In her speech, “For the Equal Rights Amendment” Shirley Chisholm addresses her views on securing women’s equality to ensure women have better opportunities. She is an American politician, educator and author that became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress. Chisholm supports her claims about equal rights for women by using examples of statistics to prove a point. Her purpose is to persuade her audience that women in America are neglected by equal rights and excluded from things that men are not. Throughout her deliverance she expressed an inspiring and informative tone to uplift her audience so that Congress can make a change for women.
America is the land of the free and home of the brave, but has it always been? If someone were to reference old documents like The Declaration of Independence or even The Constitution they would think so, but American history itself says otherwise. During the mid 1770’s slavery was an almost unquestioned normality and women had no rights, however when The Declaration of Independence was written, the statement, “all men are created equal” appeared while Thomas Jefferson stated the natural rights of every human. This statement is clearly not true in the eyes of the men who wrote and edited this document, hence proving that the statement “all men were created equal” is hypocritical. In accordance to primary sources gained from this period of intolerance and recreations of it, it is clear that not only were the women not treated as equal, but the African men and women treated as property were also stripped of the three main rights and liberties the Declaration argues for.
Thomas Jefferson wrote one of the most important and ironic phrases in the United States’s history: “...that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable right; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (652). The Declaration of Independence boasts that it supports that all men have a right to liberty. However, even though they declare it, it does not always hold truthful. The declaration only promotes the freedom and separation as a united country or for the men of the occupied countries. There is no reference to women, people of color, or children in regards to liberty.
Living in 21st century America, everyone is used to having equal rights, no matter their color or gender. But it was not always that way. About 150 years ago, women and men were not equal. Women were not allowed to vote or even publicly speak. If you were extremely poor or from a foreign country, you would very likely be sold into slavery.
When the U.S. Declaration of Independence was written, it was generalized towards one group: white, preferably European, males. As years passed and the United States grew into a well-known nation, it was still clear that this group was getting more rights than others. This group created the idea of intersectionality to anyone who did not fit inside their parameters of being the typical the Euro-American white male. Everyone should be getting free rights, but this was not the case, until the other groups started fighting back. The women of the United States were one group who stood up and fought for their rights, ending women’s suffrage.
Leaders of the American Feminist Movement began to draw parallels between the struggles of women and the plight of slaves, and pressed the boundaries of “acceptable” female behavior. The Seneca Falls Convention was organized to discuss the question of women’s right, and out of the meeting came the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. This declaration stated that “all men and women are created equal,” and women no less than men are endowed with certain inalienable rights (Doc 6). In demanding the right to vote, they launched a movement for woman suffrage that would survive until the battle was finally won in 1920. Yet, during this time, women who were black faced an even greater struggle.
On July, 1, 1776 236 years ago, the second continental congress met in Philadelphia, and on the following day 12 of 13 colonies voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee’s motion for independence. “Congress picked a committee to write a declaration explaining why the colonies wanted independence,” and that is how all men are created equal is about to be brought up. Issues in the past with all people being treated equally, has been a big thing with women’s rights, in the past decades women in terms of employment has been gradually getting better, in 2014 women have almost all the same rights as men. Even though most women could work Ruth Pearson pointed out, “As individuals workers experienced both the liberating and the “empowering”
(Douglass 65) Masters would breed their slaves to have stronger children that the masters can sell for a higher price or add them to his wealth. In a sense this disgusting practice can be called an indirect sort of rape, in which you are forcing two individuals, who
We are Humans too, Right? For decades, women have been discriminated against due to limited job opportunities, low wages, and minimal acceptance to colleges. As an educated congress woman Shirley Chisholm was motivated to make changes in discrimination against women. In the early 1950’s Chisholm was accepted to Brooklyn College, New York, studied education then transferred to Columbia University for her master’s in Elementary Education; A few years later, she also served resolving issues regarding the Vietnam War, the National Organization for Women, the Bureau of Child Welfare.
Black American activists weren’t focused on the inequality of sexism that plagued America as well as racism, not even incorporating or acknowledging it. Ella Barker was a social worker for the NAACP in organizing the youth for the movement and in cultivating leadership that was required. In her piece, Developing Community Leadership, she talks about her experience with finding a leader for the NAACP to champion their cause and provide a voice to the people, with the prerequisite of being a man. Barker recalls her assignment, recollecting, “And the they were looking for a minister, a man, and I helped to find a minister and a man, and he stayed a whilem and when he came I decided that since I was doing what I was doing, he was the director and I became, I think, co-director,” (Barker, Developing Community Leadership, 365). Barker was assigned to find a man to lead and that’s just what she did.
In today’s world, it seems to be that women have the same rights as men, but it wasn't always this way. The speech “Women’s Rights to Suffrage” by Susan B Anthony is the most compelling of all. Susan B Anthony persuades the audience that all women should have the same rights as men. It’s shown through the speech that the federal constitution says “we the people”, the government has no right to take away rights from just one gender, and that women are considered people as well. The fact that the constitution says “we the people” is a primary point in this speech.
There is discrimination; women and different races aren’t treated equally. Activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Sparrow, and Harriet Tubman, along with many others, take this problem to solve from different “sides.” Stanton working mainly for women rights, Sparrow working for equal payment, and Tubman working mainly for slavery abolishment. All of these activists wanted all men and
It either includes all women, or it’s not feminism” (Makers). She frequently reminds individuals that it was disproportionately women of color, especially black women, who created the feminist movement. She contends that erasing black women’s integral contributions disgraces the founders of the movement and eradicates the efforts of feminism’s true founding
“Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don’t like as well as those we do”(Trevor Phillips). Everyone whether they are black, white, rich or poor is entitled to their humans rights. Therefore, it is an inhumane and unjust atrocity when millions of people around the world are denied their basic human rights based on exactly these physical, shallow, insignificant differences that outline sharp social status ' in our society. On September 5, 1995, Hillary Clinton addressed the issue of women’s rights by delivering a forceful speech as the First Lady of United States. In Hillary Clinton’s “Women Rights Are Human Rights” she effectively expresses that gender equality is important by creating a credible account
Sojourner Truth a famous abolitionist and women’s right activists feared rights of women would be left out. Many African Americans felt that the women’s suffrage movement was concerned with the rights of only white women (Wood,59) and were sometimes discriminated against within the movement.. This is fictionally displayed in Iron Jawed Angels when a black suffragist expresses discontent with their parade being segregated by race. I feel that this is hypocritical as they are fighting for equal rights yet treating people of color as separate. Despite their concerns countless African American women still joined in on the cause and contributed to its
