Feminism is more than a word, feminism is a movement advocating for women’s social, political, legal and economic rights equal to those of men. Its first documented use dates back to 1837 in France, where socialist Charles Fourier uses ‘feminisme’ to describe women’s liberation in a Utopian future.
By the early 1900s, it was associated with women’s suffrage, but later evolves to carry more meaning. In particular, ‘intersectional feminism’ which draws attention to how women face different forms of discrimination based on factors, such as race, class, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, very much like it is today.
In her 1851 speech “Ain’t I a woman?”, American feminist and former slave Sojourner Truth draws attention to how women experience sexism differently.
A former slave, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. Her Civil War work earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.Delivered 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio here is Sojourner’s most notable poem.
Ain’t I a woman
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.
Source: Feminist.com
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