Analysis Of Frederick Douglass: The Goal Of Feminism

Women’s rights and feminism has been an issue in the American culture for many years. The first Woman’s Rights Convention was held in New York in 1948 after women were not able to give their opinions about slavery at Anti-Slavery Conventions (The Woman’s Rights Movement). Now, 168 years later, many people still feel that women do not have equal rights and opportunities that men do. The feminist movement is an important part of our time and people, both men and women, will keep fighting for equality between men and women.

The endeavor to escape slavery was an idea that pondered in the minds of slaves. While slavery influenced both genders emotionally, physically, and educationally, ultimately only the male gender was able to comprehend what it would be like to be able to flee slavery. Men took charge and became independent being able to leave slavery, whereas the women were more dependent as wives and mothers, which caused them to not be able to getaway. Douglass’ and Jacobs’ works proved this to be true as the reader sees their experiences as a slave fluctuate based on their gender. Through Douglass’ encounters as a slave we see how important it is for a male to participate in physical labor and then through Jacobs’ story, one is able to see how women were used mostly by their masters sexually. Once Abolition started everyone thought it would better the lives of men and women, but boy were they mistaken. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the authors vary in the way that the men are able to escape slavery easier than woman because of the expectations of gender roles during the time and that is what shaped these two works.

Frederick Douglass was a major black-male voice in the fight for women’s suffrage. Douglass unlike many men believed that women too were people and deserved all of the rights a man was given. He believed this because black men were previously apart from the equality of all men, and they too should be apart in gaining this equality for all. Douglass, along with other strong willed women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, among others, they became the forefront of Women’s Suffrage in the 1848 Convention on Woman’s Rights at Seneca Falls.

African American rights were believed to be more pressing at the time. Black men expressed their delight at the news and believed their suffrage to be more pressing and important than that of women. Frederick Douglass, although a significant support of women’s rights, supported those of black men foremost. “I do not see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to woman as to the negro. With us, the matter is a question of life and death (Hill 29).” Douglass’s opinion about the topic stems from his belief that the oppressed should have the greatest voice about their cause. He can best identify with other black men and feels his cause is the most urgent. From his experience with slavery, Douglass knows how suffrage

For centuries women had had to bow to men they were taught never to speak unless called upon or spoken to. That their sole purpose in life was to be a homemaker; a servant to the men in their lives fathers, brothers, sons. As time progressed women began to fight for their right to receive equal rights, education and vote. But that wasn’t enough in the year 2013 women still made eighty cents to every man’s dollar but that all changed one day. Women who were sick of being oppressed had risen up against the male chauvinism within society of the united states.The first measure was to take all men out of all positions of decision-making power immediately, and of any kind of social, professional position whatsoever. The men of society were

Frederick Douglass is perhaps the most well-known abolitionist from American history. He is responsible for creating a lot of support for the abolitionist movement in the years before the Civil War. He, along with many others, was able to gain support for and attention to the abolitionist movement. People like him are the reason that slavery ended in the United States.

In this essay, I will be examining the women in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The women in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass have a major lack of control over their material circumstances. This is due to the fact that they are slaves and have nothing of their own to begin with. This text’s portrayal of women and their material circumstances supports Woolf’s theories.

Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County, Maryland. His mother was named Harriet Bailey, and he thinks his master is his father. In the first chapter Frederick discusses how he does not have the privilege to know his birthday and how he felt nothing when his mother died. He only met her in short duration and at night. She made her journey to see him at night walking all the way bare foot. Very little communication took place between them, she died when he was seven years old. Frederick talked about the hardships slaves suffered and the time he saw a woman naked from the waist up getting whipped by his master, his Aunt Hester.

Women have historically had a rocky relationship with governmental, cultural, religious, and social rights. The Women’s Rights movement has been in effect since approximately 1792, with the publication of the first feminist work, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by British writer Mary Wollstonecraft” (“Women’s Rights Movement”). While social changes have occurred and more progressive laws have been put into place throughout the years, there is still not equality between the sexes. Additionally, gender roles in different countries differ greatly. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the major causes and concerns of the Women’s Rights movements throughout the decades, as well as denote the differences between more progressive societies and their less accepting counterparts.

