Quakerism, the Ancestor of Feminism
Though somewhat fractured, and certainly altered over its history, the Christian faith known as Quakerism, or the Society of Friends has some four hundred thousand members in eighty-seven countries (Friends World Committee for Consultation). The fundamental Quaker belief in the direct relationship with God of each person, through the Inner Light, unmediated by clergy or creed, sets it apart from the more circumscribed practices of other Christian faiths. Quakers believe that the presence of God is in everyone, regardless of gender. This androgyny also sets Quakers apart, historically, from the rest of Christendom and has established them as early feminists. From its inception, Quakerism has acknowledged the spiritual and ministerial equality between women and men. Many of the preachers and ministers instrumental in its growth were women, and these women, in preaching, became some of the very first vocal proponents of women’s rights. Through the practice of activism that is part of their faith, these Quaker women established an equal rights movement for women that continues into the twenty-first century. Modern feminism differs in perspective from historical feminism, but the tie that binds them together is their roots in religious belief, their roots in Quakerism.
In 1652 in northern England, George Fox established a system of meetings of the Society of Friends, also known today as Quakers, that is still a foundational practice. Others also felt the disenchantment with the theology and bible practices of Christianity (Johnston 210); by 1660 there were up to sixty thousand Friends (Vann). Because of the belief in a direct experience of God, Quakers felt that the clergy, claiming to be the voice of God, were dishonest; they refused to pay tithes to the Church for the benefit of clergy. This friction, coming right after the political conflict of civil war in England, culminated in the Pamphlet wars with the clergy, and ultimately with the persecution of Quakers for the latter half of the seventeenth century. Persecution forced many Quakers to the Americas where yearly Friends’ meetings were soon established in New England, Maryland, Virginia, Philadelphia, New York, and North Carolina (Vann). Soon after the persecution abated, a period known as Quietism, characterized by an extreme emphasis on the Inner Light, to the exclusion of all else, began, lasting into the nineteenth century (Vann). It was replaced by what is known as the Schism, a rift in beliefs between those who practiced more orthodox Quakerism, and those more leftist, modernists, whose spiritually adhered to Quietist practices, known as Hicksites.
George Fox had a spiritual counterpart named Margaret Fell, one of the earliest female preachers of Quaker theology. With the principle behind her that the Inner Light, and God, do not distinguish between the genders, Fell was active in the advocacy of women’s rights within religious faith. She was spurred by the experience that “Quakers who had attained a state of salvation or had acquired ‘the Inner Light’ sometimes spoke as though they had shed their gender altogether (Mack 464). “Feminine biblical criticism began with Margaret Fell” (Thickstun 269) in her 1666 treatise, Women’s Speaking Justified. In arguing that there is scriptural precedent for women’s right to preach, Fell foreshadowed many twentieth century feminist biblical scholars (Thickstun 269). In Women’s Speaking Justified, Fell empowered women with her rhetorical attacks on opponents and her message that the women who mourned Jesus at his tomb were scriptural evidence that “Christian witness requires women’s active participation” (Thickstun 278). Fell was not the only one interpreting the Pauline scriptures as they relate to female spirituality and ministry. Philosopher John Locke wrote Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul early in the eighteenth century. Locke’s interpretation of the Pauline scripture helped to legitimize Quaker feminist thought (Huff 36) because “someone of John Locke’s stature reaching conclusions compatible with Quaker doctrine added considerable weight to the Quaker defense of women in ministry” (Huff 31). Locke was a respected figure in intellectual and religious circles. Though he “extolled the virtues of women in spiritual and ministerial roles, he never endorsed Quakerism as a religious system” (Huff 28), yet he was still well respected by the Quaker community (Huff 29).
