Transcript:
Welcome to the verbal presentation on WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE – a movement where women came out of their comfort zones and fought for their right to vote. These women were not only brave and intelligent; they were the leaders of the time.
So here is the first text I will be talking about from the American Protest Literature.
“Solitude of Self” was a speech by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was a famous and active leader in the women’s suffrage movement. In her speech she addresses about the much-needed equality and voting rights for women. However, she is clever in a way that she said it Is NOT because of legal protection but of the importance to recognize every single individual as a human soul. Her speech is full of logics, appealing to the chairmen and committees, which were then full of white males. The protesting speech was effective to the residing audience. As women at that time they paid for taxes, she argues that a woman is to be considered a citizen of a nation when she has the same basic rights as others. She asks that women to be rid of gender tags, such as wives, mothers, sisters, “because, as an individual, she must rely on herself”. I found this literature important in the era because it symbolizes the strength of women’s logic thinking that was often degraded by men. It showed that women are not a soft characters but an individual with soul. The quote from Elizabeth Cady Stanton “The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education fear…is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life” proved that individuality is the key to successful life.
“Herland” was probably my favorite as it was really a new concept. An utopian novel, “Herland” talks life of a newfound country of only women but men. Although the writer was a woman, the narrator was a male and began to see “that women… not as females but as people”. “Herland” was a society of peace and community; while the Other World, ruled by men, was full of disease and discriminations. While written in 1915, the concept still applies today, as the majority of government bodies are still ruled under men. It boils down to the concept of successful women leaders in politics and businesses and other fields of profession. Here’re some pictures of modern women leaders, and we might just have a female president after the first African-American president!
And there are the texts I found very interesting and important to the protest movement of women’s right…
Susan B Anthony worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton for years on women’s right to vote. In her essay, Women Want Bread, Not The Ballot, she states the wrongs of disfranchisement and argues that a “disfranchised class [is] a degraded class of labor” who have no ability to do anything except to accept the current circumstances, while the enfranchised, the men, are at full advantage. She comes to emphasize the point that “It is not the vote we want, but it is the bread we want” while giving out numbers of working, single women. These images proved that this essay was a protest literature on a real issue – women want financial independence as bread-winning workers. They didn’t just want the vote, they wanted the vote on securing…. equal rights and opportunities. Women worked in factories when men were away fighting at warfront, and women now work as wives and care-takers, doubling the jobs.
Are Women People? is a collection of poems that mock and challenge anti-suffragists. A poem responds to Mr. Webb, an anti-suffragist who said “I am opposed to woman suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman”, , Miller challenged his illogic hypocrite nature. A woman engineer was dismissed from her duty because “women shall not attend high boiler”, and Miller humorously notes from a man’s perspective that “starve or rob – let me have your job!”. The law states that a married woman takes her husband’s nationality, and Miller asks, “What’s a woman’s native land?” These poems of protests are easy to read and indicate the struggles women had to bear during the era of traditional gender roles. Moreover, men were generally opposed to the women’s suffrage movement because they felt threatened by women’s new awakening. These images represent the oppression women face today. In the middle east, women are not allowed to reveal her faces to any males but her husband. In Chinese tradition, the bride is covered and only allowed to be unveiled when her groom-to-be does so. These acts belittle women.
If you only look at the title, Virginia Woolf’s book-length essay “A Room of One’s Own” appears to be about men, but it’s actually about women and their financial independence and leisure. She encourages women to get their own area of peace of mind to think and write. She then explores history of women writers. In the essay the narrator compared countless examples about women and men – men’s rich colleges, elegant libraries, and men’s wealth and women’s poverty and….. financially troubled colleges. This protest essay was written in a time of strong feminist movement, where a woman seems restricted in any thinkable way, while a….. man is free to roar around and enjoys his education. History has proved that women had been barred from achievement because of the unchangeable gender and social stereotypes. Women lacked social and economic power because they were to do the housework …. as set by the society. The essay is still relevant today because women, even working and in a dual working parents household, still have the role to care for the house and the children. However, it is imperative for women of today to have own leisure time to relax from the stressful lives.
