Women Without Superstition...No Gods...No Masters..."is
a very moving...educational and inspirational book. Ninety women
are portrayed...women who had virtually no status or respect as
individuals. And yet, what a tremendous difference they made in
the life of our nation as they challenged the Christian church,
the clergy and organized orthodox religion."
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Two women in the book are such inspiring examples
of courage...guts...intelligence and integrity.
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ELIZABETH CADY STANTON wrote "We need the courage
to go to the source and strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny,
religious superstition, priestly power and canon law. I can tell
you that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged
from the shadows and superstitions of the old theologies."
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She was the author of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing
women's right to vote. She was the first to call for women's suffrage
in the United States. She fought tirelessly to free women from legal
constraints and from the blight of religious superstition.
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Stanton wrote and said over and over again..."when
women understand that religion is a human invention...and that bibles...prayer
books...catechisms...and encyclical letters are all only emanations
from the brain of a man...they will no longer be oppressed by the
injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of "thus
saith the Lord."
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She said again and again in every way possible that
the bible has been used by men for the purpose of keeping women
in a state of subjection.
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Throughout her life, Elizabeth Cady Stanton suffered
abuses and humiliations, and yet she never faltered in her commitment
to truth and the emancipation of women, for humanity's sake.
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MARGARET SANGER wrote: "If Christianity turned the
clock of general progress back a thousand years, it turned back
the clock two thousand years for women. Its greatest outrage upon
her was to forbid her to control the function of motherhood under
any circumstances...thus limiting her life's work to bringing forth
and rearing children. Coincidental with this...the churchmen deprived
her of her place in and before the courts...in the schools...in
art and society...."
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In 1914 she wrote "the first right of every child
is to be wanted. Over population is the root of the most serious
problems in the world." She was the first to use the phrase "birth
control" and she campaigned for "the right of every woman to total
sovereignty over her own person."
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No safe method of birth control was known in America
in 1912. Women were not only trapped into economic and social slavery,
they were also in biological slavery.
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The church hated her and the medical profession denounced
her. She was often jailed and once had to flown to England to avoid
a potential forty five year sentence.
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When the weight of governmental and clerical opinion
fell heavily upon her, Ghandi, who in his own country realized the
blight of overpopulation, came to her defense. So did Clarence Darrow
and H.G. Wells.
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One of the greatest tributes paid her or any historical
figure came from the pen of H.G. Wells who wrote:
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"Alexander the Great changed a few boundaries and
killed a few men. Both he and Napoleon were forced into fame by
circumstances outside of themselves and by currents of the time,
but Margaret Sanger made currents and circumstances. When the history
of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history
and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine."
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As we revere those whose lives stood for truth against
popular custom, political power and clerical arrogance and ignorance...we
must remember all of those women who stood boldly by their convictions
with their written and spoken words.
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The power of the written word! The immortality of
the written word. Great ideas are a force for change. There is an
immortality in that, as the great Roman and Greek thinkers 3000
years ago still remind us. "The spoken word perishes: the written
word remains.". Vox audit perit: litera scripta manet.
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It is through their written words that Stanton and
Sanger...Emerson...Jung...Jefferson and Madison...still today inspire...motivate...encourage...teach...awaken...stimulate...us
still...even more so than in their own time.
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Women Without Superstition...No Gods...No Masters...still
giants of today in our own time...and we stand on their shoulders
and carry their courage and their truth...onward.
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