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We assume the position that all human beings, in order to fulfill their highest
destiny, should be usefully and agreeably
employed. That the right to liberty of choice with regard to avocation, is
equally inherent in male and female.
Therefore to restrict Woman to a few industrial pursuits, prescribing for
her a certain sphere of action, is to infringe upon her natural rights, and
is a direct injury to her physical and moral nature. We hold also, that Man
and Woman should alike be encouraged by the Institutions and usages of society,
to make themselves useful to the fullest extent of their ability. To this
end, no inferiority tending to the depreciation of Woman's labor, or recognizing
impropriety in her engaging in any
pursuit to which she may feel attracted, in subserviency of course to the
moral law, should be tolerated.
Both sexes should stand as equal aspirants for excellence, in any department
of intellectual and industrial life to which they may be capable of attaining.
We believe, also, that only within a social superstructure, based upon these
self-evident truths, can the sexes blend harmoniously and virtuously their
different and peculiar characteristics. We find society constituted and acting
in direct violation of this coequality of human rights. Woman's sphere is
limited, and prescribed for her by public sentiment, and restricted to a
few industrial avocations; these generally of an inferior grade, and affording
so small a remuneration, that men pass by them with scorn. To make this clear,
we will briefly glance at her present position.
We find Woman, in all heathen countries, a slave , a beast of burden, always
treated by man as an inferior, and excluded from his companionship in the
most cherished objects of his life, while she is compelled to endure the
hardships of the severest toil. Although more delicate in her physical
organization, she is made, by man's greater power, subservient to his wishes,
and obliged to do his bidding in the performance of the most menial drudgery.
Her female infants are destroyed with impunity, and her existence allowed
only as an appendage to man's; while at his death she is frequently consumed
upon his funeral pile. Her labors and endurance in such countries prove that
she is equal to great hardships and exertions when thus early trained. As
civilization advances, she has fewer burdens, perhaps, placed upon her, although
her rights of labor, encouragements and remuneration are far from being equal.
Wherever she is allowed to labor side by side with man in the same pursuits,
for services equally well executed, she is paid not more than half as much.
In no country, even the most civilized and enlightened, are industrial
occupations opened to Woman with the same facilities for operations, the
same encouragements for success, and the same stimuli to excellence and
greatness. Woman is expected to be frail, delicate and dependent in order
to be loved. She must be thus lovely to expect marriage, and she must be
married to have a home and a subsistence. Hence she is limited to an inferior
circle of industry, in which she can act only in helpless dependence upon
Man's wiser guidance, and preserve her feminine character, the beauty of
which consists in graceful weakness, timidity, and submission to the
conventionalisms of life.
In this condition she must patiently continue until some favorable circumstance
affords her an opportunity of yielding up her personal identity and becoming
a " Femme Covert " for the sake of a sure living! Thus marriage for a home
becomes frequent, necessarily so, from the proscriptions under which Woman
suffers.
Should she attempt to make herself independent and self-supporting, she would
be pronounced "out of her sphere,"
"masculine" and unlovely, and have less prospect of sustaining the beautiful
relation of wife and mother. No one can doubt the demoralizing influence
such a position must have over Woman's higher nature, nor its disastrous
effects upon human happiness and elevation.
Not so with Man. To him , Science and Industry, blending in beautiful harmony,
open their thousand avenues, alluring him
onward and upward, over their bright and pleasant pathway, to the very summit
of human excellence. While they ask of
Woman, if she would enter their higher precincts, only to accept of such
of their gifts as will make her more agreeable to Man, for whom only she
was made; and to whom, if she fails to get an honorable alliance, her womanhood
is sacrificed, an offering more ignoble even than that laid upon the funeral
pile of a deceased husband. Thus has Might triumphed over Right, and muscle
and strength have taken for themselves the best.
