Nicely

Kendyl Nicely

Mrs. Norton

AP Language

5 December 2016

An Education in Discrimination

When Sojourner Truth stepped on that stage at the Ohio convention, men had spoken

about womens rights before her. Rather than let men speak for her, Sojourner spoke from where

two places of discrimination met: being an African-American and a woman. When Frederick

Douglass went to the Seneca Falls Convention, he believed that even as a male, womens rights

should be an important issue that concerns men. His reasoning and expertise came from his own

discrimination against him being an African-American. Between these two speakers, Frederick

Douglass and Sojourner Truth persuaded and educated their subjective audiences based off their

own experiences and how it made them qualified to speak on womens rights.

Sojourner Truth was typically defined as a classy woman. Her dialect and phrasing in

her brief speech at the Ohio Womens Rights Convention was enough context to come to the

conclusion that she was probably not raised in wealth. However, her message is what made her

speech impactful. Through sarcasm, repetition, and parallelism, Truth makes a far bigger impact

with her (genuine to her name) truth rather than a constructed, elegant speech. And ar'n't I a

woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and

no man could head me! And ar'n't I a woman? (Sojourner Truth) In this excerpt from her

speech, both repetition and parallelism were used to persuade the audience at this specific point.

She repeats throughout her speech aint I a woman? to drive home her point while also shutting

down the claims about women the previous speakers before her have made. In her use of
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parallelism, Truth structures the supporting argument of aint I a woman by having the same

structure of sentences to combat the claims about what women should be. This parallelism

supports her argument that she is a woman who can do as much as a man, if not more in the

physical work department. (Sojourner Truth) As for Sojourner Truths sarcasm, it provides a

healthy dose of reality and humor to how the men at the convention are telling women how to

bewell, women. Sojourners rhetoric emphasized her qualifications, not her lack of education.

From the start, Frederick Douglass never pretended that he was more qualified to speak

on womens rights than a woman. The excerpt from his speech at the Seneca Falls convention is

different to Sojourners approach as Douglass directly stated that his speech was unfit to hold

more weight than a womans. On the other hand, Sojourner pointed out in a roundabout way how

she was more qualified compared to a man. Douglasss rhetoric consisted of metaphors,

anaphora, and antanagoge to illustrate the need for men, nothe worlds, understanding for

women suffrage. In his speech, he discusses how men can neither speak for her, nor vote for

her, nor act for her, nor be responsible for her; and the thing for men to do [is] give her the

fullest opportunity to exercise all the powers inherent in her individual personality (Frederick

Douglass) Douglass uses anaphora here as a means to use the same phrase successively to

reiterate his point that men need to step back to allow women to have their own identity. As for

his use of antanagoge, Douglass criticizes the previous role men have played so far interfering

with women progression, while lessening the impact with the role women themselves have

played as well. (Frederick Douglass) His use of metaphors assist this claim by visually depicting

the negative impact male influence has caused in slowing down the womens rights movement.

Then [suffrage] it was wrapped in obscurity---now it is lifted in sight of the civilized world

(Frederick Douglass) Frederick Douglass was qualified to speak because of how he educated
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himself on the delicate matter of womens rights and his important perspective on how they

effected the rest of the world.

In conclusion, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass both were qualified in differing

ways to speak about womens rights. Truth had a raw, honest approach in comparison to

Douglasss more thought-out, concise speech with each having a goal. Truths speech showed

that one does not have to be from the highest social standing and caliber to make an important

point. Douglasss showed that one does not have to be a woman in order to fight for woman

equality. In this example, both speeches show that different perspectives and different

backgrounds can lead to an impactful message on either end. In contrast, the fact that Douglass

and Truth came from different backgrounds show evidence in the outright different goal of their

speeches. Douglasss speech was to educate men on how to step back for women to allow them

to have a place in society. On the other hand, Truth spoke to women saying how ludicrous it was

to listen to a mans idea of a woman and pointed out the flaws in that logic. Sojourner Truth and

Frederick Douglass argued for women suffrage with different reasons, but had one common goal

in their separate speeches. Both speakers brought understanding and their own unique

qualifications to the subject, allowing for womens suffrage to hold the spotlight.
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Works Cited

"(1888) Frederick Douglass On Woman Suffrage | The Black Past: Remembered and

Reclaimed." (1888) Frederick Douglass On Woman Suffrage | The Black Past:

Remembered and Reclaimed. BlackPast, 2007. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.

<http://www.blackpast.org/1888-frederick-douglass-woman-suffrage>.

Truth, Sojourner. Aint I a Woman Speech. Library of Congress. Womens Convention in Akron,

Ohio. 1851.