Women's Rights To Racial Equality Rhetorical Analysis

During this time, it was not easy for women to be a part of society in our country. Women were thought to be the slaves of men, “Queens of the Home”, and had very little civil rights. Powerful women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Carry Nation achieved incredible accomplishments for women all over the world to have the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history” (Stanton). Perhaps, Stanton was right.

However, despite being an ardent abolitionist during the Civil War who fought for the emancipation of all slaves , her liberal feminist theory was tainted by a marked strain of racism and elitism that became more conspicuous as she started pressing for women’s suffrage . This marked strain of racism within Stanton’s rhetoric for women’s suffrage can be exemplified by quotation from a letter of hers to the editor of the National Slavery Standard. In this letter, Stanton claimed that “the representative women of the nation” had done their best to free “the negro”, but “as the celestial gate to civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious question whether [the representative women of the nation] had better stand aside and see ‘Sambo’ walk into the kingdom first .” Sambo was used as a derogatory term for African American

There was a different barrier that Stewart endures as a speaker they are race and gender. During the eighteen hundred proper gender roles produce restriction on accomplishing goals out of the norm by society. In the past women roles of free intelligent African American in the north attitudes was marriage, family and staying at home so working outside of the home seems to be unnatural while speaking in public she was ridicule. Being a woman of the African American descent possess to fight for the rights of all women (Black and Anglo-American) and free slaves. In conclusion, both David Walker and Maria Stewart had similar and different views to on developing their message for the cause of slavery, women rights, and

treatment of female members convinced many of these women that both slaves and women needed to be emancipated. Some abolitionist organizations did not allow African-Americans to join, while others curtailed the participation of women, especially in public speaking, voting, and business decisions. Many of these women continued their efforts to transform society through social movements by working on women 's rights in the campaign for suffrage and property rights, along with the rights to file lawsuits, obtain a divorce, and obtain custody of children. The intersection of abolitionism and women 's rights influenced the ideas and work of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Abigail Kelley Foster, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Grimké

In her novel “Beloved” author Toni Morrison explores femininity, breaking it down into motherhood and sexuality, and examines how trauma effects these concepts. Through her use of flashbacks and analysis of the woman Sethe becomes because of trauma, the reader understands the difficulty of her “Rough Choice.” Slavery was an equally devastating experience for both men and women, who were torn from their homeland, family and tradition, then forced to work. They performed grueling labor and were denied their most basic rights; all while being subjected to mental and physical degradation. Enslaved people were beaten without mercy, separated from loved ones, and, regardless of sex, treated as property in the eyes of the law. Despite these common factors, the

This movement fought for the right for women to vote because women were denied the democratic rights that were given to men and were forced to focus on the cult of domesticity. The movement started in the late eighteenth century however it was renewed during the Second Great Awakening when reform movements started gaining popularity. The suffrage movement was aided by the abolition movement because slavery gave women a reason to unite for a separate cause. This was a new reform movement, unlike women’s suffrage and abolition, which both had roots that were as deep as those of the country’s, and was unique because of the unusually undemocratic responses that society and its people reacted with. Unlike abolition and women’s suffrage, the asylum and penitentiary reform movement did not gather popularity

It is a far stretch to compare the lives of white women to the suffering endured by the slave class. White women may not have had an elite status in the patriarchal system, however, they did have options as to what they would do in their lives. On the contrary, slaves were given no alternatives to choose from. While there is no doubt that women of all classes experienced oppression by the patriarchal system, Clinton reaches too far when making her comparison to the lives of slaves.

During the time when slavery of blacks existed, an unfortunately significant social construct emerged, resulting in the harsh oppression of the female population. The oppressors, mainly white males, viewed women of different backgrounds as slaves, confined to the household. Accordingly, the civil rights movement introduced the beginning of what is called the feminist movement, bringing major awareness to women 's rights and issues, some of which are still present in today 's society. The feminist movement aimed for equality in all areas of life for both men and women; liberal feminism, supplemental to the movement, believed and encouraged the theory that all individuals are equal in the eyes of God. This implies that a person 's presumptions of one another should strictly come from an individual 's personal characteristics, rather than their

Through the deviation from the assumed expectations of mothering, Sethe pursues an identity that will enable her to reaffirm her ownership over her children. The voiceless position of the black woman, traditionally unrepresented because of her gender, class and ethnicity, finds a way to speak through murder. Her subjectivity cannot be represented through words, as Hélène Cixous suggests in The Laugh of Medusa, because language is the owner’s instrument. Therefore, she can only enter the world of discourse by performing a violent act, which undermines the basis of a slave system whose weakest part is Sethe herself. In a desperate attempt to hurt those who hurt her more, the woman affirms her desire to put her children ‘where they could be safe’

As slaves, women were supposed to give birth to as many children as possible because in the future their children would work as slaves and would become cheap labor. Women were aware of these procedures and, that is why, they were reluctant to have more children. What is more, they did not know how to prepare a child for the injustice based solely on their skin color. That is why, some researchers state that a black woman`s motherhood was profoundly shattered and “needless to say, her power as matriarch is drastically limited by the bonds of racism, sexism, and poverty” (Rich, 1976: 204). In juxtaposition with this view, Barbara Hill Rigney argues that Sethe’s role as a mother is diminished because of slavery “the Great Mother, the giver of both life and wisdom, who is nommo, the creative potential and the sacred aspect of nature itself.

In the novel titled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs, wanted to write about her experiences as a slave and how she managed to escape from slavery. This novel can be entitled to many themes, but the theme that touched me the most was about all the slave women and how they were treated. I think that Jacobs emphasized how for slave women the situation was the worst because they were always viewed as sex objects. I believe that Harriet Jacobs thought that women were expected to obey their masters all the time and had so much responsibilities to do. Jacobs gave reference to all of this by providing her life events; for example when Dr. Flint told her, “you deserve it… to be under such treatment… forget the meaning of the word peace.”

“It is the wise mother that has the wise son. So long as your women are slaves you may throw your colleges and churches to the winds” (Stanton, 11). Stanton is comparing women to slaves to explain to the audience how horribly they are treated and how insecure they are forced to feel. Everyone knows the tremendous amount of pain and suffering slaves endured and would never yearn for one to suffer through such terrible experiences. Furthermore Stanton is pulling on the listeners heart string’s by telling them that herself and all other women feel like a