Women's Movement and Reform

Temperance, care for the poor, and education, were the issues that became the basis for many “reform” movements in which women took the lead. In response to Angelina Grimke’s piece about women’s need to oppose slavery, Catherine Beecher accused Grimke of encouraging women to break out of their societal roles dictated for them by God, which included care of the household and subservience to their men. She was against other women’s ideas of fierce independence and strict equality in favor of respecting standard gender roles. “The moment that woman begins to feel the promptings of ambition, or the thirst for power … her aegis of defense is gone …” (Freedom 254). Women should be content and should seek counsel only within “the domestic and social circle” and not “out of her appropriate sphere” (Freedom 254). They should not participate in social debates and should “relinquish [their] opinion as to the evils or the benefits, the right or the wrong, of any principle or practice” (Freedom 256).

Grimke, in turn, responded that women were moral beings, and entitled to the same responsibilities and rights as men. “My doctrine then is, that whatever it is morally right for man to do, it is morally right for woman to do." (Freedom 258). She, too, used Christian beliefs to support her stance, though in a different approach than Beecher. In Christ, all beings were equal, she maintained, and it would be a “violation of human rights” (Freedom 260) for women to accept anything less.