Angelina Grimké's Response Essay

Gaining knowledge on the rights of slaves as individual humans gave the sisters insight and a desire to emphasize greater on the rights of women as a whole . Angelina Grimké addresses gender equality issues in 1837, proclaiming, “When I look at human beings as moral beings, all distinction in sex leads to insignificance and nothingness; for I believe it regulates rights and responsibilities no more than the color skin or the eyes. My doctrine then is, that whatever is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do “ (Voices of Freedom, p.247). This quote is Angelina Grimké’s response to Catharine Beecher’s claim of Grimké crossing boundaries of “the domestic and social sphere”(Give Me Liberty, p.457). Grimké breaks down the equality of women in relation to basic features of human individuals.

She continues, “Women instead of being regarded as the equal of man, has uniformly been looked down upon as his inferior , a mere gift to fill up the measure of his happiness. In poetry of “romantic gallantry”, it is true, she has been called the” last best gift of God to man;” but I believe I speak forth the words of truth and soberness when I affirm, that woman never was given to man. She was created, like him, in the image of God, and crowned with glory and honor; created only a little lower than the angels, - not, as is too generally presumed, a little lower than man;”(Voices of Freedom, p.248). Grimké challenges the common outlook of society on women in relation to men. She reevaluates the true value of a woman and how “she”, a woman, is not any less God given to a man than a man is God given to a woman. Grimké emphasizes the importance equal creation of