Introduction

Judith Sargent Murray's essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” was originally written in 1770, when she was just 19 years old, but she did not release it until 1779 when it was published in two parts in Massachusetts Magazine. Then, in 1790, Murray published the essay as her writing career was more fully developing. Judith grew up in a fairly prestigious and “liberal” family in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but she was largely self-educated, as women were denied forms of higher education at the time. Her brother went to college—Judith could not—but she was encouraged to learn and read widely. As Sheila L. Kemp writes in her biography of Murray, the “superiority she [Murray] took for granted as a member of an elite New England family was undercut by a society that scarcely noticed, much less valued, the intellectual abilities of women” (11). Although Murray lived in a relatively small and local place, her reading and writing point to larger transatlantic literary and philosophical currents—of writing, readership, and debate—in this “Age of Enlightenment.” The title might lead us to assume that Judith Sargent Murray is an early American feminist. This is a fair and accurate claim. But first we could ask—what is a feminist or what might feminism mean? And more particularly, what might feminism mean at the time Murray is writing in the history of the United States? What can we pick up, just from Murray's text, to answer that question, at least partially. What we can also start to notice is that Murray's tone of voice has subtle shifts that might lead to very different interpretations. What is also interesting, though, is that close reading and analysis of this text might lead us to a very different or opposing question. We might be led to ask whether or not she is she a feminist at all, and if so, how or in what ways is this feminism similar to or different from what we think feminism means now or in more recent history? What is the overall effect or meaning of the essay, in sum, after we start to read for and notice some of the deep contradictions at work? How do we account for these contradictions in our understanding and where does that lead us in terms of what me might say about the overall effect or meaning of the essay—what's the takeaway? There are political or religious ideologies, and cultural formations, related to gender—then as well as now—that Murray can provoke us to think about. Some read Murray as quite conservative. Murray can be seen as re-inscribing or buying into into some of the stereotypes and constraints that she seems to be arguing against; while at other times, it is possible to read her (as I do) as quite radical in her conceptions of or questions about gender. It might sound very contemporary to current discussions going on now about gender rights. Murray is asking us to think about the relationships between the mind and the (gendered) body as it relates to or interacts with so many things—culture, religion, growing up in a family, variations in people and body types, education, and so much more. Depending on the ways or the context in which you read this essay, there are a lot of things you can “do” with “On the Equality of the Sexes.” Historians might not like it, but I think it is interesting to read Murray out of her historical context and think about her ideas next to something like the Equality Archive, which is a “multimodal encyclopedia of the history of sex and gender equality in the United States.” Much of the history on that website is from the second half of the twentieth century to now, but Murray is asking questions that we are still contending with—right now. But looking at Murray in relation to Equality Archive might force us to see certain limitations in Murray as well—perhaps about race and class, for example. What does “equality” mean for Murray? Who might or might not be included in the terms of Murray's argument? How might we even form a critique of Murray? But if we read closely, what is the form and logic of Murray's argument and what does she ask us to think about as evidence. What are her sources? If we read Murray in her historical moment, though, we can also think about her in relation to other feminist writing at the time, notably Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication on the Rights of Women from 1792. Or what if we were to read and think about Murray next to earlier American women writers or rebels, such as Mary Rowlandson or Anne Hutchinson, or Margaret Fuller's writing several decades later. Or, closer to Murray's time, what if we read her in relation to the Declaration of Independence and its line about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Abigail Adams and Ben Franklin, among others, were also writing about rights for women at the time. And, of course, Murray is writing about equality in a country that was being formed as hundreds of thousands of people were in slavery. This is going beyond Murray's essay in ways, but the relationship between women's rights and abolitionism is interesting to consider, as is writing about slavery and gender (from women, largely white, writing about slavery) as well as from some slave writers, women and men, that lead us to think about different perspectives and experiences related to gender and enslavement. We can read Murray very closely, or in relation to other writers and ideologies, and problems or debates in the nation, in Murray's lifetime but also within a larger historical context.

Jason Nielsen,
The Graduate Center, CUNY
December, 2019.

Works Cited

Skemp, Sheila L. Judith Sargent Murray—A Brief Biography with Documents. Bedford Books, 1998.