Women's Speaking Justified

• Margaret Fell Fox published Women's Speaking Justified to defend woman's right to preach.
• It was one of the major justifications for equal rights for women in the 17th century (Margaret Askew Fell Fox).

"God manifests himself without respect to persons" (Margaret Olofson Thickstun, Writing the Spirit).

• This is the Quaker belief that Margaret Fell Fox created her argument from in Women's Speaking Justified.

"Thus much may prove that the Church of Christ is a women, and those that speak against the women's speaking, speak against  the Church of Christ, and the Seed of the Woman, which Seed is Christ; that is to say, Those that speak against the Power of the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord speaking in a Woman, simple by reason of her Sex, or because she is a woman, not regarding the Seed, the Spirit, and Power that speaks in her; such speaks against Christ, and his Church, and are the Seed of the Serpent, wherein lodgeth the enmity" (Demaria. Margaret Fell Fox, Women's Speaking Justified).

• This passage is from Margaret Fell Fox's, Women's Speaking Justified. What Margaret Fell Fox is saying in this passage is that by speaking against women, you are speaking against the Church of Christ as well. Also, she says that those speak against women's position in the Church and the Church of Christ are portrayed as people who are going against God and are destroying the works of the Church.

(http://www.pioneertelephonecoop.com/~mchumor/religion_Adam_cartoons.html)

• One of Margaret Fell Fox's main arguments in Women's Speaking Justified  evolves around the story of Adam and Eve. People have taken this passage in the past and used it to show a women's weakness. Margaret shows that it was not just Eve that sinned, as Adam ate the apple as well. When reading Women’s Speaking Justified, it may seem like Margaret Fell Fox is taking a women’s position, but when you think about her background of being a Quaker, which stands for equality in gender and society, her pamphlet demonstrates equality. Men in the Bible have always been seen as authoritative, and through Margaret Fell Fox's writing, she is showing that  women are equally strong and spiritual. She goes on to tell that in significant aspects of Jesus' life, women were always present. For example, when Jesus rose from the dead and when Jesus was on the cross, they wept for him.

"Unlike other seventeenth-century women prophets, Fell appears confident not simply of her spiritual equality with men but of her natural equality, expressing no discomfort about her teaching with authority on religious matters" (Margaret Olofson Thickstun, Writing the Spirit). 

• This confidence comes from the authority role she took in the Quaker community.