You Better Not Slow Me Down

Summary:

Within Rodger Streitmatter’s book Mightier Than the Sword Streitmatter talks about several points in time that he believes shaped or were shaped by journalism; one of them being women’s suffrage.  Streitmatter talks briefly about the woman and how she is perceived by the public.  How she is “confined” to a specific role in society.  The Women’s Rights Movement began to break through this confinement, out of this mold, so that women can be more than just a “hand to help.”  Streitmatter discussed how many of the leaders of the movement, such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Lucretia Mott took advantage of publications, such as journals, to get their message out to the public.  Although the amount of “subscribers” they had might have been low compared to those journals published by males the women realized it wasn’t about the number of people who were receiving their publication.  The publications connected women from all over the country and all walks of life during a time when mass transportation didn’t exist.  A women’s rights lecture or convention might only gather a dozen or so people but reach several so many more.  A publication would inform a woman of nationwide activities, offered her arguments to use in her own community, and reinforced her own feelings in the movement.  Streitmatter didn’t just connect the good aspects of the Women’s Rights Movement to journalism.  There were many male writers who would constantly bash those who stood in the spotlight.  They wrote about what a woman should look like and where a woman’s place is in society.  They would even attack specific women in the movement, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, commenting on their looks, marital status, and demeanor.  But we all know that the women win in the end, well more specifically 1920.  But Susan B. Anthony once said, “If the men own the paper—that is, if the men control the management of the paper—then the women who write for these papers much echo the sentiment of these men.  And if they do not do that, their heads are cut off.”