Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

I feel as though our roleplay activity in class of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention, was a good way for us to get a perspective on what women had to face during specific eras of time. Something different about our document, compared to the actual historical document is that our document splits up the women in different sections. I feel as though this is a good thing because it caters to each group of women. Another difference is that the actual document mentions” That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such”. Our document just states what women want, not they are equal. I feel like the actual document is very specific as well, and ours is kinda vague. Something that surprised me were the factory conditions that the mill women had to work in. When I was younger, I learned about women working in the mills during the Revolution and finally being able to have the same jobs as men. I didn’t really think about the conditions in which they had to work. I also didn’t know that it was legal to beat your wife. I knew that violence against women during this period of time was common, but I didn’t know that it was what was expected of men to hit their wives. I also felt like the roleplay of the convention did a good job highlighting important aspects of being a Cherokee woman as well. Although the Cherokee women were treated with respect by men, white men and women disrespected them. They had to give up their land for these people, which wasn’t fair at all. I’m surprised that the convention talked about the rights of women of color and not just white women. I feel like that’s an issue that is still prevalent today. I feel like we talk a lot about female empowerment, that we sometimes forget about racial inequality. I feel as though those subjects are both equally important, and have the same amount of spotlight. We talk about wanting to make men and women equal, yet we live in a society where not even all of our men are equal to each other. Another issue that is still prevalent today is women working in horrible conditions. Over time, conditions in factories have gotten better, but other conditions in the working world in general have gotten difficult. There can be a lot of sexual harassment in the working world for a woman nowadays.