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Assignment #1: Davis chapter 3

In chapter three of Angela Davis’ “Women, Race, and Class” gives us a deeper understanding on the history of the women’s movement. It expands on the dominance of white males in society. Davis displays how gender played such prominent roles in how was given rights in society. The main historical event that she mentions was the Seneca Falls Convention which was created to discuss the rights of women. One name that Davis mention multiple times was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who used her previous experiences at other conventions such as the London convention to organize a women’s rights convention. She used her position and knowledge and made herself a leader for the women who wanted to fight for their rights. It was a struggle to get people to string along to the idea that white women could have rights, let alone African American women. The convention showed that race was still a prevalent problem in determining who had rights.

Ironically, a women’s rights convention was held, and no women were in attendance. The white males had no interest in listening to any of the nonsense about women’s rights. The purpose of this convention was to show how marriage and motherhood set up males to be the dominant ones in society. Females had to rely on males to provide for the family and how it allowed males to do basically anything they wanted to women. This convention basically displayed how little standing women had in society and how it impacted lives physically, mentally, and socially. Davis wants to display that being a woman, whether white or black, or whatever class they belonged too, had a harsh time living in the 1800’s due to the inequalities they faced in society.