Sunday, September 26, 2010

Anne Hutchinson - Threat to Male Superiority?

I think so.


Anne Hutchinson seems to be a foil in character for the Pastor John Winthrop. She seems to threaten everything he wants in his Puritan society, especially order.  It is for this reason that I think Anne Hutchinson was persecuted so harshly and excommunicated from the Church.

The two main things Anne seemed to threaten:

-Chaos
"[John Winthrop,] committed to one model of religious social order struggled against [Anne,] who professed commitment to no order but that order revealed directly by God and thus one beyond the control of any individual or community." (Westerkamp, 493)
By holding this belief, she takes away any of his power over her female followers.

-Male Power
John Winthrop also had a personal vendetta over Hutchinson's power over her husband - he felt that his masculinity was being threatened by her success.


Historians debate whether or not she believed in everything she herself preached, but I think she did. Would she really be willing to lose her whole home and community for something she didn't? She was obviously educated enough to form her own opinions, evidenced by the fact that she "ran intellectual circles around her opponents [during her trial]. They quoted the Scripture, she quoted back". (Westerkamp, 489)

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