The “promiscuous audience” controversy and the emergence of the early woman's rights movement

Abstract

For too long we have conflated the rhetoric of the early women activists with that of the organized woman's rights and suffrage movements. In establishing their right to speak from the public platform during the 1830s, activist women did not rely on natural law or constitutional appeals. Rather, in combating the prohibition against addressing "promiscuous audiences," they employed a rhetoric of gendered morality that emphasized the special nature of female benevolence. Although well adapted to the exigences of the 1830s, early feminist emphasis on female benevolence as a justification for addressing "promiscuous audiences"—and for other forms of activity—had important implications that fettered women's efforts to engage in overtly political action during the 1840s.