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In the 1800’s the government and society oppressed women. The Declaration of Sentiments was made to combat this, written parallel to the Declaration of Independence. The 300 women and 40 men addressed the problems women were facing. Women were being debarred from education, profitable employment, trade, and professions. They were also not allowed property rights or guardianship of their children. Women rights activists claimed ideas associated with The Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary Republicanism. They both hold freedom and liberty to high standards, just in different terms. For example, while the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence reach for political freedom, the women of The Declaration of Sentiments
In a similar manner to the slaves, women were motivated by the beliefs preached in camp meetings and churches during the Second Great Awakening. Due to the amount of free time the women had, they attended these churches more often than men, allowing them to absorb the ideas from the sermons. These women not only became motivated to fight for the rights of slaves, but also for their own since human freedom was one of the essential ideas of the Second Great Awakening. During the international anti-slavery convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were denied the right to participate just because of their genders. With the ideas of the Second Great Awakening in their minds, they created the Women’s Right Convention in Seneca Falls, where they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments that listed all of the ways in which males have wronged them by denying equality to them. It marked the beginning of a long struggle to gain equality between men and women. Among the many things that they wanted to have equality in was divorce, inheritance, property, and children. Therefore, the concept of freedom for all Americans from the Second Great Awakening triggered a movement to give women freedom from the bonds of men by means of equality.
The revolution of women rights politicized millions of French men by transforming their statues from subjects to citizens, but revolutionaries of all political stripes displayed an extreme reluctance to incorporate women into the political body. She also wrote Pamphlets and plays that described a variety of issues, like slavery and in which she attacked as being founded on greed and blinded of the biases that surrounded her. In one of her most famous pamphlets, she describes the declaration of the women’s rights to the parallel of the one for men thus, criticizes the deputies for haven forgotten women. She also pointed out the pamphlet to the Queen, Marie Antoinette, though she also warned the Queen that she has to work with the Revolution or risk destroying the monarchy. In the postscript, she denounced the customary treatment of women as objects are easily abandoned and in which women should be treated equally because they are both people. Gouges appended to the declaration as a sample of a form of the marriage contract that called for communal sharing of
The ideals of the declaration were not satisfied because women did not have political rights or Civil Rights. Document one states “ Women, like enslaved people, had no right to hold legal title to property, and all of wife’s possessions belonged to her husband”. Women lived as a man's “slave”; not having the right to control what they were allowed to
Women believed that they had the same rights as men, as they tried fit into society by starting women’s rights movements that spread throughout the
During the Revolutionary War, women were helping the men to organize the house and business while the men went involved in the war. This gave the women a chance to prove they can do more than just doing housekeeping and inspired them to reject staying obedient in their marriage. After the American Independence, people started assigning women a new role - Republican Motherhoods, which said women had an indispensable role to shape society’s future citizens. Although women were still denied to gain any political rights, their status changed by having a freer choice in their own marriage and more active in reform
In our history of America, women didn't have rights for a very long period and they endured a lot of suffering at that time from inequality. Women were restricted to not do a lot of things, some things that women were restricted to were not being able to vote, not owning property, they weren't allowed to keep their wages, and they weren't allowed to have custody over their children. Some of the authors who talk about women's rights and their suffering are Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her text Declaration of Sentiments, Abigail Adams in her text Letter to John Adams, and Sojourner Truth in her text Ain't I a Woman. All three texts address the issue of women not getting the rights they deserve.
One of the many movements in the reform is the women's rights movement. Women could not vote, attend schools, or have certain jobs. They were expected to take care of the house, cook, and clean. Two women named Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton impacted this movement in many ways. They had the idea to create a convention after they were told women could not take part in the proceedings . Their convention discussed many things such as, social, civil, and religious rights of women. This was the first gathering aimed toward women. Later Stanton wrote The Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration of Sentiments talked about full equality for women. This document changed society and women were now allowed to do things they were not allowed to do before.
Women’s rights began due to the fact that the only big role a woman had was in the household. Their responsibility was to raise their children and to education them in religious matters. Because of such responsibilities women began arguing that they themselves had to be educated in order to educate their children. The fact that women only had a few rights went against religious beliefs of equality. According to the Bible, a man and woman are both equal in the eyes of God. The man is commanded to be the head of the household and the wife should be submissive to that authority. However, that does not mean the woman is any less important than a man, it just means the man and woman play different roles. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention took place, led by Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott. At the Convention, women discussed religious and moral issues, as well as the role of women in society. These women insisted that they were held to the same standard as men and that they should be granted the same rights and privileges. Regardless of practicing Christianity, women were viewed in society as little more than slaves, with not much of a voice and with only slightly more rights. At the Convention they founded the Declaration of Sentiments, adding to the words of the Declaration of Independence saying “all men and women are created equal.” They put forth the ideas of allowing women to vote, to control their property
Even though their rights were supposed to be given to them, they were nullified and voided. But, the Declaration of Independence inspired Americans in the struggle to gain equality. Women equality had been fought for almost a century. During her speech Susan B. Anthony said “Are women persons. And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.
