Seneca Falls, New York. Those word immediately bring to my mind the fight for women’s rights. Yesterday we visited there and my mind has been spinning ever since.
As seen above, the park is actually spread over several sites. We stopped only at the visitor center. Before I even finished looking at all the displays there my mind was on overload. So much to absorb even though I knew most of it before.
One of the things I did not know was that the original presentation of the women’s thoughts were written based on the Declaration of Independence with which we are more familiar with some changes in the wording. The women’s declaration states, ” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”
One of the displays quoted the Bible as the basis for this thought. In Genesis 1 it is written, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Note that this does not say God made woman subordinate to man.
This quote shows what happened after that.
At the time of most of these displays the main question of the day was slavery. Were slaves people? Did they have rights? As is still typical today, women addressed themselves to these social questions.
The combination of slave’s rights and women’s rights were well represented in the person of Sojourner Truth.
Many people supported the concepts of women’s rights.
These people each did what they could, drawing on their own skills. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton could not travel she could still write speeches for others to make.
There are many side roads of the issues of women’s rights and many are still being decided all these years later.
I watched a man going quickly from one display to another with only a glance at each relating to women’s domestic issues. He stopped a little longer at the one relating to sports. So, I began thinking about women’s sports. When I was in high school we were taught women’s basketball rules. It was thought then, in the early 1960s mind you, that it was injurious to women’s health for them to run about getting hot and sweaty. So we were allowed to stand still while dribbling the basket ball but once we started to move we could only go two steps before were were required to either shoot a basket or pass the ball to another player.
Then I saw this:
And I was reminded again of my high school years when my school had a girl’s dress code that allowed us to wear slacks to school only on Friday and only if there was a football game right after school and we wore those slacks, not jeans, under our regular school clothes. Those clothes required a skirt hem that reached below our knees. If a girl’s hemline was in question she was required to kneel on the floor. If her skirt did not then touch the floor she could be sent home.
Women today are still fighting for their rights to be treated as equal to men, primarily now in the work place and in political office. How far do you think we have come in more than a century?
On the way home we saw this sight which reminded me we all still have hope.
TTYL,
Linda
I remember those basketball rules and how stupid I thought they were. We have come a long way.
We were never allowed to wear pants to school .. not even on Friday. However, now look at even what the teachers wear!! I was offered a job once because I was the best qualified woman. I wanted to be the best qualified person so declined but they wanted a woman in the position for Affirmative Action quotas. I still don’t approve of quotas of any kind but they still have them only a little different. Time has certainly marched on.