“We have met to uplift women’s fallen divinity upon an even pedestal with man’s. We now demand our right to vote.” With this forceful introduction, Elizabeth Cady Stanton pulls the injustice against women to light and demands it to be felt. Her speech is a call to change, a shout for justice in a sea of corruption. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech, delivered at the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, appeals to emotion, ethics, and logic to affirm the necessity of equality for women.
Stanton uses various emotional techniques to grab the attention of the audience and create personal connections, through specific diction, metaphors, and alliteration. Stanton’s vocabulary (including the phrases “But to have drunkards, idiots… and silly boys fully recognized” and “the battlements of righteousness are weak against the raging elements of sin and death”) evokes compelling mental images that turn the audience against men and their injustices. Her powerful phrasing pinpoints the exact places where the audience is weakest, the issue of incompetent men, their right to vote, and the absence of true righteousness in America. Stanton’s vernacular isn’t the only device used to create an emotional response, however. Her use of metaphor is just as strong. She describes America’s situation as follows: “thorns of bigotry and prejudice… banners will beat the dark storm clouds of oppression.” This comparison between prejudice and thorns, words that both hold a negative connotation, hits hard in the audience’s mind. These metaphors connect the entrapment women are exposed to everyday to a physical version of thorns. This gives a clear mental picture of the hurt and pain caused by unequal rights and dramatizes the issues at hand, bringing emphasis ...
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...ses like “the state, the church, and the home” and “mind, body, or estate.” The final appeal to a more ethical approach is the use of repetition. Throughout Stanton’ speech, she reminds the audience “the right is ours” while weaving the phrase into numerous paragraphs, showing they (women) deserve suffrage, that inequality is wrong, and that justice will triumph.
Through the intelligent use of various concrete appeals, Elizabeth Cady Stanton brings to light the injustices against women and provokes the audience to take action and form a better nation. Her words pull the heartstrings of the audience while adding emphasis to the wrongdoings happening every day. She calls for gender equality, not just in social life, but in civic and political as well. Among a plethora of inequality, her words ring true. “The right is ours,” she asserts. “The right is ours.”
Within Hon. Shirley Chisholm’s well known speech, Equal Rights for Women, which she presented on May 21, 1969, she discusses in detail the ideology of woman’s rights before the United States House of Representatives. She touches base on her own experience with discrimination, how society has prejudice against women, and introduces the Equal rights act, in which she states “that has been before every Congress for the last 40 years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land.” With her speech, Hon. Shirley Chisholm makes a substantial argument about women’s rights. With her use of anecdotes, counter arguments, and statistics, her speech obtains great value.
While being born in the modern times, no woman knows what it was like to have a status less than a man’s. It is hard to envision what struggles many women had to go through in order to get the rights to be considered equal. In the essay The Meanings of Seneca Falls, 1848-1998, Gerda Lerner recalls the events surrounding the great women’s movement. Among the several women that stand out in the movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton stands out because of her accomplishments. Upon being denied seating and voting rights at the World Antislavery Convention of 1840, she was outraged and humiliated, and wanted change. Because of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s great perseverance, the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was a success as well as a great influence on the future of women’s rights.
However, while embracing the often axiomatic freedoms of today, women everywhere should take time to acknowledge the struggles of previous generations. If one were to delve into the history of early American society, they would surely discover a male-dominated nation where women were expected to tend to their kitchen rather than share the responsibility of high government. During this time, a woman was considered the property of her husband, and was to remain compliant and silent. Nevertheless, two brilliant writers, Lydia Marie Child and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, resolved to confront and address the oppression afflicting America’s women. Although these two women have different styles of writing, they both advocate similar contentions.
However, the writers of the Constitution had omitted women in that pivotal statement which left women to be denied these “unalienable” rights given to every countryman. Gaining the support of many, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement declared at Seneca Falls that women had the same rights as men including the right to vote and be a part of government. The Women’s Rights movement gained support due to the years of abuse women endured. For years, men had “the power to chastise and imprison his wife…” and they were tired of suffering (Doc I). The new concept of the cult of domesticity supported women’s roles in society but created greater divisions between men and women.
