Legacy

How should Elizabeth Cady Stanton be remembered? What should her legacy be? Should it be all the years of dedication and hard work she put into the women's suffrage movement, only to pass on before she saw any of it come to fruition? Should it be for the progressive and at times radical thoughts she had in a time when women were supposed to be silent and humble? Or, alternatively, should she be remembered for her racist comparisons, problematic viewpoints, and lack of respect for anyone who was not white and middle class? Objectively, it is hard to overlook her faults as a person from the 21st century. Yes, she had good ideas, but racism is a hard thing to overcome. Her reluctance to include women of color in the movement is also something to consider, because it shows that she did not care about all women, only some women. Was she also playing a political game? Of course. As mentioned earlier, she knew that white men would not tolerate the enfranchisement of both white women and black women, so she had to play her cards right to get what she wanted. Did she do this cunningly, or out of true racism? It is hard to know for sure, but it is even harder to give her the benefit of the doubt given the era she comes from and some of her statements regarding race. 

In the end, Elizabeth Cady Stanton should be remembered. She was an integral figure in the early women's rights movement, she fought for basic human rights for white women, and she did do abolitionist work. There is merit in that, because white women did eventually get the right to vote. If it weren't for her and Susan B. Anthony and the other feminists of the time, that may not have happened until much later in history. However, her legacy should be taken with a grain of salt. Although this does challenge what many think about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she did not fight for all women, nor did she want people of color to be full citizens, at least not before white women were. All in all, she cared about her class and sex, which is understandable, but also questionable. If she were a true philanthropist, she would care about all people, but that just wasn't the case. She won rights for a large group of people which is admirable and she should go down in history for that, but not without remembering the lives of those she did not fight for.