The Rights of Woman

Ohio Woman’s Rights Convention

Correspondence of the New-York Tribune.

Second Day—Morning Session,
Akron, (Ohio,) Thursday, May 29.

The convention is crowded as usual this morning. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Sloscher or Akron. The Hutchinsons sang, and the Convention proceeded to business.

Time did not permit the reading of all the excellent letters received, though they will probably appear in the pamphlet of proceedings. Among the able letters this morning were those from E.C. Stanton, Mrs. P. W. Davis, and Mrs. Wilson. A strong report on the Relations of Women in Education, was then read by its author, Mrs. Emily R. Robinson. It was replete with thought and judicious suggestion on this important subject, for which we must refer the reader to the forth-coming pamphlet.

After the reading of the report on Education, Mrs. Coe rose to correct a slight mistake which she believed had been a mere oversight in her friend. After setting forth the liberal benefactions bestowed upon colleges and other institutions endowed for men, to the utter neglect of women, in the higher departments of learning, the writer goes on to say—“And all or the most that Woman has to do with these institutions is occasionally to attend an exhibition of the Senior class, or some grand display gotten up for the benefit of the students.”

Now, I would respectfully ask—Is this all that woman has to do in the matter? Is she not compelled to take a most active part when she least expects it? Is not woman taxed to support these institutions? Who furnishes those rich endowments! Woman pays her full share toward it. No matter whether raised by direct taxation, by grants from your Legislatures, or by appeals to the patriotic benevolence of your citizens. Now man is guilty of a two fold act of injustice toward her, first crippling the energies of her mind by depriving her of the benefits to be derived from these seminaries, and then sneering at the imbecility of character she afterwards exhibits! Is not the grinding with the heel, and then spurning with the hand the crushed being! What! first tax her for the endowment of those institutions, and then forbid her to enter their halls to gather the fruits of knowledge! Deprive her—the weak, as you will have it—of the very means deemed most necessary to the advancement and maturing of the strong! Is not the woe of the Scripture upon us for this and similar oppressions of woman in the form of the feeble, pusillanimous being you call wife and sister? I will not add daughter, for with them there is yet an opportunity to apply the remedy; but so sure as you fail to do this, and continue to cut off their advancement, either positively or negatively, so sure will the evil continue to react upon you in the form of weak, imbecile, puerile, inconstant and inefficient women!—for there is no more certain way of producing and keeping up a stagnation in any department of life, than by cutting off the motives and spring of action by forbidding that human beings enter the legitimate channels of industry, enterprise and activity. To this rule woman is no exception; to say that she is, would be to deny her humanity.

I know that there are Female Seminaries springing up all over the land: but who are to be the teachers in these Seminaries? From what class of females in these United states—nay, in the whole civilized world—are we to look for teachers that can compete in erudition with the Professors in your Colleges?—Woman is perhaps doing the very best she can do under the circumstances, but until she is herself prepared, how can she be expected to properly guide her sister’s mind through the winding labyrinths of science? We do not deem it the business of a Republic to establish an aristocracy of letters any more than an aristocracy of any other kind, but to diffuse education throughout the masses, and to place them as nearly on a footing of equality as is possible in reference to all the great interests in life. The presumed mental inferiority of Woman, therefore, furnishes one of the strongest arguments in favor of a superior instead of an inferior education, since she must depend on culture instead of native strength of mind, while Man being born with superior wit and wisdom, as is argued, has less need of cultivation.—Nor can I perceive of how any person living under a Democratic form of Government and professing to be imbued with Democratic principles can arrive at any other conclusion than the education of Woman should be fully equal, if not a little superior, to that of Man.

Yes, while for him Colleges, Academies, Lyceums and Universities are baring their gorgeous and Palace-like heads throughout the civilized world, Woman is still circumscribed, still dwarfed.

Yet will the dastardly cry of inferiority come up from generous bosoms and noble hears, whose wives, whose mothers, whose sisters and daughters are languishing in spiritual neglect, deprived of even the common advantages of the free Negro and the wild Indian, who are permitted to enter scholastic halls, from which she is excluded, although she must have paid her full share for their endowment, while no compensating provision is made for her. If this is not caste of the strictest and most despotic kind, I know not what it is.

Something has been said of the different spheres in which the sexes are to move, and I am glad for once to hear an attempt made in the resolutions of Mrs. S. to limit that of man. I have always heard that he had a sphere, but no one before, I believe, has ever thought of prescribing bounds to it. His sphere has hitherto been all over creation, and if by any Yankee invention he could contrive means to get out of it it would be perfectly legitimate. [Laughter.] He may not only engage in the most noble, but wherever there is a copper to be turned, may descend to the most common and ignoble pursuits, without encroaching in the least on the boundaries of the sphere of any other being.

He may not only study and practice the professions, engage in extensive manufactories and mercantile enterprises, but it is considered perfectly legitimate for him to descend to the minutest details of a lady’s toilet. He may sell hair-pins, combs, brushes, thread, needles, breast-pins, ear and finger-rings, doll-babies, with all the et ceterasof child’s play-house, gingerbread, beer by the glass, and even sugar candy by the penny’s worth, if there is any money to be made from it, [Laughter.] and it has not inaptly been said of him, that ifhe were to have a life’s leave of heaven, on condition of being perfectly contented with it, and should hear a sixpence drop on the floor of hell, he would feel an itching palm until he had contrived some means to slip down and pick it up. [Applause and laughter.] The creed written on his young heart from the moment he leaves his mother’s apron strings, is

Mrs. Tracy followed Mrc. Coe with some plain, earnest and well spoken remarks.

Some one having cited passages of Scripture touching the relations of the sexes, Mrs. Swisshelm cited the additional testimony that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free, male or female.

Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave, whose color and features attest the purity of her blood, here rose and delighted her audience with some of the shrewdest remarks made during the session. She said she was a woman, and had done as much work in the fields as any man here. she had heard as much about equality of the sexes, but would not argue that question. All she could say was, that if she had a pint of intellect and man a quart, what reason was there why she should not have her pint full.[Roars of laughter.] She said she could not read, but she could hear. She had heard the bible read, and was told that Eve caused the fall of man. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. She learned also from the new Gospel that man had nothing to do with bringing Jesus into the world, for God was his father, but woman was his mother. Jesus respected woman, and never turned her away. By woman’s influence the dead was raised, for when Lazarus died Mary and Martha, full of faith and love, came to Jesus and besought him to raise their brother’s life. he did not turn them away, but “Jesus wept,” and Lazarus came forth. But the women are coming up, blessed be God, and a few of the men are coming up with them, but they have a heavy burden to bear, for the slaves and the women look to them for redemption.

Rev. John Sloucher followed with some remarks on the equality of woman with man, taking the ground that she was equal to him in intellect and superior in the moral sentiments.

Miss Sarah Coates said that people were under very erroneous impressions with regard to the capabilities of woman for excellence in the various pursuits of life. If she undertook to practice the Daguerrean art, it was said that she could not excel, and patronage is withheld from her. Should she attempt to engage herself as a Merchant tailor, the same objection is made, and her success is impeded. In these branches and many others, woman can equal man, and there is no reason why she should not freely engage in them.

Mr. Pease, of Canton, Ohio, here made some remarks, and Mr. robinson read a poem, addressed to the Convention by Geo. W. Putnam, of Lynn, Mass.

Works Cited

“The Rights of Woman: Ohio Rights Convention.” New-York Tribue. New York, NY. 6 Jun 1851, p. 7, col. 1-2. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/image/50691020