Establish Topics

In order for an individual to partake of the world and contribute to it in a healthy way, he first needs to view that world as a basically kind, friendly, and supportive place. Such an outlook begins to be formed during infancy. It’s essential that the baby establish a fundamental trust in his environment. The infant needs to learn that the world is a nurturing place where his needs will be met.
—Saf Lerman (20th century)

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.... Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?
—James Madison (1751–1836)

Having achieved political liberty for women this organization pledges itself to make an end to the subjection of women in all its remaining forms. Among our tasks we emphasize these:
1. To remove all barriers of law or custom or regulation which prevent women from holding public office—the highest as well as the lowest—from entering into and succeeding in any profession, from going into or getting on in any business, from practicing any trade of joining the union of her trade.
2. So to remake the marriage laws and so to modify public opinion that the status of the woman whose chosen work is homemaking shall no longer be that of the dependent entitled to her board and keep in return for her services, but that of a full partner.
3. To rid the country of all laws which deny women access to scientific information concerning the limitation of families.
4. To re-write the laws of divorce, of inheritance, of the guardianship of children, and the laws for the regulation of sexual morality and disease, on a basis of equality, equal rights, equal responsibilities, equal standards.
5. To legitimatize [sic] all children.
6. To establish a liberal endowment of motherhood.
—Woman’s Party. “Alice Paul’s Convention,” The Liberator (April 1921)