Redemption?

Although there were many controveries surrounding Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was not evil. She supported many other interest groups besides the women's rights movement and abolitionism. To begin, she was not against the labor movement. She said, in regards to the labor movement, a "healthy discontent, says Emerson, is the first step in progress. The labor classes have evidently taken the first step."¹ Although she did not outwardly support them, she did support helping the poor. She said, "hence I summon them first to the serious consideration of the poverty, the misery, the wretchedness that everywhere appeal to the eye, the ear, the tenderest sentiments of the human soul," showing her deep care for the poor.¹ It is unclear whether she actually mobilized anything to help the poor outside of speaking about them, but her words suggest she did care enough to mention them. 

Obviously, she also cared immensely about women's suffrage and their human rights. She "championed self-sovereignty," which is essentially the right a woman has to her own body.²This is extremely progressive for the time, as many politicians today still do not believe in this basic human right. She "saw her primary political task as the liberation of women from the conservative habits of mind to which domesticity has trained them," which includes multiple pregnancies, not saying no to one's husband, being submissive towards men, et cetera.¹ She felt as though these ideals were archaic and damaging to women, hindering their ability to progress in the world of politics. If women were able to focus on other things outside of having children and taking care of the home, she believed they would be just as intelligent and capable as men at doing anything. However, do not forget that she is speaking only of a white, middle class women. This small detail does change things when looking through the lens of the 21st century, but what about the 20th?

¹ “On Labor and Free Love: Two Unpublished Speeches of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” Accessed April 17, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3172982.
² Harriet Sigerman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Right Is Ours (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).