The Woman's Bible

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 - October 26, 1902) was an American suffragist, activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Stanton was president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 until 1900. Stanton addressed various issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the health of the family, and birth control. She was also a great supporter of the temperance movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while women, black and white, were denied those same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization. Stanton died in 1902. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's writings include the Woman's Bible and her autobiography Eighty Years and More. Elizabeth's father was a slave owner, prominent attorney, Congressman and judge who exposed his daughter to the study of law and other so-called male domains early in her life. This exposure ignited a fire within Elizabeth to remedy laws unjust to women.When Elizabeth graduated from Johnstown Academy at age 16, women couldn't enroll in college, so she proceeded to Troy Female Seminary instead. There she experienced preaching of hellfire and damnation to such a degree that she had a breakdown. The experience left her with a negative view of organized religion that followed her the rest of her life.Stanton helped write the Declaration of Sentiments, a document modeled after the Declaration of Independence that laid out what the rights of American women should be and compared the women's rights struggle to the Founding Fathers' fight for independence from the British.The Declaration of Sentiments offered examples of how men oppressed women such as: preventing them from owning land or earning wagespreventing them from votingcompelling them to submit to laws created without their representationgiving men authority in divorce and child custody proceedings and decisionspreventing them from gaining a college educationpreventing them from participating in most public church affairssubjecting them to a different moral code than menaiming to make them dependent and submissive to menStanton read the Declaration of Sentiments at the convention and proposed women be given the right to vote, among other things. Sixty-eight women and 32 men signed the document-including prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass-but many withdrew their support later when it came under public scrutiny.In 1851, she met feminist Quaker and social reformer Susan B. Anthony. The two women could not have been more different, yet they became fast friends and co-campaigners for the temperance movement and then for the suffrage movement and for women's rights.As a busy homemaker and mother, Stanton had much less time than the unmarried Anthony to travel the lFeminist theology, feminist Biblical criticism, and interpretation is not new, it has been around as long as women have been around. If you are interested in the people who fought for the women's vote, it is imperative to read books written by early feminists, books by the first suffragists, and especially early Bible commentaries by women. For its rich historical perspective, this book belongs on the shelf of all those interested in Feminist theology and Biblical History. For a more scholarly and thorough commentary of the Bible from a woman's perspective, don't miss the newest version of the Women's Bible Commentary (2012) by Newsom, Ringe, and Lapsley. For more info consult the source of much of this bio at: https: //www.history.com/topics/womens-history/elizabeth-cady-stanton