Thursday, May 4, 2017

Week 6

"After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable on." - Deceleration of Sentiments

This quote from the deceleration of sentiments holds a lot of power because of how true it was for the women writing it. Thankfully it no longer holds true. The women must have felt while writing it such a hot anger and frustration at their situation. They were people, citizens of the country, yet held no rights except those that would also be given to a child. If a women was married she would have less rights than she did unmarried (she even did not have rights to the children she bore). So for women marriage an important part of life at the time was nothing more than a fancier word for incarceration. And then if she chose to not marry or was a widower she was given a 'sprinkle' of more rights. However these rights would mainly pertain to property which the government would simply tax and tax to supply the establishment which holds her chains.

Now thankfully the environment for women has improved greatly. Women can now vote, be elected into office, run corporations, etc. Despite these great improvements there is still a lot to be done. For example women still on average earn less than men, are still sexually assaulted at alarming rates, and looked down upon when holding a position of power over men. These are just some issues that are present today, there are far more which are too numerous to name. However following the pattern of the last two hundred years it would seem that things will continue to improve. They could do so even faster if more women came together like the signers of this deceleration and demanded change.

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