Early critics of slavery and prison reform – Fox wrote an “explicit critique of slavery” in 1671 (Mullett 30) – pacifism and social reform were fixed characteristics (Mullett 30). Quakers enjoyed more peaceful relations with the First Nations people of the Americas than fellow settlers did, becoming advocates for First Nations and immigrant rights (Greene 143). Quaker women would go on to play a significant role in the suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the most important figures in this early movement was Lucretia Mott. A lifelong Quaker, Mott was active in movements of abolition, temperance, protection of First Nations and immigrants, pacifism and anti-sectarianism (Greene 143). Like many other Quaker women, Mott’s commitment to and activism in women’s rights grew from her work in abolitionism. In fighting for the rights of an enslaved black nation, women encountered barriers to their own freedom. Freedom, she said, was only possible when “the individual was freed from customs, superstition and intolerance, from the physical shackles of the chain, from impoverishment and legal and social discrimination” (Greene 149). Through work in anti-slavery, Quaker women learned speaking and organizational skills that they were able to transfer to the feminist cause (Greene 143). They already had the visibility in activism. The positivity of being female was rooted in Mott’s Quaker traditions, and it was this that grounded her feminism (Greene 147).
Lucretia Mott longed “for the time when my sisters will rise, and occupy the sphere to which they are called by their high nature and destiny” (Mott 8). In so doing, “we should no longer find her a mere plaything of man, and a frivolous appendage of society” (Mott). That women were defined not as individuals, and by herself, but by society was at the root of their low place in the world, “woman needs to be taught to judge for herself” (Mott 122). Like Fell, Mott freely interpreted from St. Paul, attempting to redefine women in their own image. She disagreed with the Christian notion that human nature is depraved (Greene 150). Yet she insisted that women were in no way superior; the sexes were equal to each other, and of a spirit that could accommodate such reciprocity.
Mott wrote a speech in 1849 called Discourse on Women. In it, she recognizes that scripture was one of the most powerful weapons of subjugation, but she counters with the Quaker belief that though “the authors of the Scriptures are enlightened by communion with God, but not divinely inspired” (Mott 68). While Mott concedes the propriety of expecting equal opportunity between the sexes to succeed or fail, rise or fall, she makes it clear that she does not expect women to fail. Although there were attempts to oust her from Quakerism, and she was frustrated by intolerance of beliefs within the community (Greene 149), she has left a legacy for future feminists: “her rhetoric is instructive for modern feminists who face the task of uniting women with widely disparate cultural roots” (Cheree 85). Her audience came from a wide variety of backgrounds (Greene 149).
If it can be said that contemporary feminism has progressed beyond the scope of the religious, to the political arena and the social fabric of today’s world, it can equally be said that its roots lie in the work done early in the twentieth century. Without those early suffragettes, feminism in its present form would not exist. Perhaps today Quaker women have been left to fight secular war, and famine, and human rights violations, by a Me, Too world, there is still no doubt that they have achieved so much for women’s rights. From the earliest suffrage successes to the modern role women achieved during World War Two, when feminism had receded to the background, Quaker women continued to focus on women’s rights (Wilde and Hajer). But it is also true that Mott’s Discourse on Women places her “firmly in the tradition of modern feminism by concluding that she was successful because of her cultivation of a gender free persona and androgynous moral standard” (Wilde and Hajer). While it is true that Quakers were among the first group – in 1929 – to support birth control (Wilde and Hajer) and that of the five women who organized the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention, four were Quakers, it is also true that Mott assured society that women will not “fulfill less her domestic relations, as the faithful companion of her chosen husband , and the fitting mother of her children, because she has a right estimate of her position and her responsibilities” (Mott 68). The virtue inherent in religion chafed at the growth of women as individuals.
The foremost Quaker historian, William Braithwaite in The Second Period of Quakerism noted that the “equality of men and women in spiritual privilege and responsibility has always been one of the glories of Quakerism” (Huff 27). Although a divergence in women’s rights has occurred along a principled spiritual fault line, it is worth contemplating and remembering the role Quaker women once played in the struggle for equal rights in a broader society. Worth, too, discussing how integral they were to the modern feminist movement. Although the focus for Quakerism has always been spiritually based, for women there has also been a pragmatic engagement and struggle with a wider world that attends spiritual equality.
Quakers “have made disproportionate contributions to science, industry and especially in the Christian effort for social reform” (Vann). In the twentieth century, Quakers expanded to Africa and continental Europe (Vann) and were active in women’s suffrage, the American Civil Rights Movement, and were conscientious objectors in both World Wars (Vann). Friends have always been active ministers to refugees and victims of famine (Vann), performing relief work around the world. Ancestor to modern feminism remains one of Quakerism’s most important roles.
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