Judith Sargent Murray 's On The Equality Of The Sexes

Judith Sargent Murray was a revolutionary woman- born into a socially prominent and wealthy family during the start of the American Revolution, Murray was recognized for her intellect at a young age and given an education along with her brother. Later in life, she had her written works widely published and read during a time when women’s voices were seen as fundamentally inferior to those of men. In one of her most influential and strongly opinionated works, ‘On the Equality of the Sexes’, Murray makes a strong case for the spiritual and intellectual equality of men and women, arguing that women and men are born equal, but that men are simply given more education and

My experience, or “biography” with gender and gender inequality can be attributed to what C. Wright Mills’s calls “history”, or the social world. According to Mills, our individual lives interact with society to formulate our experiences. This perspective “enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (C. Wright Mills 3). As discussed in Module Twelve: Gender, Work, and Family, women and men are placed into two separate spheres; the private sphere and the public sphere. My life experiences relate to the private sphere, which is associated with femininity and domestic work. Society reserves the public sphere for men only, in which they are dominant and “breadwinners”. This is the sphere that I have been conditioned by society to not pursue.

During the Middle Ages, except for those in religious positions, women were only seen as three things, which were daughter, wife, and mother. But in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, new opportunities in learning humanism arose for only those in the higher class families. Even though they started to educate themselves, the majority had no rights whatsoever in money matters as well as estate. From the 17th century and up to the scientific revolution, women’s rights had consistently been improving. However, during the revolution, the study of the human body brought to attention that the male brain is quite larger than that of a female. This revelation set back the female race back to a limited role, but this time this setback was

In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.

Studying and academic pursuits were an important aspect means of gaining power in the public world. Women were not permitted to take the civil service examinations during the 18th century. However, women were not necessarily denied access to knowledge, to a large extent, they were educated. Many women were literate, and many women wrote poems and other literary works.

On the Equality of the Sexes Murray expresses her distaste in the way that women are looked at as incapable of doing basically anything. She was an advocate for woman’s equality, education, and also economic independence. She believed that women can be independent, women can be educated, and women can make their own decisions. Women aren’t as intellectually lacking as men would make them out to be in the 17 -1800’s. Which she proves by writing under the pen name Mr. Vigilius to get her readers to consider her ideals without dismissing them based off of her gender. Since women were not allowed a higher education they took on unappealing domestic roles. Which gave them no choice but to stick with the ‘needle and kitchen’. Since all weak, unscholarly women do what they do best, knit and cook.

“The subject of the Education of Women of the higher classes is one which has undergone singular fluctuations in public opinions” (Cobbe 79). Women have overcome tremendous obstacles throughout their lifetime, why should higher education stand in their way? In Frances Power Cobbe’s essay “The Education of Women,” she describes how poor women, single women, and childless wives, deserve to share a part of the human happiness. Women are in grave need of further improvements in their given condition. Cobbe suggests that a way to progress these improvements manifests in higher education, and that this will help further steps in advance. Cobbe goes on to say that the happiest home, most grateful husband, and the most devoted children came from a woman, Mary Sommerville, who surpassed men in science, and is still studying the wonders of God’s creations. Cobbe has many examples within her paper that shows the progression of women as a good thing, and how women still fulfill their duties despite the fact that they are educated. The acceptance of women will be allowed at the University of New England because women should be able to embrace their abilities and further their education for the benefit of their household, their lives, and their country.

Women have been continuously institutionalized through out history. For many years, they have been subjected to being labeled as less than. During the 1950's women were institutionalized because they were expected to remain a house wife, cook, clean, and reproduce. Some men and husbands are to blame for these ideologies of how women are suppose to carry themselves within the household. The third paragraph on page 63 because it talks about how "institutions assigns various roles to women and men and are also places of employment where people perform gendered work. I agree with this because I see this a lot in especially in Pre- Kindergarten through 8th grade. Women are "supposed" to play a role of a baby sitter and interact with adolescences

The 1870 Education Act highlighted inequality in the school system between genders not only in the class room but in the running of schools. This obviously led to a lot of change for the role and status of women in the 1870’s and early 20th century, including creating a political identity, proving women’s ability to work well in politics, and creating an educated generation ready for further radical change.

In the early nineteenth century, women were expected to be, “‘angels in the house,’ loving, self-sacrificing, and chaste wives, mothers and daughters or they are… ultimately doomed” (King et al. 23). Women of this time were supposed to be domestic creatures and not tap so far into their intellectual abilities (King et al.). The role of women in the nineteenth century is described:

Education was not equal between the sexes and neither between the classes. Gentlemen were educated at home until they were old enough to attend well-known or lesser schools. A lady’s schooling was

Feminism is an important social movement that works for the equality of people. One way to express any movement is through art. Judy Chicago and Staceyann Chin are two feminists that have made an impact with their art. Judy Chicago started art as a young age and cares deeply for the equality of people. She makes art to be put in galleries as well as making huge installations. Staceyann Chin is a spoken word poet that uses her words to promote the equality and women, particularly women of color, and the LGBTQ community. We look into what these women have done that has made them so influential and how they have impacted art with the feminist movement.

Women were encouraged to pursue an education in both the regency period and the 20th century. But the type of education encouraged for women in the regency period differs substantially from the kind offered in the 20th century as they were shaped through the respective contexts of their surroundings. This is evident when comparing Jane Austen’s 1813 Regency social satire Pride and Prejudice, and Fay Weldon’s 1984 postmodern epistolary work, Letters to Alice, as both texts manifest how changes in their social context have resulted in the altered position of the type of education encouraged for women, through the inclusion of different language features,

“A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792), “was written by British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be “companions” to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men”(# 2; genius). This philosophy was mostly resigned to the wealthy and (parochial) catholic educators who by 1870 had worked to make public education available to all children.

At a moment’s glance, Daniel’s Defoe’s 1719 publication “The Education of Women” looks to be quite progressive for the time period in which it was written. He makes a claim of policy, stating that women should be educated in order to better serve men as companions. It is his justification for his claim that falls flat when viewed under a modern lens – he cares little for the individual benefits a woman may receive from an education, instead focusing on how education will further their ability to please men. That said, Defoe does state that although they should be educated to better serve men, he does not believe they should “Stewards, Cooks, and Slaves.” He believes that “The great distinguishing difference… between men and women, is in their education”, and that women’s souls are “capable of the same accomplishments with men”. The mix of traditional and progressive views present in his essay, as well as the reasoning for such views, make the piece an interesting look into the social views of the Age of Enlightenment.