Aint I a Women

A story by Sojourner truth called "Aint I a Women" is about women's rights and slavery. This is very much a political piece acting out for women's rights and slavery to be abolished. When it repeats the phrase "Ain't I a Women" (Truth) multiple times throughout the story it is evident that this is especially towards back slave women. In the story Truth says, "Nobody ever helped me into carriages or over mud puddles or gives me a best place. . " (Truth) This to me shows how truly bad it was at the time and how black women got little to no respect as the other white women living at the time. This is a sad a tragic thing and is portrayed very nicely in her writing. This is very similar to Thoreau's writings because it was very politically biased. Thoreau was and is still known for his writings on tough political topics of the time. This make Truths writing have much more meaning than just any old story. She is very blunt when she talks about how her rights as a black women were trashed in her writing, "that little man in black there say a woman can't have as much rights as a man cause Christ wasn't a woman" (Truth) She then went on to say that Christ himself came from a women did he not? and again repeats the very vivid phase "ain't I a women". This gives a lot of emphasis and detail on the real matter at hand. Another man by the name of Emerson was very good at giving specifics and details about what he was talking about, and would often go into so much detail that you felt as if you were there. This is what Truth did, she added enough detail to make me almost angry and feel as if I were in this time period myself. A literary critic says , "Sweeping aside quibbles about the intelligence of women and blacks, she demands female rights for all women." (Snodgrass) This highlights how Truth was truly a women activist working on making the world better for women, black women in particular. She showed a true test of strength and dignity in the speech that has still remained popular today.



Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "'Ain't I a Woman?'." Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFL009&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 14, 2012).



Truth, Sojourner. "Sojourner Truth's Aint I a Woman Speech!" Women Writers: A Zine. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .