Compare And Contrast Angelina Grimke And Sojourner Truth

783 Words2 Pages

Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth were both prominent American civil rights activists of the 19th century who focused on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights issues, respectively. While both of these women challenged the societal beliefs of the United States at the time regarding these civil rights issues, the rhetorical strategies used by each of these women to not only illustrate their respective arguments but also to raise social awareness of these issues was approached in very different fashions. Angelina Grimke promoted the use of white middle-class women’s positions in the household to try to influence the decision makers, or men, around them. On the other hand, Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned women’s rights activist, …show more content…

Still, her deviation from the confederate mindset did not cause her to necessarily promote total equality between men and women. As an abolitionist, Grimke suggested that women use their submissive positions in the household in order to influence heir husbands. Furthermore, Grimke’s tone and proposals differed as she targeted women from the North and the South. Grimke recognized that in the common Southern household, the woman would take the place of a homemaker and nurturer, qualities still primarily associated with women, and she used these stereotypes to the abolitionist advantage. In her four pronged “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South”, Grimke states that the Southern Christian Woman has four duties in regards to abolition: to read, pray, speak and act. These four steps to abolition use the place of white women in the common household to circumvent around the little power that they had at this time. Grimke’s tone changes in her “Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States”, as she now refers to black women as not just slaves but “sisters” to whom white women owe humanization. In a …show more content…

In the Women’s Rights Convention of 1851, Truth repeatedly equates her worth to that of a man by her physical and intellectual abilities. Some of Truth’s statements at this convention include: “I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I can carry as much as any mean, and I can eat as much too”. These statements highlight the fact that women were thought to have less physical and intellectual ability than men, and as such were afforded fewer rights. By recurrently equating herself to men in all of these arenas, Truth displayed the commonalities between men and women. Furthermore, Truth’s views came from the stance of a former African American slave, who were not. In this speech, Truth paralleled herself, a black woman, to have the same abilities as a white man, thereby attempting to change her audience’s view of the current existing American capitalist patriarchal structure that put white men at the top and women of color at the bottom of the

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Susan B. Anthony

    2088 Words  | 5 Pages

    Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.

    Read More

  • Kathryn Kish Sklar

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Her book includes brief documentaries of Grimke Sisters, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth; all became important symbols of the continuity between the antislavery and women's rights movements. Beginning in the 1830s, white and black women in the North became active in trying to end slavery. These Women were inspired in many cases by the religious revivals sweeping the nation. While women in the movement at first focused their efforts upon emancipation, the intense criticsm that greeted their activities gradually pushed some of them toward an advocacy of women's rights as well. They discovered that they first had to defend their right to speak at all in a society in which women were expected to restrict their activities to a purely domestic sphere.

    Read More

  • Grimke Sisters Work Together to Abolish Slavery and Give Women Equality

    2027 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...eenth century's most important woman's rights advocates, antislavery leaders, and feminist thinkers (Lerner). "Whatever is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights - I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female" (Grimke, Angelina). "Here then I plant myself. God created us equal;- he created us free agents; - he is our Lawgiver, our King, and our Judge, and to him alone is woman bound to be in subjection, and to him alone is she accountable for the use of those talents with which Her Heavenly Father has entrusted her. One is her Master even Christ" (Grimke, Sarah). As women who spoke publicly against slavery and for women's rights, they continued to inspire female activists to not give up and keep fighting for all human beings to be equal.

    Read More

  • Sarah and Angelina Grimké

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.

    Read More

  • Sojourner Truth Vs. Fanny Fern

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    After many years of battling for equality among the sexes, people today have no idea of the trails that women went through so that women of future generations could have the same privileges and treatment as men. Several generations have come since the women’s rights movement and the women of these generations have different opportunities in family life, religion, government, employment, and education that women fought for. The Women’s Rights Movement began with a small group of people that questioned why human lives, especially those of women, were unfairly confined. Many women, like Sojourner Truth and Fanny Fern, worked consciously to create a better world by bringing awareness to these inequalities. Sojourner Truth, prominent slave and advocate

    Read More

  • Moynihan Negro Family

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.

    Read More

  • The Great Lawsuit by Margaret Fuller

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the centuries there have been many groups pursuing equal rights for themselves. These groups feel that they are excluded from privileges others possess and are subject to injustices that others are not. These groups feel they deserve better and that their presence in the world is unequal to others’. In the United States a large percentage of women started to feel they warranted equal rights to men. Margaret Fuller was among the supporters of the movement and published ground-breaking article called “The Great Lawsuit.” In “The Great Lawsuit”, Margaret Fuller tries to stop the great inequalities between men and women by describing great marriages where the husband and wife are equal, by stating how society constricts the women’s true inner genius, and by recording admirable women who stand up in an effort for equality.

