As is well known, these three good friends supported each other in their fight for equal rights for African Americans and women. Fredrick Douglass and His Proverbial Rhetoric for Civil Rights (2001) more then a decade ago. I still remember how I had come across the two ladies, as I like to call them, while I was working on my book “No Struggle, No Progress”. After all, I felt like singing along with the “Ode to Joy” performed by the chorus of the New York Philharmonic upon the completion of a scholarly journey that had lasted several years. It will remain an unforgettable coincidence for me that my local classical music station was playing Beethoven’s ninth symphony on November 2, 2013, as I was writing the final sentences of the manuscript on the proverbial rhetoric of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. The Golden Rule as the Philosophical Foundation of Equality “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” The Struggle Against the Proverbial Misogyny of the Bibleġ0. “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”Ī Call for Politics Based on the Consent of the GovernedĮducational and Professional Justice for Liberated Women Women’s Rights and the Declaration of Independenceħ. Proverbial Quotations in Pointed Sociopolitical Writings “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”įolk Proverbs in the Speeches for Equal Rights for Women The Letters as Proverbial Signs of Untiring EngagementĤ. “It is a herculean job-but we propose to compass it” The Proverbial Partnership of Two Liberated Work-Horsesģ. “We were in every way suited to be yoke-fellows” The Multifaceted Rhetoric of the Women’s Rights MovementĢ.“These are the times that try women’s souls” Both parts together tell the story of Stanton’s and Anthony’s lives and work by way of enlightening proverbial paragraphs dealing with women’s rights. These interpretive chapters are followed by a large index of proverbs and proverbial expressions that are listed in their rhetorical contexts with precise information as to their source and date. A final chapter looks at how the Biblical proverb «Do unto others as you would have them do unto you» became a powerful verbal tool to justify their rightful call for equal rights for women. It also looks at how proverbs in their traditional wording or as innovatively changed pieces of wisdom were used to argue both for equal pay and education of women and to overcome the misogyny of the established church. All Men and Women Are Created Equal investigates the use and function of this proverbial language in their personal relationship and their vast correspondence, the appearance of the proverbial rhetoric in their many speeches and essays, and their innovative employment of proverbial quotations from such documents as the Declaration of Independence to further their cause. ![]() Anthony (1820–1906) reveals that these two nineteenth-century feminists relied on Biblical and folk proverbs to make their relentless case for the equality of men and women before the law and in social interaction. Even a cursory glance at the letters, speeches, and essays of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) and Susan B. Galatians 3:28 doesn’t say that there is no Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female because we are all equal, but because we “are all one in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 3:11 doesn’t talk about equality between barbarians and Scythians, but rather asserts that “Christ is all, and is in all.” Ephesians 3:6 doesn’t say that Gentiles are now equal with Jews, but rather that we are now “heirs together.” Ephesians 6:9 doesn’t talk about equality between slaves and masters, but rather that both have the same Master. Most of the famous “equality” passages use quite different language. In 2 Corinthians 8:13–14, Paul urges the church in Corinth to give generously to the Jerusalem church, “that there might be equality.” And in Colossians 4:1, he tells masters to grant their slaves “what is right and fair.” Two New Testament texts explicitly mention isotēs, the Greek word for equality, proportionality, or fairness. ![]() ![]() Thankfully, the New Testament presents a better, higher vision. And in any case, it’s become a blunderbuss word that means everything and nothing.”Ĭonsidering the history of the past 50 years, let alone the last 2,000, it might seem unwise to dismiss “equality” so casually. If you make all those passages about equality, you flatten their meaning. “The New Testament mentions equality once or twice, but when it comes to social relationships, it is far more interested in concepts like oneness, commonness, partnership, union, and joint-inheritance. An Anglican man rang me out of the blue the other day to ask if the New Testament teaches “equality.” “Not really,” I replied.
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