Welcome to the verbal presentation on WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE – a movement where women came out of their comfort zones and fought for their right to vote. These women were not only brave and intelligent; they were the leaders of the time.
So here is the first text I will be talking about from the American Protest Literature.
“Solitude of Self” was a speech by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was a famous and active leader in the women’s suffrage movement. In her speech she addresses about the much-needed equality and voting rights for women. However, she is clever in a way that she said it Is NOT because of legal protection but of the importance to recognize every single individual as a human soul. Her speech is full of logics, appealing to the chairmen and committees, which were then full of white males. The protesting speech was effective to the residing audience. As women at that time they paid for taxes, she argues that a woman is to be considered a citizen of a nation when she has the same basic rights as others. She asks that women to be rid of gender tags, such as wives, mothers, sisters, “because, as an individual, she must rely on herself”. I found this literature important in the era because it symbolizes the strength of women’s logic thinking that was often degraded by men. It showed that women are not a soft characters but an individual with soul. The quote from Elizabeth Cady Stanton “The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education fear…is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life” proved that individuality is the key to successful life.
“Herland” was probably my favorite as it was really a new concept. An utopian novel, “Herland” talks life of a newfound country of only women but men. Although the writer was a woman, the narrator was a male and began to see “that women… not as females but as people”. “Herland” was a society of peace and community; while the Other World, ruled by men, was full of disease and discriminations. While written in 1915, the concept still applies today, as the majority of government bodies are still ruled under men. It boils down to the concept of successful women leaders in politics and businesses and other fields of profession. Here’re some pictures of modern women leaders, and we might just have a female president after the first African-American president!
And there are the texts I found very interesting and important to the protest movement of women’s right…
Susan B Anthony worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton for years on women’s right to vote. In her essay, Women Want Bread, Not The Ballot, she states the wrongs of disfranchisement and argues that a “disfranchised class [is] a degraded class of labor” who have no ability to do anything except to accept the current circumstances, while the enfranchised, the men, are at full advantage. She comes to emphasize the point that “It is not the vote we want, but it is the bread we want” while giving out numbers of working, single women. These images proved that this essay was a protest literature on a real issue – women want financial independence as bread-winning workers. They didn’t just want the vote, they wanted the vote on securing…. equal rights and opportunities. Women worked in factories when men were away fighting at warfront, and women now work as wives and care-takers, doubling the jobs.
Are Women People? is a collection of poems that mock and challenge anti-suffragists. A poem responds to Mr. Webb, an anti-suffragist who said “I am opposed to woman suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman”, , Miller challenged his illogic hypocrite nature. A woman engineer was dismissed from her duty because “women shall not attend high boiler”, and Miller humorously notes from a man’s perspective that “starve or rob – let me have your job!”. The law states that a married woman takes her husband’s nationality, and Miller asks, “What’s a woman’s native land?” These poems of protests are easy to read and indicate the struggles women had to bear during the era of traditional gender roles. Moreover, men were generally opposed to the women’s suffrage movement because they felt threatened by women’s new awakening. These images represent the oppression women face today. In the middle east, women are not allowed to reveal her faces to any males but her husband. In Chinese tradition, the bride is covered and only allowed to be unveiled when her groom-to-be does so. These acts belittle women.
If you only look at the title, Virginia Woolf’s book-length essay “A Room of One’s Own” appears to be about men, but it’s actually about women and their financial independence and leisure. She encourages women to get their own area of peace of mind to think and write. She then explores history of women writers. In the essay the narrator compared countless examples about women and men – men’s rich colleges, elegant libraries, and men’s wealth and women’s poverty and….. financially troubled colleges. This protest essay was written in a time of strong feminist movement, where a woman seems restricted in any thinkable way, while a….. man is free to roar around and enjoys his education. History has proved that women had been barred from achievement because of the unchangeable gender and social stereotypes. Women lacked social and economic power because they were to do the housework …. as set by the society. The essay is still relevant today because women, even working and in a dual working parents household, still have the role to care for the house and the children. However, it is imperative for women of today to have own leisure time to relax from the stressful lives.