    Read More

  • The Movements of the New Left by Van Gosse

    674 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the most influential leaders of the African American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr., stated in a letter from Birmingham Jail: “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.they were in reality standing up for what is best the American dream”(75). In the document written by Casey Hayden and Mary King, they discuss how there are many similarities between the way African Americans were being treated and the way women were being treated. These women go on to say that people aren’t discussing these issues enough socially to give them adequate importance. All of these advocates for both movements chose to voice their concerns and opinions through writing or speaking to groups rather than through violence. They were parallel in this sense because they thought this was the most effective way to get the message across to America.

    Read More

  • The Grimke Sisters

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early 1900’s, women and African Americans did not have any rights. When standing up for their rights they were sometimes punished for their views. It was also undesirable for women to speak in public. However, that did not stop Sarah and Angelina Grimke, because they believed in their rights and that they could change these social statuses. They were the first prominent female abolitionists. They faced hardships like sexism and traitors because they were both women and against slavery.

    Read More

  • Women’s Equality in Ethical Theory and Perspective

    2226 Words  | 5 Pages

    Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ain T I A Woman

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sojourner Truth’s speech entitled “Ain’t I A Woman?” became popular for its honest and raw confrontation on the injustices she experienced both as a woman and an African-American. The speech was given during a women’s rights convention held in Akron, Ohio in May 1851 and addressed many women’s rights activists present (Marable and Mullings, 66). Sojourner began her speech by pointing out the irrational expectations men have of women and contrasting them to her own experiences. She exclaims that a man in the corner claims women “needs to be helped into carriages and lifted ober ditches or to hab de best place everywhar,” yet no one extends that help to her (67). This is followed by her rhetorically asking “and ain’t I a woman?” (67) Here, Sojourner is calling out the social construction of gender difference that men use in order to subordinate women.

    Read More

  • Women's Rights Movement Essay

    1605 Words  | 4 Pages

    It was not until after abolitionist groups formed and began fighting slavery that women began to realize they had no rights themselves and began their own fight; therefore, the women’s rights movements of the nineteenth century emerged out of abolition activism. Without the sense of gendered ethical power that abolition provided women, any sort of activism either would never have occurred, or would have simply died out. The women’s rights movement was a way for women to seek remedy of industrialization; frustration over lack of power that lead to the call for women’s rights. Without the radical activists for abolition, like the Grimké sisters advocating for equality, a standard would never have been set and no real progress would have ever been made.

    Read More

  • Comparison of Letters to Catherine Beecher by Angelina Grimke and Ain't I A Woman? by Sojourner Truth

    1727 Words  | 4 Pages

    Angelina Grimke wrote a number of letters, addressed to Catherine Beecher, in response to Beecher’s An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference to the Duty of American Females. Letter XII is titled “Human Rights Not Founded on Sex” and explicitly expresses Grimke’s views regarding female rights. Grimke’s choice of the letter format as a vehicle for her argument establishes a personal connection with the reader—though the letter is addressed to Beecher, the “you” is rather ambiguous and can certainly be read as a larger audience. A letter evokes images of continued correspondence, creating a more conversational and open-ended feeling to the piece than a traditional essay. Despite the impression that Grimke is directly writing to the reader, she maintains a formal tone over the course of her letter. Her tone ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Michael Kimmel's 'Masculinity As Homophobia'

    1705 Words  | 4 Pages

    Their rights continued to progress when both white and black women were given the right to vote, although it still didn’t have the impact that was expected. Not only were women given more rights, but they also started attending schools and seeking employment. This was a big step for women, but men interpreted this as a threat to the balance of power. Weitz stated that after new “scientific” ideas were combined with old definitions of women’s bodies, due to their ill and fragile bodies, “white middle-class women were unable to sustain the responsibilities of political power or the burdens of education or employment.”

    Read More

  • Women Deserve the Same Rights as Men

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before women can prove they too deserve the same rights as men, they must first put to rest the myths and beliefs of their status in this country. This myth of the female status in the United States, and in most other places in the world, has always been the same. It is the belief that women should be in the kitchen, taking care of the kids, and the house, amongst other beliefs. However, in today's society, this is considered ludicrous. For instance, in her essay, 'Ain't I a Woman?' Sojourner Truth delivers a powerful message and addresses the issues of women in the society. She argues that women should have equal rights, because they can do the same things as men. For example she says, ?That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place anywhere. Nobody helps me into no carriages, or over no mud puddles, or gives me any best place? (348). She, then, con...

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast Angelina Grimke And Sojourner Truth

Open Document