Assuming this superiority, Man has claimed all excellence, all profit, all
laurels, and the person , even, of his weaker
companion. Woman's labor has been underrated . The few avocations open to
her have been crowded to excess by
competition; work for Woman is consequently scarce and hard to be obtained,
while the remuneration afforded for services well rendered, and valuable,
is but a miserable pittance, compared to the same amount of labor performed
by the male sex. The average earnings of seamstresses are not more than thirty
cents per day, while those employed in paper mills and factoriesaverage but
barely enough to sustain them from week to week. Very few of the best weavers
are enabled to deposit some of the avails of their labor in savings banks,
for the future; but this is so seldom, that wherever an exception occurs
of this kind, and a factory girl, after years of toil, has saved to the amount
of a thousand dollars, it becomes an item of newspaper interest, and is wondered
at as most extraordinary! But very few, however, who throng the crowded paths
frequented by Woman's patient feet, are enabled to save anything for the
contingencies of the future, so that, deplorable and chilling as the thought
is, the unfortunate, the worn-out, or the discouraged, must resort to crime
or starve. Well authenticated statistics have proved to the public, through
the columns of both London and New-York papers, that two-thirds of the abandoned
and dissolute women were driven to their life of infamy by sheer necessity,
by actual want! One-third are those reared in helpless idleness, seduced,
and abandoned; while a large part of the remainder are those who sought in
vain for employment and the means of an honest subsistence. Of those who
are successful in obtaining employment, the scanty pay obliges most to devote
an unreasonable number of hours to their labor, thus dragging out a miserable
existence and wearing out their lives for bread! Young women who would earn
their living in any of the pursuits that the popular voice pronounces proper
for women, must work not only from sun to sun, but from the sun till the
"moon herself grows pale and cold and sinks in the western wave." Yes, the
chivalrous movers of human events, the governors of the race, in return for
woman's graceful submission to her prescribed sphere, impose upon her burdens
the most oppressive, toil the most incessant, and a life the most barren
and objectless; compelling her to neglect the noble culture of the soul,
and to bend its angel-powers only to propel the needle. The highest incentives
to action are withheld from her darkened sky, leaving no dreams of future
greatness to arouse, no vision of wealth, coming with garnered treasures,
to bless and elevate others; no hopes of political preferment, conferring
its mighty influence for righteousness and truth, ever flash across her pathway.
The only hope of her cheerless life must be marriage-upon which she must
fix her thought, as upon a polar star, not in a calm and healthful attention
to the relation as a matter of choice and principle, preparing herself nobly
to sustain the relations of wife and mother, but with an intense sickly fear
that she shall not have an offer, consequently no home and no worthy object
in life. Thus is society demoralized and crime perpetuated, until shrieking
womanhood, from the dark depths of despair, cries out, "Give us an equal
chance, or your proscriptions and oppressions will poison the very fountains
of all prosperity." Woman has by this denial of her freedom been dwarfed
in her ability to perform.
It is a law of both mind and muscle that disuse destroys power, and also
that the human mind needs the stimuli of varied and comprehensive objects
to arouse its complicated energies. The progress of development depends upon
circumstances; although every gift bestowed by the Creator brings with it
a right for its use, yet favorable circumstances are required to call forth
and improve each natural endowment. Place an infant in a dungeon, shut entirely
away from all the active scenes of life, and he comes out a Casper Hauser.
So, to a great extent, is it with Woman.
A large part of her nature has had no development-no culture. Man has
appropriated what he has coveted of her God-given faculties to his use; and
the rest has been blighted by the frost of a scornful public sentiment, and
the world has slighted and contemned an energy which would have elevated
Man to the purest bliss of Eden. Giant Prejudice has palsied the hand that,
long ere this, would have made sweet music on the discordant keys of human
life, and the true woman now bleeds at the foot of a chained and helpless,
yet petted idol! Had Woman been aroused by the same encouragement to great
endeavor, had she been in circumstances to realize the same necessity for
invention, construction and perfection, with her fine organization, she might
have dazzled the world with the bright creations of her genius,-and she too
have had a Raphael, a Fulton, and a Morse; but her position, crushed beneath
the iron hand that has rested so heavily upon her, has allowed but here and
there an uprising of Woman's nature; but here and there a gleam of what she
might be and do, were she allowed an even chance to sustain her claim to
Man's equal companionship.
We now see her weak, narrowed in her views and aspirations, cowered before
public sentiment, reverent to excess of the "Powers that be ," reduced in
physical energies, and overloaded and crushed by the burdens that Fashion
and the Customs of Society place upon her. We see the poor starving for the
want of well-paid employment, and rushing to crime for bread; we see the
rich and affluent sickly and degenerate for the want of motive to induce
vigorous action; we see young women giving to one idea the strongest purposes
of their youth; we see the married over-taxed by the cares of too numerous
families, and cowered before the acknowledged inferiority of the worth of
their continual toil into a partial slavery, claiming no right to a full
and equal partnership in the income of the family, but stooping to stealth
and maneuver to gratify her individual wishes. We see all alike, because
they are Women , denied the right of Franchise and Political Liberty, thus
stripped of particular interest in the public weal which might have afforded
change to life's weary routine, and "change is rest."