In The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass, Nicholas Buccola provides argument for the philosophies that brought light to this man. Buccola argues for understanding Douglass as a political thinker who provides insights into the challenge of reaching and sustaining freedom. Buccola’s study takes Douglass from the limitations of political philosophy and sets him as an important original contributor to the liberal political tradition. He argues that although Douglass accepted many of the principles of classical liberalism, his experience as a slave moved him to develop a more consistent inclusive liberalism. “In order to close the gap between the promises of liberalism and the realities of American life, Douglass infused his political philosophy with an egalitarian ethos of inclusion and a robust conception of mutual responsibility” (Buccola p.12). Buccola amplifies our understanding of Douglass's political imagination and demonstrates that he also appreciated how a free society is cultivated and sustained by a moral ecology of personal valor, ethical accountability, and civic virtue. Buccola is a professor of American political thought and constitutional theory at Linfield College in Oregon. He clearly knows his stuff about intellectual history, political theory, and Frederic Douglass so you're going to learn something if you read this.

In the autobiographical Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the titular narrator is a former slave writing of his experiences when he was still subject to his masters’ whims. One of the most jarring of them would have to be “the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery” in which Douglass witnessed the brutality that a master could and would inflict upon his female slaves if they should reject and defy his commands concerning their sexuality (339). Douglass mentions that his master might have also been his father and that the “gratification of their wicked desires” is quite commonly made “profitable as well as pleasurable” (338). Slaves of either gender are but property to their masters and have no right to protest to any order or force put to them. However, female slaves also come with the ability to have children, to give birth to another generation of slaves for the

Frederick Douglass witnessed the first-hand mistreatment of slaves. “Mr. Severe whooped a woman causing the blood to run half an hour at the time in the midst of her crying children pleading for their mother’s release.’’ (Douglass pg. ) Slave-owners believed that the brutality of beating a slave would teach them to obey and would shape them to have better character. “They constantly lived in fear.”(Douglass pg.) Old Barney and young Barney constantly lived in fear because they never knew when they were going to be punished because the owner found some ridiculous thing about the horse that he did not think was up to par. “He spoke of how they claimed that the black had hit a man for hitting him, so he retaliated on the white man. By the time the slave got back his eyes were swollen shut and his arms were broke.”(Green Journal) Just because this black slave was trying to stand up and defend himself, he faced heavy consequences. Whites thought they justified the situation if they beat a slave until they physically are not equipped to do any work. They found pleasure and satisfaction out of such horror. “They treat us like animals, but tonight we will be forced to be their women.’’(Copper Sun) There is no justice in this! No penalty or consequence for rapeing a women because a man is too disgusting to keep to himself! These white men just used these slaves as toys instead of treating the women like humans beings. “It is only possible to justify treating people differently if there exists some factual difference between them that justifies such difference in treatment.”

All throughout grade school, and even for a little while in high school, we are taught about slaves. We are taught about their experiences and we are reminded of the experiences that they never got to have. Teachers focus mainly on the Underground Railroad, the history of slavery, and the well-known escapees such as Frederick Douglass. However, the one thing that they don't teach or even mention is what it was like to be a slave - this is for good reason, though. You can't paint a clear image in a child's head of what it's like to owned and operated by another person so all you can do is teach them about what the lives of other children and adults before 1865. While reading the assigned pages from Frederick Douglass' narrative, I began to

Frederick Douglass, having been born into slavery, did not experience the freedom of not being enslaved until he was around 18 years old. But throughout his time of being enslaved, Douglass found many other forms of freedom, those of which felt just as real as emancipated freedom. The change from rural slavery to urban slavery was one form of freedom to Douglass in his time as a slave, as well as freedom of resistance he acquired through his battle with Mr. Covey. But one of the deepest forms of freedom that Douglass expresses throughout the book is the freedom of the mind. While freedom can come in many ways, the freedoms that comes with gaining knowledge is one of a power so great that it can harm.

Fredrick Douglass began life in a difficult position. Born into slavery, he did not have the good fortune of having a parent to attend to him. He witnessed unspeakable cruelty daily, which undoubtedly caused him a great deal of emotional distress. Yet, he never gave up on himself. Throughout his life, he continually sought to better himself through any means available to him. Against all odds, Douglass made tremendous strides in his efforts to better himself, and he eventually succeeded in achieving his ultimate goal of escaping from the horrors of slavery.