Analysis Of Sojourner Truth's Ain T I A Woman

In 1851, at a women’s rights meeting in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivers a speech that drastically shifts and refocuses the ideas behind the right’s movement. The speech, delivered spontaneously, changed the course of the meeting and brought much-needed attention to the discrepancies in white male supremacy. Every detail in Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech challenges the very notion of womanhood in the 19th century. In fact, the speech still remains popular today because of the key aspects that lend it its rememberability and timelessness. Her documented use of the repetitive phrase “ain’t I a Woman?”, her ability to call out the hypocrisy of her audience without hostility, her witty mention of the Bible, and the casual and condescending

In the 19th century, the cult of domesticity reigned sovereign in the homes of white middle and upper-class citizens. A woman’s place in society was to stay at home and play the role of the devoted, upstanding housewife. The woman was expected to keep order in the home, remain quiet and submissive, and provide the moral backbone of society. This phenomenon fueled the men’s argument, citing that since a woman’s place was in the home, she was innately more delicate and clearly unfit to receive the same rights as a man. Truth dispels the idea of “true womanhood” by repeating her titular phrase “and ain’t I a woman?” while she calls out the hypocrisy of that argument. She challenges the narrative by affirming her own strength and the fact that she is not treated with any sort of delicacy or special privilege. “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to

With the use of the repetitive phrase “ain’t I a woman” growing more urgent as she systematically breaks down the argument against woman’s rights, along with the way she draws on the emotional and Biblical aspects of the audience, Truth manages to create a clear and persuasive argument. As she challenges the double standard and tears holes in the logic of the male supremacist argument, Truth creates an unforgettable speech that changes the course of the women’s rights meeting on that day in Akron,