On the Equality of the Sexes

"On the Equality of the Sexes", also known as "Essay: On the Equality of the Sexes",[1] is a 1790 essay by Judith Sargent Murray.[2][3] Murray wrote the work in 1770 but did not release it until April 1790, when she published it in two parts in two separate issues of Massachusetts Magazine.[4][5] The essay predated Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women which was published in 1792 and 1794,[6] and the work has been credited as being Murray's most important work.[7][8]

In this feminist essay, Murray posed the argument of spiritual and intellectual equality between men and women.[9] It also included a liberal analysis of traditional male superiority in the Bible and criticism of the deprivation of female education of the time.

  1. ^ Gardner, Jared (2012). The Rise and Fall of Early American Magazine Culture. University of Illinois Press. p. 115. ISBN 9780252036705. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  2. ^ Baker, Jennifer J. (2005). Securing the Commonwealth. JHU Press. pp. 146–147. ISBN 9780801879722. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  3. ^ Galewski, Elizabeth (2007). "The Strange Case for Women's Capacity to Reason: Judith Sargent Murray's Use of Irony in 'On the Equality of the Sexes'". Quarterly Journal of Speech. 93 (1): 84–108. doi:10.1080/00335630701326852. S2CID 143833177.
  4. ^ Villanueva Gardner, Catherine (2009). The A to Z of Feminist Philosophy. Scarecrow Press. p. 154. ISBN 9780810868397. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  5. ^ Sargent Murray, Judith (1789). On the equality of the sexes. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Co. OCLC 310335412 – via WorldCat.
  6. ^ Hughes, Mary (2011). "An Enlightened Woman: Judith Sargent Murray and the Call to Equality". Undergraduate Review. 7 (21). Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  7. ^ Hyser, Raymond; Arndt, j (2011). Voices of the American Past, Volume 1. Cengage Learning. p. 114. ISBN 9781111341244. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  8. ^ Eisenmann, Linda (1998). Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States. Greenwood. pp. 5, 282. ISBN 9780313293238.
  9. ^ Vietto, Angela (2006). Women and Authorship in Revolutionary America. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 56, 58. ISBN 9780754653387. Retrieved 25 November 2014.