Many Americans realized their own oppression as they worked to the end of the institution of slavery. When two of these women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, were denied the right to sit as delegates at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, they were angered to the point of action. Eight years later in Seneca Falls, New York, the first American women’s right convention was held. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the following declaration.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature’s God entitle them, a dene t respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are treated equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with the certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these right governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experiences hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolitionist the from’s to which they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuse and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such governments, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which the yare entitled..
The Essay on African Women And Developement
... (Afsha 69). The imported ideals and restrictions that colonial governments placed on women in indigenous societies of Africa, lead to the deconstruction ... income. The colonization of Africa witnessed European governments imposing different oppressive ideals on African women by means of exploitation. The Europeans took ...
