By: Christian Cherau

Christian Cherau — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 04:01:50 +0000

I agree completely with your thoughts on the content of this speech when compared to the rhetoric of modern-day feminists. After the lecture on Christianity influencing American politics and reform movements, this connection makes sense given the time period. It is still interesting to contrast this to the modern feminism movement, however, so get a sense of how the paradigm has shifted in the 100+ years since Stanton pleaded for women’s suffrage.
More so, however, I want to build on and expand your points about religion. I feel that the arguments Stanton could be framed by any number of social issues of the time, not just the lens of feminism. With religion being a way to reach all around social change, the idea that every man comes into the world on his own and leaves the world his own person. Stanton herself states that once we understand the importance of the solitude of self, “we can…appreciate the loss to a nation when any large class of the people is uneducated and unrepresented.” Had women’s suffrage been already addressed by the time Stanton came to give her speech, it would have been just as meaningful in the quest for equality of immigrants, the poor, or perhaps even the increasingly vote deprived blacks of America.

Comments on: Solitude of Self – Jake Berman

By: Christian Cherau