Document 1
“What really happened at Seneca Falls”
Louis Bernikow article “What Really Happened at Seneca Falls” discusses historical events that led up to the convention of 1848 and after. From the article we learn that there was a “hot bed of radical political activity (p.1)” going on at that time. Two of the main controversial topic dealt with women’s rights and the rights of slaves. What lead to the women’s convention at Seneca Falls had a lot to do with women feeling like the property of men in their lives (father and husbands), despite contributing to the industrial revolution. Two of the fore-leaders of the convention can be said to be Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton. It was the convention of 1848 that the convention goers decided to rewrite (or create a polemic such as). The Declaration of Independence in accordance to the “reality of women’s experience (p.3)”. As to be expected there was…show more content… In my high school career I cannot recall a time in which we discussed the convention at Seneca Falls in such great detail. Reading these two articles was such a refreshing change of pace. There was one thing that stood out to me in both articles. That is how the public, men in particular, reacted to the convention with their juvenile remarks to be exact. They compared the women to “old maids whose personal charms were never very attractive or manish women, like hens that crow up (p.4)”. Which brings up the old age conflict that women cannot be smart or opinionated and beautiful in the essence. To me, it seems as if you had to choose one to be. In the eyes on men back then (and let’s be honest those of today, for it is the past that shapes the future), these traits could not co-exists. (It seems like they (men) don’t know how to handle or deal with a well-rounded women). And I believe that it is the social commentary that these men made that lead to the particular socialization that women face today. (As is if women were created to live and serve