Women in Freethought
Presented by Lanette Grate, Freethinker
About the Speaker
About the Event
Announcements
Minutes for May 26, 1999; #47.
A discount available to us for Prometheus Books book orders was
mentioned. FAOWM can receive a 30% discount on 10 o more Prometheus
books ordered @ a time. If someone would like to coordinate book orders
for the group, let us know.
Also, if anyone would like to underwrite the cost of a 5 year
subscription to Free Inquiry magazine for their local library, this can
be done @ the discounted rate of 75.00.
It was announced that member Dirk Nebbeling (who moderated our last
meeting) just recently had heart bypass surgery.
There were several interesting excerpts from Free Thought Now!, issue
1.33, May 19, ‘99 that were included in the bulletin. One that was
particularly apropos for this meeting’s topic regarded the recent
Supreme Court decision in Zimbabwe which unanimously ruled that the
nature of African society dictated that women are not the equal to men
and that “women should never be considered adults within the family, but
only as a junior male or teenager.”
Presentation
The topic for this meeting was “Women in Freethought” and was moderated
by Lanette Grate, who referred to the book Women Without Superstition;
No Gods, No Masters. She also passed out copies of her own odyssey from
religion to freethought: “Some Free Thots of My Own” which also included
many powerful quotes by a number of women throughout history who thought
for themselves, broke with traditional (extremely limited) expectations
and roles assigned to them simply due to their sex. These included
authors and editors, women’s rights advocates, abolitionists, teachers,
suffragettes, attorneys, birth control advocates, Church and Sate
separationists, activists and skeptics.
It was mentioned how the Religionists of the 1830’s and ‘40’s expended
great effort to make this a “Christian Nation,” but like the “In God We
Trust” motto on currency and other intrusions and insertions into
secular society, these were additions or replacements, not the original
set-up in our country’s history.
We talked about the incredible bravery, resolve and conviction of the
early female freethinkers. The freethinker stance has always met with
resistance; those who have advocated for reform, for freedoms and for
breaking the bondage of the human mind by religious dogma were
historically subjected to defamation at best and horrors or death at
worst. Women, however, had the enormous additional burden of being
expected to be silent, passive, pretty baubles. To be outspoken on
controversial issues (or in general) was to de-sex, de-class, and make
these forerunners objects of extreme scorn and assault. To merely stand
up and speak in front of others was shocking and scandalous. It was
“unladylike” which was a far greater epithet than if hurled today.
Woe Unto Women; The Bible Tells Me So was another book brought up, with
the connection between fundamentalist religious belief and the debasing
of women discussed.
A female member of our group from India originally, spoke of two
versions of Hinduism, with one holding omen in high esteem, with the
idea of strength derived from the female, of conquering and powerful
goddesses. She said that even today there is a sense of power with the
woman in Indian society.
We also talked about the origin of the concept of the old crone and the
despised which. This was a wise woman who would heal people with herbs
and remedies when the care of the male “healers” was inadequate
(especially when derived from their invocation of a god through them to
cure). These women would often don black, cloaking, attire and be covert
in their activities. With the power being taken away from the men,
stories emerged, making them objects of fear and derision. Of course the
biblical commandment of suffering not a witch to live helped fuel the
pyres of agonizing death.
The early Christian deity Sophia was mentioned. Yahweh was regarded as
“her bastard son and a great disappointment.”
We discussed how women’s identities were historically completely
subsumed into the man’s, with no voice, no ownership- not even of her
own body- and no life outside the pleasure and comfort-giving to her man
and care of the children. Ella Gibson (1821-1901) wrote powerfully: “In
the Bible, woman is maligned, outraged, victimized, enslaved,
chattelized, polygamized, scourged, crushed, brutalized, and even denied
the right of immortality, her very name suppressed or merged within her
husband’s as unworthy of a place in history, her love trampled under
foot, her virginity despoiled, wifehood betrayed, her motherhood
prostituted. Yes, we charge all this and a thousand times more upon the
Bible and the Bible God or Bible-makers; woman being therein reviled and
held up as a contemptible thing, fit only to be used by man as a menial,
a toy, or a slave, as one of a numerous set of wives or concubines to be
discarded or be kept at will or pleasure- even the Bible God interfering
to fill up seraglios, steal wives, prostitute damsels and violate
matrons and mothers. Let us pause and estimate the value of such a book,
its animus and its results on humanity…”
The meeting took on an intense characteristic when a debate unfolded
regarding the ubiquity of unfairness to all people of all persuasions as
contrasted to the unique trials and challenges historically facing
women, especially those breaking out of societally- imposed strictures.
Due to this, much of the discussion on female freethinkers in history
remained unaddressed. Another member of our group volunteered to
moderate the July 14 meeting as a sort of a part 2 to this topic. This
date had recently become open.
“We must turn the tide of her [woman’s] enthusiasm from church to state,
arouse her patriotism; awaken her interest in great public questions, on
which depend the stability of the republic and the elevation of the
race, instead of wasting so much tiime and thought on the salvation of
her soul.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902).