True, she may be educated; but what is knowledge without practice? It has
no powers to satisfy the capabilities of the ever active mind, that were
created for use, and which also are allied to muscles that demand exercise.
Now what is the remedy for all these evils? We believe that Woman needs not
only Education, equal and thorough, but that all industrial avocations should
be thrown open to her. Give her a chance to see what she may find herself
capable of doing and being , without the danger of making herself an outcast
or a ridiculous eccentric. If she be by nature unfitted for anything in which
the other sex excel, her attractions will lead her aright; while only by
a liberty of choice can she establish and sustain true womanly dignity and
independence.
Your Committee believe that Woman should, if she chooses, become acquainted
with the mechanical trades, and that many of the lighter branches of each
trade she could, with or without machinery, execute. We believe that agricultural
interests should also welcome woman to delightful partnerships; and that
such as do not choose the care of families or domestic employment, should
have the pleasure of exchanging their own golden harvests for the elegancies
of art, and of bestowing Earth's bountiful productions for themselves upon
the weak and disabled poor.
The professions, also, should open to such as may choose. The study of Law
, of Medicine, and of Theology, would, of
course, well befit her character, if to them she were attracted. Her fine
moral susceptibilities must render her more acute and sensible to the claims
of Justice; and when her own sex were concerned, she could better judge,
apprehending better their temptations and weakness, while her sympathy and
affection would give pathos and eloquence to her voice in pleading for the
condemned innocent.
The objection that the practice of the professions would interfere with the
duties of maternity can apply, of course, only to
mothers; while their free access might prevent many unfitted, and unqualified,
from assuming that sacred relation, prompted by unworthy motives. Thus it
becomes necessary that Woman should have pecuniary independence, and a fair
chance for pleasant occupation, in order for her to become true to her own
nature in the holiest relations of life. Man has little reason to confide
in an alliance consented to under such circumstances as the present social
relations present. Gratitude for an offer may deceive even herself, and both
mistake some semblance of love for that true and holy affinity which alone
can secure a happy union. Therefore she must have her choice in industrial
and professional life, and be encouraged to become all she can become; even
though she compete successfully with Man, and take the honor from his brow.
If she show herself skillful in the trades, employ her, and pay her accordingly.
If she exhibit business talent and supervisional address, share with her
copartnerships and ownerships.
Open to her all posts of honor and responsibility. Give her, also, a fair
share in governmental offices: such as require much
writing, she might equally as well fill; then let such as are qualified of
either sex be equally eligible. And after she has matured her reason, in
the study of law, and is prepared to manage as judiciously its devious wisdom,
give her the patronage and the praise. If she prove herself as humane and
as scientific as a physician, employ and confide in her; and if she warn
as faithfully against destroying sins and win as eloquently to the practice
of love and holiness as a gospel minister, give her the care of your parishes
and your churches. The services of each of these professions are received
equally by male and female. Why then should not both assume responsibilities
in their administration?
All of life's higher aims that are calculated to arouse, and call forth the
energies of her soul, must be placed before her. Thus will her capabilities
be unfolded and her character be elevated. Increasing self-respect and
consciousness of responsibility will give strength to her character and expanse
to her nature. She will, with her warmer sympathies and intenser soul, become
public-spirited and philanthropic. Her influence over man will cease to be
the conservative, selfish influence that it is at present. She will transmit
to her offspring a nobler nature. The race, through her, will improve, and
man will no longer be the effeminate, dough-faced cringer before arrogance
and assumption, but dignity and manliness will rest alike on man and woman.
The governing power, the restorative power, the industrial power, they will
share together, and bear as equals the crown of an elevated humanity. Then
will redeemed woman form her soul-alliances when she is attracted by affection
alone, and inefficient wives and unhappy homes be seldom seen.
A great change is to be wrought in public sentiment ere this "better time
arrives," to the rapid progress of which there exist
many obstacles.
1. Woman's general contentedness in the position at present assigned her
This is often brought forward by opposers as an argument against an extended
sphere. So it is said the Southern slaves are contented in their condition,
which, were it true , would only prove greater the evil of their enslavement.
