Three women were at the heart of the women’s suffrage movement in the mid-1800s: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Who the heck is M. J. Gage? Well, without her The Wizard of Oz might never have been published. But more on that later.
At the conference Nancy & I attended last week in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York (An Esoteric Quest for Inner America: Exploring the History and Renewal of the American Soul (http://www.blogger.com/www.EsotericQuest.org), we heard a powerful lecture by Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., on the early feminist movement, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) in particular.
Both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage believed that religious doctrine is the basis of women’s subjugation. The Sin of Woman is the foundation of Christianity: If Eve had not laid lips on that apple there wouldn’t have been a need for a savior. America’s Founding Fathers adopted the Blackstone doctrine based on the Church of England canon law, which stated that a woman who marries loses her personhood and becomes property of the husband, giving divine sanction to men’s oppression of women.
Gage’s anti-religious radicalism, and that of the early suffragist movement, has been white-washed by historians who focus only on the work for voting rights. Later Gage broke with the mainstream women’s rights movement over the issue of religion. Her call for the dismantling of the Christian church is still radical—you do not hear many contemporary American academic or public figures talking about the need to do away with religion.
Gage’s more popular contribution to our culture was through her son-in-law L. Frank Baum. She encouraged him to publish his Oz chronicle. A slice of that story has become famous, but in the 14-book series, his vision of a matriarchal society based on social justice came directly from his mother-in-law.
Gage’s own book, Women, Church, and State (1893), was banned by the U.S. government. An analysis of the rise of patriarchy (including sexual abuse by priests), it is a clarion call for freedom from religious dogma. The opening of her book salutes the Native Indian culture from which we still have much to learn. More about that in the next entry!
Becky
At the conference Nancy & I attended last week in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York (An Esoteric Quest for Inner America: Exploring the History and Renewal of the American Soul (http://www.blogger.com/www.EsotericQuest.org), we heard a powerful lecture by Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., on the early feminist movement, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) in particular.
Both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage believed that religious doctrine is the basis of women’s subjugation. The Sin of Woman is the foundation of Christianity: If Eve had not laid lips on that apple there wouldn’t have been a need for a savior. America’s Founding Fathers adopted the Blackstone doctrine based on the Church of England canon law, which stated that a woman who marries loses her personhood and becomes property of the husband, giving divine sanction to men’s oppression of women.
Gage’s anti-religious radicalism, and that of the early suffragist movement, has been white-washed by historians who focus only on the work for voting rights. Later Gage broke with the mainstream women’s rights movement over the issue of religion. Her call for the dismantling of the Christian church is still radical—you do not hear many contemporary American academic or public figures talking about the need to do away with religion.
Gage’s more popular contribution to our culture was through her son-in-law L. Frank Baum. She encouraged him to publish his Oz chronicle. A slice of that story has become famous, but in the 14-book series, his vision of a matriarchal society based on social justice came directly from his mother-in-law.
Gage’s own book, Women, Church, and State (1893), was banned by the U.S. government. An analysis of the rise of patriarchy (including sexual abuse by priests), it is a clarion call for freedom from religious dogma. The opening of her book salutes the Native Indian culture from which we still have much to learn. More about that in the next entry!
Becky
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