"Sojourner Truth said it very well. You know, after the Civil War in the large women's meeting in 1898 which took place with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all the rest, the woman's rights, feminists' rights meeting at which Sojourner Truth spoke. She said that they say that women need to be helped, that they cannot drive horses, they cannot work, they cannot walk, but I have walked so many miles; I have worked as a blacksmith; I have drawn carriages, never mind driven them, and am I not a woman? right? So, the economic basis of the kinds of prejudices and stereotypes of racism, of sexism, are very obvious. When we need strong, pioneer women to cut down forests, to work beside "their men" that's fine. But on the other hand, when that need passes, we tie them into girdles, if they're white. We set them in a drawing room, and we say they have vapors."
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Activists from the United StatesAbolitionistsSocial activistsAfrican-American feministsWomen's rights activists
Original Language: English
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Sources
1975 interview in Conversations with Audre Lorde (2004)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth
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Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) originally named Isabella Bomefree, then Baumfree, was a black woman who was born into slavery, and later became a prominent author, and social activist.
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