The Turkish female is quite willing to be veiled and secluded in harems with
jealous care, and believes a woman who speaks to a male acquaintance, other
than her husband, outrages the delicacy of her sex, and deserves public
condemnation.
This fact proves either her gentle, confiding nature-thus rendering her
oppressions the more ungenerous and unmanly-or it
proves her weakness and slavish subjection, and thus shows how dangerous
and degrading is the injustice done her.
2. Another obstacle is her physical weakness
That the progress of civilization has tended to weaken Woman physically no
one can doubt, who glances over the world as it is. The practical Physiologist,
probably, could assign many reasons for this. We will only state here that
probably confinement to sedentary pursuits, devotion to fashion and dress,
and the lesser call for vigorous muscular exertion, are the chief causes
of the decline of female health. This obstacle can be removed gradually by
attention to the causes, for weakness and disease are not necessarily attendant
upon true refinement and true culture; and although the fact exists painfully
apparent, it only proves the existence also of a wrong in connection with
the increase of knowledge. Woman, with Man, must attend to the laws of their
physical being, and make obedience paramount in importance, for no beauty
of finish can ornament a temple built of diseased humanity.
3. Another obstacle in the way of Woman's industrial redemption, is the
inconvenient style of her attire
That the present long-flowing skirt is a serious impediment to her efficiently
engaging in many productive branches of useful industry, must be admitted.
The experience of all who have made the trial has been, that the healthful
and agreeable business of Agriculture and Horticulture cannot be prosecuted
with pleasure and advantage with her shroud-like drapery about her feet and
limbs. Mechanical labor, especially that requiring the use of machinery,
would with greater difficulty be accomplished, and in many cases would be
attended with great danger, from its preventing a free use of her limbs,
and also its liability to be caught in the machinery. Consequently Woman
is at present to a great extent unfitted by her dress for self-support and
independence; she is almost necessarily restricted to sedentary pursuits
by this attire, and although not the cause of this restriction, yet it is
a style that she long ago would have discarded, had she had equal rights
to employment according to choice, and as many and as noble objects placed
before her for personal achievement.
These obstacles and many others present themselves in our way, all of which
we can ourselves overcome and remove. The public mind is to be changed, and
in this work Woman has much to do. Her redemption she must herself achieve,
and to this end she must sacrifice and labor . No despotism was ever overthrown
without heroism and suffering. Humanity has struggled bravely and long against
tyranny, and thought no sacrifice too great to endure in republican revolutions.
Civil and religious freedom have floated thus far over rivers of noble blood,
and let us not expect that a tyranny so hoary and deep-seated as that which
holds Woman in thrall, being the production of Man's physical strength and
nourished by his grosser affections, will give way without determined , and
resolute, and heroic efforts. Woman, as she begins to see her wrongs, must
begin also seriously and resolutely to overthrow them-not to overpower and
dethrone Man, but to assume her true place and accomplish her own elevation
and freedom. A fearful and momentous responsibility rests upon the few who
now act as pioneers in a reform to accomplish so gigantic a work.
Every inch of ground she may gain she must improve . Meeting in convention
and complaining of grievances, or proving
equality of rights, will not secure to her the desired good, unless she herself
act promptly to take her rightful position, and
assume her responsibility as fast as she may be able. Is her love of approbation
in the way of this? Then this "right eye must be plucked out." To do her
duty may cost her much, at first, that she holds dear. Cherished habits are,
perhaps, to be overcome, hardships to be endured by way of experiment, position
in society to be sacrificed, taste, the growth of the most refined culture,
laid upon the altar of a greater good. Fashion must receive no longer her
best offerings; but firmly and steadily, yet with dignity and love, she must
prepare herself for the greatest usefulness, which is her highest mission.
Perhaps the item for her to begin to do may seem too small to notice. She
may first be called on to omit homage to some household god for the acquirement
of health and strength by out-door exercise. It may be her duty to lift up
her voice in public for her more needy sisters. It may be her duty, although
no necessity rest upon her of a pecuniary nature, to exercise some peculiar
gift in new and what may be thought "mannish" business, thus opening doors
for others less fortunate. It may be her duty to give individual example
to some humble reform, although she herself need not its advantage. The
encouragement to immediate and direct action is great. No personal self-sacrifice
was ever made in vain when prompted by pure and holy motive. What Woman has
already achieved for herself may be looked upon as an omen of future good.
