Given the mission of this lofty, equality-driven gathering, it is easy to imagine the anger and confusion female delegates must have felt when -- upon their arrival in London -- a heated debate broke out among the Convention’s male representatives.
While a radical minority argued that the Anti-Slavery Convention was intended to promote equality for all, the majority of delegates hawked traditional gender roles. Women -- like children -- were to be seen, respected, admired even, but not heard.
The majority ruled: Female delegates would be sidelined at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. The weaker sex would, however, be permitted to “spectate” from the balcony.
Two American female delegates, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott chose not to spectate. Although Mott was allowed to deliver a speech she had prepared, she had no vote. Withdrawing, Stanton and Mott strolled the genteel parks of London and talked. In the light of their exclusion from a gathering dedicated to human rights, they had much to talk about.
In the 1840s, American women forfeited their children in a divorce, did not inherit their husband’s property at his death, were banned from participating in lawmaking, were denied access to higher education and the professions and -- of course -- could not vote.
Stanton and Mott decided that they would organize their own convention. The time had come, they decided, for “women's wrongs to be laid before the public,” and that “women bore the responsibility for doing so.”
They announced plans for a convention to be held in Seneca Falls, New York where they would discuss “…the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women."
The five-day convention attracted three hundred people including forty men. Ironically, no woman felt confident enough to conduct the proceedings. Instead, Lucretia Mott’s husband, a Quaker abolitionist and school teacher, assumed the “chair man’s” role.
As in London, issues of race and gender rapidly emerged at Seneca Falls. Should the matter of women’s rights be introduced to a community that had dedicated its limited resources to the abolition of slavery? Did a campaign to secure equality for females deserve a place next to the struggle to emancipate the slaves? Should a woman have the right to vote?
At this point, a remarkable figure stepped onto the Seneca Falls podium. By the time he was 20, Frederick Douglass had defied the taboos of Southern slave life, learned to read, escaped from his master’s plantation, and earned legal status as a free man in New York city.
Douglass developed into a powerful orator, writer, and editor who advocated the equality of all people, be they black, female, American Indian, or immigrant. Although his speech at Seneca Falls was not recorded, Douglass later expressed gratitude that “… I was sufficiently enlightened, when only a few years from slavery, to support this resolution for woman suffrage … . When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question.”
Douglass’ passionate speech transcended gender and race and unified the two movements with a clear and stirring premise: No one is free until everyone is free.
The troubled Seneca Falls delegates agreed to recognize the campaign for women’s rights as equal -- not opposite -- to the struggle to abolish slavery. They all -- women, men, abolitionists, suffragists, mechanics, teachers, lawyers, and an 18-year-old factory girl who dreamed of becoming a printer -- voted to adopt America’s first feminist manifesto.
Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, this feminist Declaration of Sentiments demanded equal participation in trades, professions and commerce and that women should “secure to themselves their sacred right” to vote.
“Unite…to do right!”
Charlotte Woodward, the 18-year-old factory worker who wanted to become a printer, lived to cast her vote in the 1920 Presidential election. Frederick Douglass lived to witness the emancipation of his people.
We have moved light years from the bold-faced race and gender conflicts of the World Anti-Slavery Conference and the feminist gathering at Seneca Falls. But once again, with two candidates poised to turn the Bush years around, the outcome is not clear. Once again, we are stalked by the twin specters that haunted London and Seneca Falls over 150 years ago.
While a radical minority argued that the Anti-Slavery Convention was intended to promote equality for all, the majority of delegates hawked traditional gender roles. Women -- like children -- were to be seen, respected, admired even, but not heard.
The majority ruled: Female delegates would be sidelined at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. The weaker sex would, however, be permitted to “spectate” from the balcony.
Two American female delegates, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott chose not to spectate. Although Mott was allowed to deliver a speech she had prepared, she had no vote. Withdrawing, Stanton and Mott strolled the genteel parks of London and talked. In the light of their exclusion from a gathering dedicated to human rights, they had much to talk about.
Stanton and Mott decided that they would organize their own convention. The time had come, they decided, for “women's wrongs to be laid before the public,” and that “women bore the responsibility for doing so.”
They announced plans for a convention to be held in Seneca Falls, New York where they would discuss “…the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women."
The five-day convention attracted three hundred people including forty men. Ironically, no woman felt confident enough to conduct the proceedings. Instead, Lucretia Mott’s husband, a Quaker abolitionist and school teacher, assumed the “chair man’s” role.
As in London, issues of race and gender rapidly emerged at Seneca Falls. Should the matter of women’s rights be introduced to a community that had dedicated its limited resources to the abolition of slavery? Did a campaign to secure equality for females deserve a place next to the struggle to emancipate the slaves? Should a woman have the right to vote?
At this point, a remarkable figure stepped onto the Seneca Falls podium. By the time he was 20, Frederick Douglass had defied the taboos of Southern slave life, learned to read, escaped from his master’s plantation, and earned legal status as a free man in New York city.
Douglass developed into a powerful orator, writer, and editor who advocated the equality of all people, be they black, female, American Indian, or immigrant. Although his speech at Seneca Falls was not recorded, Douglass later expressed gratitude that “… I was sufficiently enlightened, when only a few years from slavery, to support this resolution for woman suffrage … . When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question.”
Douglass’ passionate speech transcended gender and race and unified the two movements with a clear and stirring premise: No one is free until everyone is free.
The troubled Seneca Falls delegates agreed to recognize the campaign for women’s rights as equal -- not opposite -- to the struggle to abolish slavery. They all -- women, men, abolitionists, suffragists, mechanics, teachers, lawyers, and an 18-year-old factory girl who dreamed of becoming a printer -- voted to adopt America’s first feminist manifesto.
Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, this feminist Declaration of Sentiments demanded equal participation in trades, professions and commerce and that women should “secure to themselves their sacred right” to vote.
“Unite…to do right!”
Charlotte Woodward, the 18-year-old factory worker who wanted to become a printer, lived to cast her vote in the 1920 Presidential election. Frederick Douglass lived to witness the emancipation of his people.
We have moved light years from the bold-faced race and gender conflicts of the World Anti-Slavery Conference and the feminist gathering at Seneca Falls. But once again, with two candidates poised to turn the Bush years around, the outcome is not clear. Once again, we are stalked by the twin specters that haunted London and Seneca Falls over 150 years ago.
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