The written word, the spoken word, the Women's Movement
By Formative Staff
Last updated about 2 months ago
12 Questions
Note from the author:
Analyze a speech by Sojourner Truth and a poem by Alice Duer Miller to understand how women in the 19th and early 20th centuries were viewed.
- First, watch Crash Course Women in the 19th Century and answer the questions that accompany it.
- Next, read the poem and speech and answer the questions for each text.
- Finally, using evidence from each text, and from the video, synthesize how women were viewed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Explain how the treatment of women was different based on race and class.
"Why We Oppose Pockets for Women"
by Alice Duer Miller
1. Because pockets are not a natural right.
2. Because the great majority of women do not want pockets.
If they did they would have them.
3. Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.
4. Because women are required to carry enough things as it is,
without the additional burden of pockets.
5. Because it would make dissension between husband and wife as to
whose pockets were to be filled.
6. Because it would destroy man's chivalry toward woman,
if he did not have to carry all her things in his pockets.
7. Because men are men, and women are women. We must not fly in the face of nature.
8. Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and
compromising letters. We see no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely.
"Ain't I a Woman?"
by Sojourner Truth
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.