Anthony, the opposition of women’s rights became more clearly defined. Text from the trial furthermore invoked the need for women to become demanding and continue the fight for freedom and equality. The judge made one thing very clear, Women’s rights were not going to be obtained the natural God given way, or through the court system that had been designed to protect citizens and their rights. The discrimination faced by women in 1873 can be clearly seen in the recounting of this trail. Nowhere in the United States Constitution does it state women cannot vote, nor has it ever.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles or gives me any best place (and raising herself to her full height and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked) and aren’t I a woman?” In this passage, author Truth is suggesting that she had never been treated with the same respect a white woman would be treated with. Most, if not all men, believed that women shouldn’t have as many rights as men because “Christ wasn’t a woman”. She simply rebuked that phrase by asking where Christ came from. Well, he came from God and a woman of course!
None of the colleges or universities admitted women students. She was barred from nearly all profitable employments. If she did get one of those jobs, she received only one-fourth the man's salary for the same work. She could not become a doctor or lawyer, or a minister. If she was married, any wages she might earn were not hers, but must be handed by the employer to her husband, who was in every way her master.
Frances Clarke, in an overview titled “Women in the Revolutionary Era” agrees with this idea, while asserting “The American Revolution was not much of a revolution in the lives of women, at least in a political or legal sense. Much like other so-called dependent groups (servants, slaves, non-propertied men) women were generally understood to lack the independence required of republican citizens” (Clarke 1). Within the political realm too, androcentric principles dominated all standards. Former U.S. President John Adams is quoted to have said “As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh” in response to his wife’s recommendation to include women when framing the constitution (Martin 332). Adams continues his onslaught of anti-matriarchal values and sexism by upholding “his commitment to the social hierarchy…based on the belief that women along with other disenfranchised groups must remain subordinate because they lack the capacity for reason, and therefore, for the responsible use of liberty” (Martin 332).
Women were thought of as the weaker sex. They were associated as the sex that was unable to do any form of work requiring any muscular or intellectual activity. Women were discouraged from writing and reading. They were expected to marry, have children, and do nothing other than what wives and mothers did back then. This meant, cleaning, cooking, caring for the children and husband, etc.
This is evident through the limited opportunities available for females outside the sphere of the home. Women’s voices have been silenced, having never been taken into consideration. Our culture has strongly reinforced that women are incapable of possessing any knowledge and that therefore it is the man who has the ability to make the best and most reasonable decision. What Anzaldua is implying here is that no longer should a woman take the efforts to silence her sitting down, she must stand up and exert her right to express her opinions and be heard. We need to step away from the forces that not only make us ashamed of our mestizo skin, but also of our language and sexuality.
Simply because she was a woman, she was not allowed to lead or even speak at the temperance rallies. Because of this, and having befriended Elizabeth Cady Stanton is what led her to become part of the women’s rights movement in 1852. Not long after this she dedicated her life to women’s rights and suffrage.
Education, employment, and politics are all barriers where women were held back from the full development of their faculties. In the 19th century women were denied political equality, robbed of their natural rights, and handicapped by laws and customs at every turn. Trained to dependence with no assets of their own women were left to bear the attitude of being less intelligent and able to make political decisions than men. While they have freely accepted a deferential position to men they have also refused to look toward a future of tradition and domesticity. The campaign for women’s suffrage had a sincere beginning
Eva Colon Lisa Gallegos Eng 090 March 19, 2012 Women deserve rights Elizabeth Stanton wrote about her experiences with discrimination against women in 1848. She feels that when the government becomes destructive in these ends it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance. (379) Even though discrimination is not put up with in these days, in the 1800s women were considered nothing slaves, supporter of the home and baring kids. Elizabeth Stanton wrote to not only express her feelings it was to stand up for her and for other women and to make a differences. First of all, Stanton writes “He never permitted her to
Sarah Grimke showed this idea in her “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes” saying, “ …where any mental superiority exists, a women is generally shunned and regarded as stepping out of her ‘appropriate sphere,’ which in their view is to dress and dance.” Women were confined to being what men wanted them to be. There was no liberty or sense of independence for women and when they attempted to gain some ground on that idea they were “shunned” upon. Women were subjugated and barely above the level of slaves or indentured servants according to republican ideals. Women had no property and could gain no liberty and the only virtue allowed to them was, between their legs. The women adapted the republican ideas and with that the language to set the platform for their eventual