The noble efforts, the self-sacrificing life of one Woman in the Anti-Slavery
cause, have almost alone won for Woman the right of free speech. Thanks,
then, free and strong, to the glorious few who have acted! Let Woman's deepest
gratitude gush forth in pure and reverent affection to them; for victories
won are never lost-and the triumph already attained for her higher nature
in the change already wrought in the public mind is a prophecy of glory in
the future, bright as an angel's smile. The advance since the first Convention
was held has been unparalleled. Let us, then, be brave and true to our highest
ideal. We see the fields white and ready for the harvest. We see everything
to be done. Now comes the necessity for the action . The few who see first
the path must, walk therein, leaving the multitude to follow. Woman has but
just raised her voice, feebly saying, "Have we not the same inalienable rights?"
and Justice, through her silver trumpet, has sounded over the world's tumult,
" You have ." The discordant elements caught the sound and listened. Now
let her firm and united ranks appear, with a white banner given to the breeze-
Freedom and Love , her attendant angels, and Truth, her only weapon. So shall
the waters of usurpation and tyranny separate, and woman walk in peace and
joy to the possession of her new inheritance.
RESOLUTIONS.
1. Resolved, That this movement for the rights of women makes no attempt to decide whether woman is better or worse than man, neither affirms nor denies the equality of her intellect with that of man-makes no pretence of protecting woman-does not seek to oblige woman any more than man is now obliged , to vote, take office, labor in the professions, mingle in public life, or manage her own property.
2. Resolved, That what we do seek is to gain these rights and privileges for those women who wish to enjoy them, and so to change public opinion that it shall not be deemed indecorous for women to engage in any occupation which they deem fitted to their habits and talents.
3. Resolved, That the fundamental principle of the Woman's Rights Movement is that every human being, without distinction of sex, has an inviolable right to the full development and free exercise of all energies; and that in every sphere of life, private and public, Functions should always be commensurate with Powers.
4. Resolved, That each human being is the sole judge of his or her sphere, and entitled to choose a profession without interference from others.
5. Resolved, That whatever differences exist between Man and Woman, in the quality or measure of their powers, are originally designed to be and should become bonds of union and means of co-operation in the discharge of all functions, alike private and public.
6. Resolved, That the monopoly of the elective franchise, and thereby of all the powers of legislation and government, by men, solely on the ground of sex, is a monstrous usurpation-condemned alike by reason and common sense, subversive of all the principles of justice, oppressive and demoralizing in its operations, and insulting to the dignity of human nature.
7. Resolved, That we see no force in the objection, that women's taking part in politics would be a fruitful source of domestic dissension; since experience shows that she may be allowed to choose her own faith and sect without any such evil result, though religious disputes are surely as bitter as political-and if the objection be sound, we ought to go further, and oblige a wife to forego all religious opinions, or to adopt the religious as well as the political creed of her husband.
8. Resolved, That women, like men, must be either self-supported and self-governed, or dependent and enslaved; that an unobstructed and general participation in all the branches of productive industry, and in all the business functions and offices of common life, is at once their natural right, their individual interest and their public duty; the claim and the obligation reciprocally supporting each other; that the idleness of the rich, with its attendant physical debility, moral laxity, passional intemperance and mental dissipation, and the ignorance, wretchedness and enforced profligacy of the poor, which are every where the curse and reproach of the sex, are the necessary results of their exclusion from those diversified employments which would otherwise furnish them with useful occupation, and reward them with its profits, honors and blessings; that this enormous wrong cries for redress, for reparation by those whose delinquency allows its continuance. Whereas, The energies of Man are always in proportion to the magnitude of the objects to be obtained; and whereas, it requires the highest motive for the greatest exertion and noblest action; therefore,
9. Resolved, That Woman must be recognized politically, legally, socially and religiously the equal of man, and all theobstructions to her highest physical, intellectual and moral culture and development removed, that she may have the highest motive to assume her place in that sphere of action and usefulness which her capacities enable her to fill.
10. Resolved, That this movement gives to the cause of education a new motive and impulse; makes a vast stride towards the settlement of the question of wages and social reform; goes far to cure that wide spread plague-the licentiousness of cities; adds to civilization a new element of progress; and in all these respects commends itself as one of the greatest reforms of the age.