So after doing the reading, I'm not really entirely sure how high I should've raised my hand last week in class. Going through the readings, it was hard for me to feel as if I was reading anything more than any other historical articles. Should I have been overly compelled, or perhaps felt some sympathy for the women of the 19th and early 20th centuries who fought for suffrage and other women's rights? If anything perhaps I am empathetic, which I attribute to being an African-American. I am grateful for the work that these women accomplished in the abolitionist movement, and even the women of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. But even when women were granted rights such as the ability to vote, there were millions of African-American men who couldn't vote, thirty years later.
As much as I would like to pretend that I could be unwavering on my views of equality, I cannot help but feel slightly annoyed when I think of myself in that time and place. I would assume that this, what will almost indefinitely be viewed as crazy talk, could be attributed to my extra chromosome, but even Sojourner Truth first mentions the simplest of the chivalrous acts that many may have taken for granted, such as being helped into a carriage, or carried over a ditch. On a tangent, nothing annoys me more when a woman says that she doesn't want a door opened for her, or any other normally polite acts that many parents drive into their sons from a young age. There is no implied sign of weakness, these are just courtesies that have been concurrent in western culture for hundreds of years. But back to the point, in the 1850's women were seeking greater representation, when civil war was on the verge of breaking out, and there was still an entire group of people who received lesser rights than the cattle they cared for.
This is not me saying that in this day and age women don't deserve all the same rights and opportunities as men (except I'm not going to lie if it had been hilary or mccain I probably would have voted for the independent party), but reading all this historical text only succeeds in making me feel that there were other more pressing matters at the time. I disagree with DuBois in her statement that men "betrayed" women in the 14th amendment. It was nothing more than a sign of the times. Times that are now behind us, as we progress through the early decades in this young century. So at the end of the day I suppose t's a good thing we 'blog' because i feel as if this post may not make much sense...I can only hope, or else it's going to be a looooong 75 minutes tomorrow
On a lighter note, here's a link to a story about your favorite Heidi Montag
http://www.wwtdd.com/2010/01/heidi-wants-to-go-bigger/
First off, I found it very interesting when Sojourner Truth talks about Christ being a product of God and of a woman. No man was involved. I also agree with Marcus, when he said that there were other pressing issues during this first wave of feminism. Although I don't know if we can accurately claim that one issue was more important than the next. All people's rights are important, whether it's a woman, African American or a disabled person. It is not fair to say that we should not have invested so much time into fighting for women's rights because that time and energy needed to be invested in other issues. The truth is, all these issues are intertwined. There are people, like Sojourner Truth, who have to fight both battles everyday. As we said in class, many people had to choose to fight and either affiliate themselves with being an African American or a woman. It should not have been that way. People shouldn't have to choose one form of human rights over another. Therefore, my bottom line is every issue was important. Women's rights. African American rights. Military rights. Whatever. Everyone is a human being. Everyone deserved the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Marcus, he poses some very interesting and relevant ideas to the argument about women’s equality in the time around the Civil War. Yes, it is very important that women have the same rights as men, just the same as it is very important for African-American’s to have the same rights as white people but the more pressing issue, as Marcus points out, is slavery and racism. Jim crow laws were effect until 1965. As I am sure, the reader knows the story of Emmit Till, 14-year-old black child that was brutally murdered after saying “bye, baby” to woman. “Have you ever heard of a lynching party for a woman just because she has boobs and a vagina? I DON’T THINK SO! But I guess this is just another tangent that us men happen to drift into.
ReplyDeleteOn another issue or topic, I thought it was very interesting how in the Truth, the association of men’s superiority over women because Christ was a man and how Truth goes to point out that there was no man involved in the birth of Christ, only Mary and God.
Well, I guess I will see you all in class tomorrow.
Marcus,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a thoughtful and interesting reflection on these readings. Many of the questions and issues that you raise are really good ones, and I look forward to you bringing them up in class. In some ways, your reactions to these readings are right in line with the debates that were going on in the 19th c. Who deserved rights "first"? How could each group of people most effectively fight for their rights, and who did they have to "betray" in order to achieve their goals? Both the first AND second wave are tinged with this uneasy (to say the least!) relationship between gender and race that you identify. Logan points this out in her post: all of these issues are so closely intertwined! Nice reference to the State of the Union, too: we'll lead class off with a brief recap of that!
While doing the readings I couldn't help but feel similar to the same way Marcus did. I really just felt like I was in history class learning about the past. I certainly do feel some empathy for these women who started the entire feminist movement. I am all for equal rights for women. But was it really the fault of every man that women had unequal rights? The Declaration of Sentiments listed many complaints about men, most of which are because of the law. Stanton and Mott kept putting the blame on man and mankind throughout history. While reading I kept thinking to myself that yeah, most of this stuff is all because of the rich bourgeoisie. I have been raised to treat women like princesses and throughout my entire life I have seen all my relatives, distant or close, do the same. I couldn't imagine my simple ancestors out on a farm acting the same as the politicians in DC. Little things like Marcus and Truth mention such as holding a door for a girl have always just been natural. I think that reading these articles just reinforced my personal views of the U.S. government. It is the fault of only a handful of men that women didn't have equal rights back in the day.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, what these women did and how they did it definitely paved the way for feminism in the future. After reading about the second wave and now the first wave, I am excited to learn about the third. It seems that for the most part the first and second were very similar. The first achieved suffrage and the second extended out to equal oppurtunities. Somewhere along the line something went wrong and created the raunch culture. I guess we will soon find out.