A History of Contention:Analyzing Parallels in the Rhetoric of the Religious Right
One hundred and fifty-six years ago, in 1848, when the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in the quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, the concept that women were entitled to fully enfranchised citizenship was a completely foreign concept. Ideas expressed and rights demanded at that convention, and at early feminist conventions organized throughout the next seventy years, were considered ridiculous. Suffrage rights, divorce rights, women’s property rights, and married women’s right to sign legal contracts, control income, or have legal guardianship of their children—or themselves, for that matter—were reacted to with indifference at best. Surprisingly, one of the most vocal opponents of women’s rights was the conservative Church, who argued that women’s place, according to Scripture, was in the domestic sphere; to intrude into the public sphere was to violate her natural role and endanger her mortal soul. However, religious conservatives’ defense of Biblical traditions did not end with women’s rights: if we look at the some of the most contentious social issues of the past and present, some interesting parallels exist between the terms used by fundamentalist Christians to resist women’s rights, abolition, abortion rights, and gay marriage. In each of these debates, the religious conservatives used Scriptural notions of what is “natural” to resist liberal social reform.
The Religious Right and its devotees had been the primary protesters of women’s suffrage since the conception of the movement. Biblically, they argued, women’s roles have been established as subservient to man, second-class; their God-given role is to be dependent, weak, diminutive, and obedient. The Reverend J. G. Holland asserted that woman “was called into being for man's happiness and interest — his helpmeet — to wait and watch his movements, to second his endeavors, to fight the hard battle of life behind him.” Women were not to be trusted with important moral duties, due to the weakness inherent in their sex. For instance, through the story of Eve’s fall, Christianity has been founded on the doctrine that woman is weak and the source of human evil. According to the Church women were neither supposed to take such an active civil role as suffrage would promote, nor were they capable enough to partake in such a privileged and essential civic duty: what did—indeed what should—God-abiding women know about politics?
It was on this religious basis that many women were actually opposed to women’s rights.
However, the writers of the Constitution had omitted women in that pivotal statement which left women to be denied these “unalienable” rights given to every countryman. Gaining the support of many, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement declared at Seneca Falls that women had the same rights as men including the right to vote and be a part of government. The Women’s Rights movement gained support due to the years of abuse women endured. For years, men had “the power to chastise and imprison his wife…” and they were tired of suffering (Doc I). The new concept of the cult of domesticity supported women’s roles in society but created greater divisions between men and women.
Since the beginning of the 17th-century and earlier, there has always been different perspectives on women 's rights. Men and women all over the world have voiced their opinion and position in regard to the rights of women. This holds especially true in the United States during the 18th and 19th century. As women campaigned for equality, there were some who opposed this idea. There was, and always will be a series of arguments on behalf of women 's rights. Anti-women 's rights activists such as Dr. John Todd and Pro-women 's rights activist Gail Hamilton argued intelligently and tactfully on the topic. There were many key arguments made against women’s rights by Dr. John Todd, and Gail Hamilton 's rebuttal was graceful and on par with her male counterpart. Let 's examine some of Dr. John 's arguments against women 's equality.
Hip-Hop became characterized by an aggressive tone marked by graphic descriptions of the harshness and diversity of inner-city life. Primarily a medium of popular entertainment, hip-hop also conveys the more serious voices of youth in the black community. Though the approaches of rappers became more varied in the latter half of the 1980s, message hip-hop remained a viable form for addressing the problems faced by the black community and means to solve those problems. The voices of "message" hip...
Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.
...ming harder and harder to repress. When he sees Faye sleeping with another man, he packs his bags and decides to move back to Iowa. He sits down at the bus stop, when Adoré , a boy child-star, throws a rock at his head. This is when Homer finally reaches his breaking point. He reacts by knocking the child down and stomping on him repeatedly. Nathanael West uses Homer in his novel as an everyman. West emphasizes that not all inhabitants of Hollywood lead glamorous lifestyles. Most have lives similar to those of everybody else.
Some women also used religion to justify the rights of women and equality. In, “The Former Slave Sojourner Truth Link Women’s Rights to Antislavery, 1851,” Sojourner said:
By using ad hominem, Sanger labels her critics as conservatives who base their reasoning through scripture, rather than scientific knowledge, which subsequently makes their argument irrelevant and biased. She challenges her conservative opposition by discreetly titling them as sexists who purposely keep women “ignorant” and oppose any improvement women fight for. When women “fought for higher education” opponents believed they would lose their “sanctity”. When women desired to join the business sector, opponents concluded that intermixing of genders would poison the purity of women. Anytime they wanted to advance their state of being, religious fundamentalists would argue that a woman’s place was in the home, and that anything further would dilute her chastity. Sanger is intentionall...