Prior to this time period woman were expected to follow rule of man and had little to no rights, unlike men. The Seneca Falls convention was an event that changed this. Declaration of Sentiments proclaimed, “He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women,” (Seneca Falls 305) Somewhere along the way of creating America the roles of a gender were created and misinterpreted. This is saying that women are equal to men and can do everything men cannot and that it is not morally wrong for this to occur. Support for women’s rights came from important funding documents such as the Declaration of Independence. Declaration of Sentiments expressed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;” (Seneca Falls 304) This quote explains that the Declaration of Independence is in support of women’s rights. No man should be greater than women and vice versa. The reform grows in size and significance because as soon as one person speaks up others feel as though they can as well. Many events were significant to the reform impulse but slaver and women’s rights are two that stand
(Goldfield, 338) Since the cult of domesticity was making women inferior to men, women decided to do as the slaves did and fight for their own freedom. The women’s rights movement began in the mid-1800s. Female and male abolitionist found it necessary that women should be able to have the same rights as men. Just because biologically they are different, it does not mean they do not deserve the same rights. Women were denied the right to vote, property and a right to an education or job. (Goldfield, 338) At first the women’s movement was slow. Many women were afraid to speak out in fear of being shunned by their community. This was a brand new scary task that Women for the first time were going to deal with. A women speaking out against the norms of society was seen as a terrible thing to do. When you have many women speaking out for the same thing a change must be done. When the first national convention for women’s rights was called in Seneca Falls, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were able to successfully use the Declaration of Independence as a model for their own Declaration of Sentiments. (Goldfield, 339) In their Declaration they branded that “male patriarchy as the source of women’s oppression” (Goldfield, 339) Stanton and Mott called for full women’s rights and to become independent citizens. Although the fight for women’s rights was always an important issue, most abolitionists deemed it less important
The women 's suffrage movement, the time when women fought for their rights, began in the year 1848 and continued on all the way through the 1860s. Although women in the new republic had important roles in the family, the house, and other obligations, they were excluded from most rights. These rights included political and legal rights. Due to their gender, they have been held back because they did not have as much opportunities as the men did. The new republic made alterations in the roles of women by disparaging them in society. During this era, men received a higher status than women. Because women were forced to follow laws without being allowed to state their opinions, they tried to resist laws, fight for their freedom and strive to gain equality with men. This leads to feminism, the belief in political, social, and economic equality between men and women. It is the feminist efforts that have successfully tried to give rights that men had, to women who have been denied those rights. Upon the deprivation of those rights, the Seneca Falls convention and the Declaration of Sentiments helped women gain the privileges and opportunities to accomplish the task of equality that they have been striving for.
Women differed though because during the Women’s Rights Movements, women started to take a bigger stance in promoting women’s rights. Since women during the Women’s Rights Movement were not allowed to participate in any organizations, they took a stance by creating their own. Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton created the first Women’s Rights Convention and promote women’s rights by organizing protests and public speakings. This differed from the way women promoted the patriotic cause during the American Revolution Era, because women only protested the way men wanted them to protest. For example, the non-purchasing of British exports was created by men, and women just followed along. Other then not purchasing British goods, women really could not do anymore to promote the patriotic cause, because they could not form their own protests and they could not form their own organizations. During the American Revolution Era, women were dependent on their husbands to promote the patriotic cause, and during the reform movements, women really changed by starting to advocate for themselves, even though during both time periods, women were yet to gain political
Principally authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and presented in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19, 1848 at the first Women’s Rights Convention, The Declaration of Sentiments outlined a series of grievances resulting from the marginalization of women and proposed eleven resolutions, arguing that women had the right to equality in all aspects of their lives. The Declaration generated widespread ridicule and even hostility particularly from religious leaders and members of the press and even some members of the growing women’s rights movement distanced themselves from the document for its controversial inclusion of a resolution supporting women’s right to vote. Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, Stanton connected the nascent campaign for women’s rights with a well-known American symbol of liberty while underscoring the point that while the Declaration of Independence was all-inclusive, its language specifically excluded women.
Sub-point B: The declaration of sentiments which is primarily known as the declaration of rights and sentiments is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men at the Seneca Falls. It argues that women are oppressed by the government and the patriarchal society.