Judith Murray On The Equality Of The Sexes Summary

Ever since society was established, women have never earned the respect they deserved. If a woman were to vote, it was only accounted for half a vote, whereas men were accounted for the full vote. In addition to that, women were entitled to specific rights and duties that were deemed fit for them, while men were free to do whatever they pleased. To take a stand, women, like Catherine Beecher, Judith Murray and the Women’s Rights Convention said that women should be educated, free-spirited, and explain their side on why they deserve equal rights just as anyone. To begin with, in Judith Murray’s “On the Equality of The Sexes”, she describes in her essay that if men were allowed to vote, women should be educated. Before the essay, the introduction stated, “free women were citizens, but their rights in property owning, voting, and other matters were limited (Murray, 113).” Murray outlines the difference in knowledge between a male and female as so, “I know that to both sexes elevated understandings, and the reverse, are common. But, suffer me to ask, in which the minds of females are so notoriously deficient, or unequal (113).” This meaning that why men …show more content…
People think that this holds through that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, women are not being treated like that. The Women’s Rights Convention say, “He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise, compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice, withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men- both natives and foreigners (Women’s Rights Convention, 246).” This shows that God has taken away the first right of a citizen and that He has abandoned all