Church-state relations in America has been widely discussed and hotly debated. One school of thought holds that the church should be absolutely separated from the state, while another holds that the church plays a moral role in state building and its sanctity, without which the state risks falling apart. In my discussion of the church-state relations, I state that the history of church-state relations has a Constitutional basis. Next, I discuss the two schools of thought in context and how they have shaped contemporary American political thought. Finally, I argue that the two schools of thought have a common ground. This is followed by a summary of my key arguments and a conclusion to my essay.
Women spent majority of their day ironing, washing clothes, baking, sewing clothes and raising their children (page 17). Religion also added to women’s lesser status (page 18). Religion was at the core life of Americans, female submission was decreed to be part of God’s order (page 18). Lucretia Mott soon pointed out that many scriptures celebrated female strength and independence (page 18). As a young girl Elizabeth Cady Stanton learned about laws that limited rights of wives and as an adult found ways to reform marriage and divorce laws (page 23). Things were looking up for women, by 1850 female wage workers made up nearly a quarter of the manufacturing labor work force (page 30). Women were still excluded from occupations such as the military, ministry, law, medicine and jobs felt inappropriate for women (page 32). During this antebellum period women were starting to rise up and realize they deserved to have the same rights and privileges men received. This gave women hope that things could change. By the second quarter of the 19th century few positive changes for women pushed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B Anthony, Lucy Stone and others to challenge injustices and reform efforts (page
My music culture will be covering the hip-hop culture here in Los Angeles. Hip-hop originated around the late 60’s and stormed the nation with its catchy beats and the ability to creates new dances with it. Although it is agreed that hip hop was given its name in New York, some say a culture that closely mirrored the East Coast hip-hop culture had emerged in the West, existing from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area during the same period. The culture is widely believed to have been a mutual creation which evolved from interaction between people who identified with elements from their respective coasts. Hip hop style was invented and presented because of the fame of block parties in New York which was highly needed by the public, to listen to music in order to relax their minds..
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for expressing the struggles of life amidst the prevailing crime and violence as well as an enjoyable and cheap form of recreation.
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
Hip hop has multiple branches of style and is a culture of these. This essay will examine Hip Hop from the point of view of the following three popular music scholars, Johnson, Jeffries and Smitherman. It will delve deeper into their understanding of what hip hop is and its relation to the different people that identify with its message and contents. It will also identify the history of Hip hop and its transition into popular music. In particular this essay will focus on what hip hop represents in the black community and how it can be used as a social movement against inequalities faced by them. This will then open up the discussion for the how this has influenced society, and the impact it has had in terms of race issues which hip hop itself often represents through music.
Women of these times were obviously not equal to their male counterparts. In modern days however, women are thought of as equals in society. The problem is that they are still not being treated as equals in a religious aspect as well as many other aspects. Elizabeth A. Johnson draws attention to how, despite being considered equal in Genesis, women had their worth ignored “Consistently subordinated and demeaned in the theories, symbols, rituals, A large wave of pro women thinking has arisen in the form of feminist theology. This line of thought draws from Genesis and the idea that men and women were created equally.
The cultural theory helps expand the knowledge of “hip hop” as an idea and influence on society. Mark Anthony Neal discusses the development of the understanding of hip hop by dissecting the layers and complexities of the culture, “Hip-hop music and culture emerged as a narrative and stylistic distillation of African-American youth sensibilities in the late 1970s,” within What the Music Said (Woldu 18). Urban history is a large, yet vital characteristic throughout the study of hip hop and its progression; Russell Potter shows how critical the representation of black musical expression and the “history of vernacular speech” is for the hip hop community in his book, Spectacular Vernaculars (Woldu 19). As decades pass and the hip hop scene expands, the history of this culture becomes influenced by more historical movements and creations. However, that is not the only historical significance that runs deep within the hip hop culture. The history and influence of the black feminist movement within the hip hop scene became a demanding characteristic in the development of the hip hop culture. As the gender divide became an evident aspect through the hip hop generation, women, especially female rappers,