Still Segragated At Seneca Falls

 In the 1800's, women were treated as objects only useful to clean the house, look pretty, and reproduce. Men were expected to be in the public sphere, the violent, tempting and troublesome place males worked. In contrast, women were meant to stay in the private sphere, the home. They were seen as pointless, beautiful possessions, similar to the clutter they spent all their time creating.
  The Seneca Falls Convention took place in New York in July, 1848. Lead by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, it is considered the first women's rights convention in American history. Over 300 men and women gathered to discuss the mistreatment of women in all walks of life. Here the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was created, modeled heavily after the American Declaration of Independence. In it, were demands and goals for the movement. While already a controversial subject, this convention even more. The question was; should we push for voting rights or not? Most people believed that adding this to the long list of changes they wished to make wouldn't be accepted well by society, making most people shy away from the idea.
 While this convention was about equal rights for all, the only voices that were heard were those of wealthy white women. All females of color or lower status were not able to voice their thoughts. In class, we split into groups to represent the major demographics of women present. My group was assigned to resume the role of the wealthy white woman. We created a list of resolutions, including the ability to divorce, property ownership rights regardless of marital status, the ability to vote, and custody rights. After putting myself into the shoes of women who were considered "privileged" for the time, I realized how few rights they actually had.
 As a class we decided which right was most important for women to have, and came to the conclusion that it was the right to speak in public. In this time period, women were considered civilly dead. Every opinion they had should be the same as their husband, and if they didn't have a spouse, no one would hear that opinion. If they wanted to bring about societal change, they needed to express their cause to the public. They couldn't make a difference without recruiting, which couldn't be done without speaking. While we are still far from complete gender equality, women are able to speak in public today, majorly because of the hard work of the women at the Seneca Falls Convention.

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