Question

On what did the grimke sisters base their argument for equal rights for women?

Answer 1

The Grimké sisters were among the first to connect race oppression to women’s oppression.

Sara related the subordination of slaves and women to educational deprivation, saying that both women and slaves had been considered mentally inferior while being denied the privileges of liberal education.  

After Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Angelina said that as women, "true we have not had our hands manacled, but our hearts have been crushed … I want to be identified with the negro; until he gets his rights, we shall never have ours”.

The sisters also stressed the sisterhood with Afroamerican women.

Answer 2

The Grimke sisters Sara and Angelina were from born in the southern state of South Carolina in the United Sates in 1782 and 1805, respectively. In that time the Southern states of the United States had black people as slaves, and the sisters were not in favor of it. The two sisters were very religious and eventually became Quakers and started to speak up against slavery and to support the abolition movement that looked to free the slaves. This support of the abolition cause caused them to be disliked in their native state and even some problems with members of the Quaker community. The sisters supported by the American Anti Slavery society started to speak to other women in gatherings and giving conferences in favor of the slave cause, which were eventually attended by both men and women. This made The General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts angry and they sent out a pastoral notice strongly denouncing women preachers and reformers in 1837. For this reason the sisters felt the need to begin to fight for equal rights for women. The action against women and the intention to limit and restrict their rights by these religious leaders was on what the sisters based their argument for women's equal rights.The sisters continued to give lectures on women's rights and were very popular in the north of the country. One of the sister's, Angelina, married an abolitionist man and all of them eventually moved to Boston in the northern state of Massachusetts were they lived for the rest of their lives.