Aren’t I a Women?

Sojourner Truth makes several striking points regarding women’s rights in her argumentative speech, “Aren’t I a Woman?” She boldly expresses her opinion on the way society judges the status of women, and she explains that she too is a woman, so why does she not receive the same treatment as other women do? Throughout her daring speech, Sojourner responds audaciously to the implied arguments made by other members present at the women’s rights convention. She proposes questions such as “where did your Christ come from?” (756), replying to the argument that women bear fewer rights than men because “Christ wasn’t a woman” (756). Sojourner Truth refutes members of the convention who spoke before her through her effective use of the repetitive question, “Aren’t I a woman?” (755).

Sojourner immediately begins her fiery speech by pointing out one of the arguments made by a speaker at the convention. One of the members states, “women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place ever” (756). With moving words and a booming voice like a freight train, Sojourner counters the man’s argument with the simple truth. No one aids her when climbing into carriages, no one helps her when stepping over puddles of mud, and no one provides her with the best place to stay. She then proposes a question to the audience, “Aren’t I a woman?” (756). Sojourner proclaims to the audience that even though she partakes in activities usually done by a man, even though she can “eat as much as a man” (756) and can “bear the lash” (756), she is nonetheless a woman.

Sojourner includes an argument in her speech that expresses the grief of a mother, a woman. She explains that she gave birth to “thirteen children and seen them almost all sold of into slavery” (756). As she cries out with the pain of a mother losing her children, no one but Jesus hears her pleas. The tone she uses gives off the impression that any other being,