Blog Post 4: "Ain't I A Woman?"

Sojourner Truth's piece "Ain't I A Woman?" is one of my favorites of the semester by far. It's so sassy and fabulous, to put it simply. It was really awesome to read a piece from a former slave, and not only a slave but a slave who happened to be a women who have both been traditionally discouraged from speaking their minds and she did not hold back. I like the lines "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditch, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best places! And ain't I a woman?" I interpret this as all women should be treated the same, no matter what ethnicity they are or what social class they belong to and though not all women need that or even want that it would be nice to have to option and Sojourner Truth was never given that option, a lot of women haven't. The absolute best section of the text is the last two paragraphs where she speaks of Christ and how he came from a woman and how a man had nothing to do with the birth of Christ, which is a point that I never realized. In the biblical sense Mary was a  still a virgin when she was pregnant with Christ so there really was no involvement of a man in that process and yet men would talk about how it's not possible for women to have as many rights as men because of Christ is not a women when they had nothing to do with him being brought into the world. Sojourner Truth wrote "If the first women God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!" I love that she is encouraging that women stand up together and basically start a revolution for their freedom and to get the respect that women deserve, not because they are women but because they are humans, just like men.

Here's a video of Alice Walker the author of "In Search of our Mother's Garden" reading this piece. I thought it was pretty cool to hear another fellow African-American women rights activist and writer read such a powerful piece by a women who helped the pave the way for other African-American women writers. Walker brings this piece to life with her vocal inflections and just the right amount of sass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk