Seneca Falls Convention Essay

The idea of equality has been around since the Puritans first came over to the New World. However, their idea of equality was that man is equal to man, not man is equal to woman. Since the age of the Puritans, women’s rights have improved immensely. Through women’s rights movements, American literature and the push of feminism throughout the United States, women are much more equal to men than they were in the early years of American history. Just a few centuries ago, women did not have nearly as many rights as they do now. One of the most important events in feminist history is the Seneca Falls Convention. This convention was held by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two of the most recognized women involved with the Women’s Suffrage

Mott and Stanton did not create any plans or pursue the convention right away. The convention took place eight years later in the July of 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. During the convention, the Seneca Falls Declaration was created. This document was a twist off of the Declaration of Independence, but it gave rights to women as well as men. They were able to get one hundred men and women to sign this petition (Seneca Falls). This major event was the big start of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Another topic that expresses the progress of women’s rights is education. Women were not always able to attend school. They usually stayed home and took care of the house, cooked, and cared for the children. Emma Hart Willard was the woman who founded the first school for girls in 1821. Thanks

It was a challenge for those poor women. Black women were considered a group of individuals whose existence and needs were completely unimportant to everyone else (“But Some of Us Are Brave”). This is not just because they are women, but the color of their skin plays a huge role in this as well. They were faced with more sexism than the white feminists in this time period and they were often discriminated. A man by the name of Amiri Baraka once said, “we could never be equals...nature has not provided thus” (“But Some of Us Are Brave”). With this statement, he is saying that it is in nature that men are superior to women and there is no way to change that. He feels that a man will always be the dominant one in the relationship and the woman will always be the lesser of the two. Also, another man by the name of Eldridge Cleaver once said, “I became a rapist...I started out by practicing on black girls in the ghetto...where vicious and dark deeds appear not as aberrations or deviations from the norm, but as a part of the Evil of a day...I crossed tracks and sought out white prey” (But Some of Us Are Brave”). It is evident that this man is both sexist and racist. He shows racism due to the fact that he started taking advantage of colored women first. Cleaver felt it was less serious than taking advantage of a white women and the fact that he would take advantage of