Women's Rights in Pre-Revolutionary America

“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” Abigail Adams wrote the above in a letter to her husband, John Adams in 1776. Abigail Adams was an extremely opinionated feminist who clearly wanted more rights for women. Women during this time period had very limited rights and had to act in a servile manner to their husbands. What Abigail Adams believed was revolutionary and was something that was looked down upon during her time. The misogynistic idea of women being beneath men was prevalent more than a century before Abigail Adams, in the times of Puritan America. When we read John Winthrop’s speech on liberty in American Literature, I was able to see that women had very few rights. John Winthrop’s speech made it clear that oppression towards women was not only okay, but was something with which women had to agree. Furthermore, he talked about how the husband is allowed to yell at, scold, and even hit his wife when he feels like and made this viewpoint seem so casual and commonplace. These two passages we read in American Literature and American Studies have shown me how far back the ideas of misogyny and patriarchy go.  I noticed this connection between American Studies and American Literature because my Puritan ideals essay is about patriarchy and oppression of women. In fact, this leads me to wonder why women were considered beneath men in the first place? What did we, women, do to deserve oppression?