Facilitating Speech and Discourse: Biblical Interpretation and the Emergence of a Concept of Gender Equality

The article is a case study demonstrating that the Bible at the end of the 19th century could still function as a common rhetorical tool, a frame of reference, and a common court of appeal in important public debates. The case in question is the Anglophone debate over women’s rights, voice, and vote on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean around 1890. The article analyzes three different lay positions represented by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Christina Rossetti, and Heber Hart. They represent three different directions that reception of the Bible with regard to gender equality and women’s authorial voice could take in this period. The article also argues that a concept of gender equality goes several centuries further back than what is often thought, and that the early development of the concept in a pre-secularized intellectual environment needs much further scholarly attention.