Title:
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Infidel feminism : religion, secularism and women's rights in England 1803-1889
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This thesis is a study of the feminist dimension of Freethought in nineteenth-century
Britain, and the part played by freethinking critiques of Christianity in the Victorian
women's movement. `Infidel feminists' saw religion, specifically Christianity, as the root
of women's oppression and equated female emancipation with liberation from the bonds
of superstition. This distinctive brand of feminism was advocated by the Freethought
movement as part of its wider agenda to rid society of false and repressive belief-systems
through the critique of orthodox religion. Organised Freethought was home to a small
number of prominent female activists who developed and promoted this `Freethinking
feminism'. For these women the rejection of religion encouraged and shaped support for
women's rights. Freethinkers' commitment to moral autonomy, free speech and the
democratic dissemination of knowledge, their rejection of God-given notions of sexual
difference and their critique of the Christian institution of marriage, provided powerful
intellectual tools with which to challenge dominant and oppressive attitudes to
womanhood. Infidel feminists criticised, engaged with and contributed to the wider
women's movement. It is therefore argued that although nineteenth-century feminism
was predominantly Christian, it was built around religious controversy and contestation
rather than a unified adherence to a particular set of religious values.
The argument presented has important implications for existing
scholarship on both feminism and secularisation. It is the first in-depth study of
Freethinking feminism, which has been almost entirely neglected in histories of First
Wave feminism. A fuller understanding of the important role played by the `infidel
feminists' enables us to identify a more continuous feminist tradition throughout the
century, connecting the more `radical' Owenite feminists of the 1830s and 40s with the
more `respectable' post-1850 women's movement. By showing how Freethinking
feminism developed not only in opposition to, but also in dialogue with, Christian
debates on women, the thesis contributes to current rethinking of the `religious'/`secular',
distinction, demonstrating that these categories should be viewed as interdependent rather
than merely oppositional. As the thesis shows, the Christian faith, against which infidel feminists campaigned so vigorously, fundamentally structured their Secularist commitments.
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