Author : Evelyn A. Kirkley
Release : 2000
Genre : Religion
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Rational Mothers and Infidel Gentlemen - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Rational Mothers and Infidel Gentlemen write by Evelyn A. Kirkley. This book was released on 2000. Rational Mothers and Infidel Gentlemen available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Calling themselves "Freethinkers, " self-proclaimed liberals organized across the United States after the Civil War to oppose endorsement of Christianity as the national religion. Heralding a trinity of science, rationalism, and progress, these atheists and agnostics advocated the complete separation of church and state. They were self-conscious prototypes of the modern, secular American and counted among their numbers Robert G. Ingersoll, Francis E. Abbott, Moses Harman, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. What did they think about masculinity and femininity? In her book, Evelyn Kirkley argues that their understanding of gender was more complex, ranging from biological determinism to historic constructionism. Kirkley asserts that "Freethinkers" accepted, rejected, and synthesized late Victorian gender norms, struggling both to achieve social and political respect and remain faithful to their principles. Most intriguing, she concludes, is their debate over man- and womanhood, which was a precursor to the late twentieth-century gender controversy in the academy, another institution prizing science, rationalism, and progress.