Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
What do we know as yet of the womanly? The women we have seen
thus far have been, with rare exceptions, the mere echoes of men.
Man has spoken in the State, the Church and the Home, and made
the codes, creeds and customs which govern every relation in
life, and women have simply echoed all his thoughts and walked in
the paths he prescribed. And this they call womanly! When Joan of
Arc led the French army to victory I dare say the carpet knights
of England thought her unwomanly. When Florence Nightingale, in
search of blankets for the soldiers in the Crimean War, cut her
way through all orders and red tape, commanded with vehemence and
determination those who guarded the supplies to "unlock the doors
and not talk to her of proper authorities when brave men were
shivering in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To
me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of
circumlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that
she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object.
Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with
children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of
reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty
to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and as
promptly as possible.
Mrs. Stanton urged that women should have more power in church
management, saying:
As women are taking an active part in pressing on the
consideration of Congress many narrow sectarian measures, such as
more rigid Sunday laws, the stopping of travel, the distribution
of the mail on that day, and the introduction of the name of God
into the Constitution; and as this action on the part of some
women is used as an argument for the disfranchisement of all, I
hope this convention will declare that the Woman Suffrage
Association is opposed to all union of Church and State, and
pledges itself as far as possible to maintain the secular nature
of our Government. As Sunday is the only day that the laboring
man can escape from the cities, to stop the street-cars,
omnibuses and railroad trains would indeed be a lamentable
exercise of arbitrary authority. No, no, the duty of the State is
to protect those who do the work of the world, in the largest
liberty, and instead of shutting them up in their gloomy tenement
houses on Sunday, to open wide the parks, horticultural gardens,
museums, libraries, galleries of art and the music halls where
they can listen to the divine melodies of the great masters.
She demanded that women declare boldly and decisively on all the vital
issues of the day, and said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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