generally.
Note, that like other feminist leaders of the time, she viewed the fetus as a person. However, between the economic pressures and the illegality of birth control devices and information provision, abortion was a critical decision that had to be faced by many women. Later, feminist leadership had to come to grips with the issue of who makes the decision in these areas, and placed the right of the woman to make these decisions, as opposed to husbands, fathers and government, as the highest priority. Then, when the drivers for abortion could not be eliminated, it was women who were criminalized. Feminists then fought for the right of abortion and the right of the woman to make decisions, but feminine leadership has never—in America—been advocates of abortion as opposed to the right of abortion, a subtlety that often is lost.
Women were not, in the decisions of Canadian courts “Persons.” As such they were not allowed to serve as public officials and legislators. In 1929 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed previous interpretations and declared women eligible for all public offices. It became known as “The Persons Case.”
Billinghurst was physically handicapped without the use of her legs. She protested and marched in protest parades using a hand propelled tricycle which the police sometimes dumped her out of and left her immobile in alleys.
Many leaders of nations are in denial about this problem which exists almost everywhere. In Israel, the problem is compounded because the very orthodox Jews and Muslims both come from a tradition where women are allocated a place subservient to men in many ways and to some (like some Christians) there is a perceived duty to discipline wives and daughters. So reform involves religious tradition and theology.
This was her last public speech.
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké are the only white Southern women who became abolitionists. The sisters lived together as adults, while Angelina was the wife of abolitionist leader Theodore Dwight Weld.
