It Bends Toward Justice: Lucretia Mott and the Women We Owe

The mere fact that I can work, earn money, own property, travel alone, rent a car, secure a loan, choose my relationships, and control my reproductive health—all of this is due to the efforts of women who fought for justice over the past five generations. I don’t take these freedoms for granted.

Dear Rosies,

As we approach Election Day in the United States, I want to share an excerpt from chapter from my 2018 book, Bending the Bow, on the pioneering activist Lucretia Mott. I’m sharing this now to emphasize the ongoing importance of respecting the dynamic tension between the status quo and the future we are collectively working toward.

Our participation is crucial in bringing this future to life—a vision born from love for a more just, equitable, locally engaged, and participatory world. Maybe we can all get together and have a H.U.G.E. party: Humanitarian, Unified, Green, and Equitable- and stop the suffering.

Thank you for voting, serving, and advocating for women—and for building upon the history that Lucretia and her allies worked so hard to create.

With gratitude,

Christine

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Intro to "I Am More than My Gender"

 I grew up in a family that biased the masculine. My lovely mother, despite her talents in languages and music, was a bit scattered. She left when I was eight and later died in a violent crime. As a result, my father raised me through my formative years. He was an introverted, brilliant, and analytical man, and from him, I absorbed the belief that the logical, linear world of men was somehow superior, while the lateral, interconnected ways of the feminine were less desirable.

This was reinforced by the explicit message that working in an office, factory, or lab was more respectable than working in the home or community. A career grounded in hard numbers was viewed as better than one in the arts. I was encouraged to build credentials and personal habits that would allow me to thrive in a man's world. Yet, in society, I was simultaneously discouraged from pursuing math and science, overlooked for leadership roles, and rewarded primarily for my looks. It wasn’t until I joined Army ROTC that I discovered my potential as a leader, irrespective of gender.

By then, I had learned to "act like a man." This strategy has served me well: I have skills that are rewarded, and my financial capacity ensured that my children never went hungry.

But that wasn't just enabled by my progressive father, who believed his daughter could so worldly things, and do them well.  The mere fact that I can work, earn money, own property, travel alone, rent a car, secure a loan, choose my relationships, and control my reproductive health—all of this is due to the efforts of women who fought for justice over the past five generations. I don’t take these freedoms for granted.

Still, women have not yet achieved full parity—economically, politically, or professionally. Often, when women do attain power, they mirror patriarchal leadership styles, simply inhabiting a female body. I find it striking that so many female action heroes on screen now carry guns and exhibit ruthless traits; when did brutality become an aspirational quality for women? Despite our progress, we lack representative voices, and society isn’t structured to equally honor our values in a balanced way.

In the coming decades, I envision new models of economies and enterprises built on a more feminine, intergenerational, interconnected model of thriving—a more lateralist approach rather than one rooted in dominance. This emerging system will no longer be seen as "soft" or inferior to the male model; both will be equally valued.

If this vision materializes, it will, in a very real way, be thanks to pioneers like Lucretia Mott, a powerhouse of social activism who fought for both the abolition of slavery and women’s rights.

Chapter 3: Meet Lucretia Mott

Imagine you are a respected minister, educated and deeply involved in your church community, tirelessly advocating against slavery. You and a group of abolitionist friends, including your husband, cross the Atlantic ocean to attend a convention in London. When you arrive, the British clergy at the convention bar you from speaking, citing the Bible as justification. Not only are you silenced, but you are also restricted from meeting with British women abolitionists, for fear that you might disrupt the status quo.

This was the experience of Lucretia Mott. Denied a voice and vote simply because of her gender, she channeled her indignation into a fervent commitment to women’s rights. Her trip to England ignited her passion for gender equality. She wrote about this moment,“No man can fathom the depths of rebellion in a woman’s soul when insult is heaped upon her sex, and this is intensified when done under the hypocritical assumption of divine authority.”

In Britain, Lucretia met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Elizabeth later recalled: “When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had… I felt at once a newborn sense of dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly coming into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in the caves of the earth.” Together, they declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

Their partnership led to the organization of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, and they published an announcement in the Seneca County Courier five days before the event. Initially, the plan was to hold a women-only meeting on the first day, with a public meeting the following day. However, the turnout was so large that they had to lock the doors to prevent overcrowding. Eventually, a Yale professor was lifted through a window to unbar the doors and admit the men and women waiting outside.

Elizabeth and Lucretia collaborated to revise the Declaration of Independence, creating what is now known as the Declaration of Sentiments. Lucretia’s was the first name to appear on this groundbreaking document. The convention faced fierce criticism, and their work became the subject of mockery and outrage across the country. Many women who had attended and signed the declaration eventually withdrew their support, fearing social backlash.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton later reflected in her autobiography, Eighty Years and More: “No words could express our astonishment… that what seemed to us so timely, so rational, and so sacred, should be a subject for sarcasm and ridicule… Our friends gave us the cold shoulder and felt themselves disgraced by the whole proceeding.”

As the abolitionist and women’s rights movements grew, resistance mounted. Tens of thousands would rally in opposition, with some fearing that freed slaves would drive down wages and threaten the working class. Lucretia Mott became a target for such hostility. Once, a mob came to burn her home, but they mistakenly set fire to a Black church and orphanage instead.”

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We share this today, prior to the 2024 elections in the United States. Please vote for women's ongoing bodily autonomy and equity, so that we may build a more just future for all beings.