“Man, where is your part?” a question made by Sojourner Truth in her “Address at the Woman’s Rights Convention” in Akron, Ohio. This question, found in the Robinson version, was made to bring to attention all that women can do and have done throughout the years. For example, she claims that women can “plow, reap, chop, mow, and husk” exactly as much as men do while also, questioning if they can do more than that. In the Gage version however, it opens up by explaining the difference between what should be the treatment of all women but only happens in the North. In the North, women are being helped into carriages and over ditches meanwhile, the southern women, like her, are forced to plow, plant, receive lashes, etc. And she questions, “Aren’t I a woman?”
Woman’s rights and equality issues have been discussed for decades in all kinds of political gatherings and events. But why is it that, even after being spoken about for so long there is still no change? As Sojourner Truth eloquently expressed in her speech, women can work just as hard as men and still not be granted the same rights as men. But what should further astonish you is that this is still very much alive and an issue today.
UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson gave a well-known speech at the United Nations Headquarters, where she fully attacked the issue of gender inequality and woman’s rights. She spoke about the issues not only considering the gender pay gap, but also how women still are not receiving a secondary education in some countries, and continue to be married off as children. In her speech, she brings upon calling forth both men and women into action but in particular men. As Watson expresses in her speech, men have long been afraid of the word feminism due to the negative connotation that feminism means man hating. And as she clearly exclaims it has to stop, but why is it that the word feminism or simply a woman who seeks to be paid the same as her male counterparts, be seen as intimidating or rather appalling?
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issue-too
A common thread amongst the oppressed to the oppressors is the proposal of fairness and the intensely adverse reaction to said idea. Truth’s statement “If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to me have my little half-measure full?” is remarkably eloquent in its simplicity. When reading that, I thought to myself “What does it hurt me to let others enjoy to the same degree as I do?”. What possible and truthful justification could be given to let groups have less right outside of ignorance and fear? This brings to mind the various privileges that I enjoy almost without consciously thinking of them and what they afford me.
I can admit that I have almost no grasp of the particular goals of modern day feminism. There are certain concepts that I understand immediately such as the gender pay gap however, I have yet to speak to women specifically both apart of and separate from the movement. My first step would be to listen and learn in order to gain a better understanding of the issue, goals and possible methods of achievement.
Hi Vanessa,
I really like this post, partly because I just find that line in Truth so compelling, but also because I am interested in how you brought in another version of the speech (the Gage version). I wish you could have provided a link to this different version (just fyi for the future). I think that bringing in a different recount of the same speech is so interesting because it one ) helps us understand that the words we are looking at are mediated through other people’s (likely white and male) memory, and 2) how even small changes in the form or rhetorical choices can make a difference (i.e. “as any man” as opposed to repeating the rhetorical question, “Ain’t I a woman?”).
I also appreciate the contemporary text you bring in. What I like most about the contemporary text is that it is a speech at a convention, so in that way it mirrors somewhat in genre, Truth’s speech, which means that there is a formal as well as content connection between the two texts.
My main concern is that I wish you could have gone further into the interesting textual moments you bring to the table. In your second paragraph, you move outward instead of into the the question of two different versions of the speech or even the idea of the list of laboring activities. You move out to a kind of broad dawn-of-ages type statement. The struggle for women’s rights has been going on a long time. It’s not untrue, but it 1) apparent in the dates of the text you look at and 2) not really revealing of much about the text or the history of the struggle. It really reads as a pan out and a potential space holder for where you could be going into your reading, thinking, engagement with the text.
Relatedly, I wonder if you had gone deeper into the Truth text whether or not you might have been able to articulate an observation about the relation between the two texts that was also more specific and pointed. Right now it’s just the idea of women’s rights that joins them together. That idea is so broad that it does not seem to hold or account for the differences between the two texts which you don’t really address (except for the issue of the hefty amount of time between the two speeches). But does it matter that Watson is white British internationally acclaimed movie star and model educated at Brown and Oxford or that she is actually speaking on behalf of an official UN initiative “He for She” on women’s issues in a global community? She is not like Truth, a former slave, a mother, older, of humble means, illiterate, or the only dark woman in the room, nor is she facing a potentially hostile crowd that even if they are more or less in favor of some sort of women’s rights, are not sure about how they feel about racial inequality, or for that matter whether they even regard Truth as a woman? Most of these questions you can ask without knowing any more about either speaker than is revealed on the webpages presenting their speech. Indeed most of this information can be deduced from the speeches themselves, in which case, I wonder what your analysis would look like if you were able to resist the urge to pan out to the general statement and stay close with both texts. What might you notice in the way they introduce themselves? In the length of the speech? In the organizations or the type of metaphors? And do these differences reflect a difference in politics? perspectives? etc.?
Franklin,
I give you the same comment I gave to Vanessa. I think the difference between your comment, and Vanessa’s post is that instead of panning out to the general, you center onto the self and personal reflection. In the same way that it is not bad for Vanessa to talk about the broader issues or history, it is not bad for you to begin with and/or offer personal reflections. However neither should replace the work of staying with and thinking into the text on its own terms. We want to avoid missing the complexities of the similarity and the differences by panning out so broadly that everything is the same, and we want to also avoid proving ideas or statements about the whole or the other by way of analyzing only one’s self.