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Maria Garza
Felicia Dziadek
ENGL 1301-482
22 February 2016
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born and raised in Johnstown New York City, she was also
a very strong American Suffragist. Elizabeth was one of the most important leading Woman’s
activist, she believed woman needed to be treated equally. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote many
famous speeches during her time, she was well known for one particular speech called The
Destructive Male Speech. Elizabeth Cady Stanton argues in this speech that men over power
woman in the 1860s, she clarifies that woman do not have equality.
Stanton was an early was an early Woman’s activist leader, in 1868 Stanton wrote a
very famous speech called The Destructive Male Speech. In this speech she established how
men had too much power. Stanton tells us that
“The male element has held high carnival thus
far; it has fairly run riot from the beginning, overpowering the feminine element everywhere,
crushing out all the diviner qualities in human nature, until we know but little of true manhood
and womanhood”. She uses logic to attack the male figure and also the government. Stanton
clearly blames the way society is being ruled by men. During this time women did not have
representation, they did not have the right to vote.
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America entered War in the 1760s and it escalated from there. America was fighting for
independence from Britain. The American Revolution occurred before the Civil Rights
Movement, and during the time that America was at war with Britain woman still did not have
the right to vote or get involved with anything. It was not until the 1860s that women activist
like Elizabeth Cady Stanton took it upon themselves to actually start announcing that women
are as equal as men.
The Destructive Male Speech points out that the male figure slanders woman. It clearly
states that society is a patriarchy, a society that is patriarchy is which men have a more
authority over woman. In this cause she blames man for the way society is being run she uses
pathos in her speech. The feeling she uses is anger she express in the speech. The rhetorical
situation in this speech is that woman have no equality and they are lacking the image of what
is to be a woman. The speech takes place at the Woman’s Convention in Washington D.C. Her
audience is mostly woman and men who support the idea of women having equal rights.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is creditable because she worked hard for centuries on obtaining
woman’s rights. Stanton is somewhat fair because she believes that not all men are evil.
They’re men who support the fact that woman do have rights. Stanton tells us that “In
speaking of the masculine element, I do not wish to be understood to say that all men are hard,
selfish, and brutal, for many of the most beautiful spirits the world has known have been
clothed with manhood”. The quote states how she knows that few men are not the same.
Furthermore in the speech Elizabeth Cady Stanton states that the reason why they do
not give more power to women is because she will seem more masculine. She talks about how
woman must have qualities that men in order to have the respect that men have. Stanton then
quotes “To keep a foothold in society, woman must be as near like man as possible, reflect his
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ideas, opinions, virtues, motives, prejudices, and vices. She must respect his statutes, though
they strip her of every inalienable right” this points how women must have the qualities that a
man must have in order to have the respect that men have.
The 14th Amendment “grants citizenship to all born persons in the united states”
Stanton argued that if the 14th amendment does grants citizenship then why they take away
equality away from woman. In her speech she clearly states for the 16th Amendment as well in
her eyes woman don’t have representation.
“I urge a sixteenth amendment, because 'manhood
suffrage,' or a man's government, is civil, religious, and social disorganization. The male
element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, and conquest,
acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and
death” in this quote she is stating that how men can be very self-centered and how society is
very violet in the world. This is why she wants woman to have equality so the world can be
more be fair.
The Destructive Male Speech was a very convincing and powerful speech. The way she
presented it and the language she used also affected the way people received her message.
Stanton’s speech is very prevailing she came off strong in introducing the problem. The
problem is that the male figure is dominant, and that they insist in a woman to be on the level
that a man is on in order to gain respect.
Overall Elizabeth Stanton was a very strong woman’s suffrage and abolitionist. She was
not afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She fought for woman equality and she
eventually won her case. She knew that she had the power to improve society and the way
things were. With the support of some men she had justice served. Elizabeth was very strong
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woman and she knew how to hold her ground. She was very persistent on the fact that woman
needed to be more involved politically. I think her arguments are very valuable and it was a
fight well fought over equality.
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Work Cited
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/reconstruction/essays/reconstruction-andbattle-for-woman-suffrage
http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html
Holton, Sandra Stanley. 1994. “"to Educate Women into Rebellion": Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the
Creation of a Transatlantic Network of Radical Suffragists”. The American Historical Review 99 (4). [Oxford
University Press, American Historical Association]: 1112–36. doi:10.2307/2168771.
Hill, Mary A.. “Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Reflections on Feminist Biography”. Reviews in American
History 8.4 (1980): 448–453. Web..
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/recon/jb_recon_revised_1.html
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