From the mouth of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the author of “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” came the fiercely depicted words that draws a picture of disparity among the treatment between man and woman. She wholeheartedly believed in the justice of having equal representation of the rights of either gender. When she decided, in July of 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, to present this document to the members of the rudimentary women’s right convention, she knew this would be the colossal beginning for the dissension of gender equality. In addition to being published in the same month of the Declaration of Independence, it also borrowed the structure and intended purpose to create an eye-opening declaration
Although women did not have the same rights as men, they came to possess a mentality that was a force to be reckoned with in a fight for equality. In 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, 150 women and 30 men met to dispute the male sovereignty of the time. At this conference, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an educated, married abolitionist, presented the “Declaration of Sentiments”. This document was a testament to the drastic changes the United States would have to go through to include women in its widespread ideals. As the basis for their argument, the writers of the Seneca Falls Declaration utilized the Declaration of Independence to catch the attention of the public and display the severity of the situation. However, in her oration, Stanton changes the male centralized voice of the Declaration of Independence. When addressing the self –evident truths, she expressed that “all men and women are created equal” instead of the original phrase that excluded women (Anthony, Stanton, and Gage, 239). Their document was further structured with 18 grievances and 11 resolutions; each was meant to recognize women as equal members of society. As the current government has “become destructive of [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government” (Anthony, Stanton, and Gage, 240). Because women were rightfully entitled to an equal station beside men, they demanded the recognition of the rights that society was currently denying them. The most controversial resolution presented at the conference was the desire to vote. Women wanted this ability because they deserved to have a voice in the laws that would inevitably affect them. As free American citizens, it was their inalienable right to vote and have some form of representation in legislation. The Seneca Falls Conference and the Declaration of Sentiments was just the beginning of a public fight for women’s equality and rights.
More than three hundred citizens came to take part in one of the most important documents written in women’s history during the Women’s Right’s Convention in upstate Seneca, New York, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott on July 19-20, 1848 (Ryder). Stanton became persistent when she included a resolution supporting voting rights for women in the document, intimidated by this notion her loyal husband threatened to boycott the convention. “Even Lucretia Mott warned her, ‘Why Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous!’ ‘Lizzie,’ however, refused to yield” (Rynder). As Mott dreaded, out of eleven resolutions the most argumentative was the ninth–women’s suffrage resolution. The other 10 resolutions passed consistently. “According to Cady Stanton’s account, most who opposed this resolution did so because they believed it would compromise the others. She, however, remained adamant” (Rynder). When the two-day convention was over, one hundred men and women signed the historical the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments to...
Women throughout the suffrage act were faced with many challenges that eventually led into the leading roles of women in the world today. Suffrage leaders adopted new arguments to gain new support. Rather than insisting on the justice of women’s suffrage, or emphasizing equal rights, they spoke of the special moral and material instincts women could bring to the table. Because of these women taking leaps and boundaries, they are now a large part of America’s government, and how our country operates.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an important element of the Women’s Rights Movement, but not many people know of her significance or contributions because she has been overshadowed by her long time associate and friend, Susan B. Anthony. However, I feel that she was a woman of great importance who was the driving force behind the 1848 Convention, played a leadership role in the women’s rights movement for the next fifty years, and in the words of Henry Thomas, “She was the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies ad documents.”
Sixty- nine years after the Declaration of Independence, one group of women gathered together and formed the Seneca Falls Convention. Prior and subsequent to the convention, women were not allowed to vote because they were not considered equal to men. During the convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered the “Declaration of Sentiments.” It intentionally resembles the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal…” (Stanton, 466). She replaced the “men” with “men and women” to represent that women and men should be treated equally. Stanton and the other women in the convention tried to fight for voting rights. Dismally, when the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced to the Congress, the act failed to be passed. Even though women voiced their opinions out and urged for justice, they could not get 2/3 of the states to agree to pass the amendment. Women wanted to tackle on the voting inequalities, but was resulted with more inequalities because people failed to listen to them. One reason why women did not achieve their goals was because the image of the traditional roles of women was difficult to break through. During this time period, many people believed that women should remain as traditional housewives.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with many other women, packed into a convention on a hot July day to all fight for a common cause; their rights. At the first Women’s Rights convention, Stanton gave a heroic speech that motivated the fight for the cause to be even stronger. Through Stanton’s appliances of rhetorical devices such as emotional, logical, and ethical appeals, she was able to her win her point, change the opinions of many, and persuade people to follow her.
All women should hold rights equal to men because a society governed by men and women as a unit would promote stability and peace. In “The Destructive Male” written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Stanton argues through diction and the employment of ethos, pathos, and logos that giving rights to women, and allowing women to hold positions in politics and government, would be beneficial to the whole of society.
In conclusion, women throughout the decades have strived, from protesting to going on trials, to point out their rights. “Will women soon be treated equally as men?” A day when women and men having the same rights is still under way and has a far way to go as from the antebellum period. However, what makes women so unique, especially during this era is the numerous of contributions these respectful woman played a part of in order to see dramatic changes in America’s society. Some of the extraordinary ideas developed by them explains the success leading into what we call America today. Therefore, it is proven that women are certainly not helpless species, but are useful citizens who aroused much commitment for their “race” and nation.
"The beginning of the fight for women suffrage is usually traced to the Declaration of Sentiments' produced at the first woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N. Y. in 1848." (Linder) A few years before this convention, Elizabeth Cady St...
Women’s rights pioneer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her speech, The Destructive Male, expresses her feelings about Women's suffrage in 1868, and brought to light the misconception that women are not equal to man and imply that men bring more destruction than restoration.