The Cult of True Womanhood redeployed subordinating metaphors to justify women’s education

Evidence

Authorized by the aforementioned political, social, and economic shifts, a discourse on “motherlove and domestic reform” began to accentuate the differences between men’s and women’s worlds, heralding a “female sphere as an ‘oasis’ of virtue, peace and moral salvation” (Martusewicz, 1994, p. 171). If men’s roles were shifting into a sphere of business and commerce, women were to become Republican Mothers, explicitly responsible for domestic peace and the care of her family. Without actually denying paternal authority, new knowledge about womanhood, attributed and functioning as “God’s truth,” was created using existing dualistic metaphors, and assigning to women, especially mothers, the role of preparing the nations’ future citizenry. This movement became known as the Cult of True Womanhood. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 704

Categorization

• XREF: Strongly parallels the ADDENDUM article on ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ where subordinated groups redeploy dominant discourse — mutual reinforcement of the polyad’s storytelling thread. — connects to: Early women’s education advocates kept reason masculine and only expanded the feminine sphere — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 708; The cult of true womanhood demoralized enslaved women and enabled manipulation — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 157

Broader Connections

• The cult of true womanhood demoralized enslaved women and enabled manipulation #expands (0.75) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 157