TOW #11 - Rhetorical Text "Ain't I a Woman?"

By Sojourner Truth, December 1851

  During the mid 1800's, the abolitionist and suffragette movement was just beginning rise. Growing up through racial and gender inequality, Sojourner Truth grew up in firm belief of equal rights for women. In an 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, she argues for a much-needed call for action against gender inequality through her language and use of repetition, so that women can finally be granted their right to vote.

    Truth's tone and diction allows her to further engage and create a deeper level of connection with her audience. She begins her speech by informally addressing her audience with "Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of the kilter." Truth does not pull the typical intelligent and smooth tone with his audience, as many political figures do. She instead directly addresses the audience in a familiar way, making the reader feel compelled to answer as she speaks right to them. Throughout her speech, Truth refrains from using an extensive vocabulary; although, she may just have never learned them. Nevertheless, having an easily comprehensive speech expands her audience, for many people during this time were not excelling literates. By speaking like a common person, she connects with the common people, further strengthening her bond with the audience. brother plight now becomes their common plight, and this newly established connection between reader and writer will help muster the support for fighting gender inequality.

    In addition to her language, repetition of a particular phase allows Truth to emphasize her purpose and draw sentiments from the reader. Truth makes a valid point female stereotypes of the time when she points out that despite nobody and ever helping her into carriages, "Ain't [she] a woman?" She can "eat as much as a man...and bear the lash as well! And ain't [she] a woman?" Truth behaves and possesses the strength that is often accredited to men, and yet she is not given the same rights as men. She works just as hard and has fought just as hard as men, but because she is a woman she is not granted equality. Because the phrase is constantly repeated throughout her speech, it remains in the thought of the reader to mull and take action on. Her cry makes the reader pause and consider the double standards of female stereotypes. The readers will grow empathetic to other women whose efforts will never be recognized. Their efforts appear vain when no matter how much effort they put in, they will only be seen as a woman desperately cry out "Ain't I a woman?"

    In combatting the issues of female equality of the 1800's, Sojourner Truth argues for the rights of women in hopes of persuading her audience to act upon her words. She develops this argument with her vivid language and repetition of the phrase "ain't I a woman?," effectively engaging the audience's sentiments and making a convincing point about the rights of women. If men allow for the women to take upon the rightful places in society and the freedom that comes with it, these women will surely "get it [the world] right side up again!"