Makalay Saidiatu

First Wave Feminism: On Religion and Feminism?
By Makalay Saidiatu Sonda

First wave feminism took its grand entrance in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. This era saw the fight for women’s elective franchise /the right for women to vote, the right to divorce, the right to education, women’s right to their children, etc. In a nutshell, the first wave of feminism was a movement to ensure women’s political, social, and cultural rights. Key feminist theorists shaped thoughts about women’s rights and discourses during this era. These are in the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, Flora Tristan, Christabel Pankhurst, etc.

Sojourner Truth is one feminist icon of the first wave who has given me streams of thoughts on religion and feminism. I used to think feminism and religion were two parallel lines- they never meet. Reading about Sojourner Truth and her speech ‘ Aint I a woman?’ opened my eyes to the fact that feminism and religion (i.e. Christianity) are not two extreme opposites, as many feminists, including myself, think. Religion is often seen by us feminists as part of the systems of oppression, as part of patriarchy. We believe religion subjugates women, which, of course, is a fact. However, Sojourner Truth gave us a new perspective on religion and feminism. In ‘Aint I a Woman?’ we see how she spoke about Jesus coming from a woman and God, with a man not having any role in it. This, I think, is a powerful invocation that helps command attention and self-reflection.

People attach strong relevance to their religiosity. Research has shown that religious affiliation and religiosity influence rape myth acceptance (Barnett et al. 2018). Therefore, I think that using religion in advancing the cause of feminism, just as Sojourner Truth did, will yield more benefit to the movement than alienating the two.

According to Smiet (2015), secular feminism is at loggerheads with unsecular feminism. Secular feminist theorists seem not to establish connections with feminist theologists even though feminist theologists use secular feminist theories to make sense of phenomena and advance feminist causes in ecclesiastical circles (Smiet 2015). In the 21st century, Sojourner Truth’s speech of 1851, I believe, not only lays the foundation for intersectionality in feminist discourses but has explicitly shown us how possible it is to have an intersection of religion, gender and feminism, which is quite interesting to study and make sense of and to be adequately used in advancing the feminist movement’s cause

Reference List:
Barnett, M.D., Sligar, K.B. and Wang, C.D.C. (2018) ‘Religious Affiliation, Religiosity, Gender, and Rape Myth Acceptance: Feminist Theory and Rape Culture’, Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(8)

Smiet, K.B. (2015) ‘Post/secular truths: Sojourner Truth and the intersections of gender, race, and religion’, The European journal of women’s studies, 22(1), 7-21