SOJOURNER TRUTH “ADDRESS AT THE WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN AKRON, OHIO” (29 MAY 1851) was one of the best know speech given by a women’s rights activist, Sojourner Truth. In this text, Truth sarcastically compares her ability against man that she can do anything that man can do and sometime she can do even more than man can do. Truth is declaring her ability is as equivalent as any man by repeating “as any man”, and claiming women do not receive as much rights “as any men”. Truth is accusing men for not giving women rights as man while it cost no risk to any man, and by not being able to do so, Truth insists that men are poor and useless with sampling the story from the bible when Jesus helped Lazarus. Truth concludes with that men were even nothing to do with Jesus’s birth and women gave Jesus a birth. Therefore, Truth finds men are in bad place and soon will the situation will be fixed I her last sentence “But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between hawk and buzzard.”
In the recent presidential election, candidate Donald Trump accused candidate Hillary Clinton that reason she is in the position where she is because she is taking an advantage of being a woman, and if Clinton were not a woman, she would not have as many votes as she deserves today. Trump is accusing that Clinton uses her gender as a card to put her in the better place, and Clinton replies that it is right to use that card to fight for women’s right.
These two texts left me think that what is the difference between being fair and equal to each other when men and women are obviously not equal physically to begin with? Is it ultimately better to be equal in every aspect? It is the clear fact in the history, women had not been treated as equal “as any man”, and like Truth were fighting to deliver equal rights for women, the fight still continues today.
Source: “Women’s rights and Opportunity”
What I like best about this quote is the question you raise about the nature of fairness. What is the difference between equality (meaning not just the same opportunities but also the same responsibilities) and fairness? I think this question is a really essential and very hard (and thus often unasked or begrudgingly asked) question when we think about justice work and trying to reconcile the disparities present because of long and complicated histories of violence.
My concern about your post is that it is not clear how this really important question comes out of your reading of either the Truth or the Clinton text or somewhere in your putting the text together. You say that the question emerges when you have finished both texts, but the actual connection is not clear for the readers. I would like to see what in the Truth and or Clinton compels one (particularly you) to consider the nature of equality and the nature of fairness and moreover to consider that the two might not actually be completely congruous?