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Solitude of Self
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's inspiring and timeless speech, presenting her appeal for equal rights for women and equal education for all
Elizabeth Cady Stanton believed this to be the most important speech of her lifetime. With gorgeous and direct language, she presents a compassionate appeal for human equality and dignity, and she addresses the importance of solitude in the lives of women and men. Solitude of Self joins the canon of classic American speeches. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's timeless appeal presents the historical convergence between the 19th and the 21st centuries. In this last speech, Stanton proves that while many rights have been gained over the past century, inequality continues to thrive. For those opposed to the "glass ceilings" covering our culture, Solitude of Self is an inspiration and comfort. It is for everyone who cherishes equal rights for women and equal education for all.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton believed this to be the most important speech of her lifetime. With gorgeous and direct language, she presents a compassionate appeal for human equality and dignity, and she addresses the importance of solitude in the lives of women and men. Solitude of Self joins the canon of classic American speeches. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's timeless appeal presents the historical convergence between the 19th and the 21st centuries. In this last speech, Stanton proves that while many rights have been gained over the past century, inequality continues to thrive. For those opposed to the "glass ceilings" covering our culture, Solitude of Self is an inspiration and comfort. It is for everyone who cherishes equal rights for women and equal education for all.
56 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
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359 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
243 books85 followersElizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist and leading figure of the early woman's movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and woman's suffrage movements in the United States.
Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she was an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed a number of issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce laws, the economic health of the family, and birth control. She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.
After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, along with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while continuing to deny women, black and white, the same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately twenty years later.
Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she was an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed a number of issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce laws, the economic health of the family, and birth control. She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.
After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, along with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while continuing to deny women, black and white, the same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately twenty years later.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 1, 2015
Solitude of Self is Cady-Stanton's last speech given in 1872. A must read for anyone interested in the first wave of feminism in the USA.
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March 14, 2020I don't like rating works this short, so I didn't officially rate it, but can't remember reading any prose with the beautiful combination of logic and poetry blended together so densely.
March 20, 2023
In honor of Women's History month I have read one of the seminal documents of the women's movement. It still resonates with us today.
April 6, 2020
"No one has ever found two blades of ribbon grass alike, and no one will ever find two human beings alike. Seeing, then, what must be the infinite diversity in human character, we can in a measure appreciate the loss to a nation when any class of the people is uneducated and unrepresented in the government."
"Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?"
"Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?"
November 11, 2019
Beautifully written, unapologetically feminist, and comforting. A reminder of the power and struggle of solitude.
January 29, 2021
"The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of dear, is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life."
March 13, 2018
Her writing is amazing. So eloquent!
March 26, 2022
This is like Objectivism for women. That's funny, but it shouldn't be.
February 26, 2024
3.25 stars
May 15, 2024
I’ve always considered myself a feminist, but never really took the time to study the feminist political movement. I know its history is complicated and controversial, and that makes it a tough subject to approach. I mean, where do you even start?
So, I started with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech Solitude of Self. It’s written 40 years after her first women’s rights convention and her more famous Declaration of sentiments speech, but still 30 years before women got the right to vote – early first wave feminism.
What I found was both obvious – women are people too – and still surprising. There’s no blame on the system, legislators, or men, as I would’ve expected. The main idea is that in our hardest moments we can rely only on ourselves, and we all need education and equal rights so we can achieve safety and happiness. She makes a point to say that every person has a birthright to be equally prepared for these challenging moments – regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth. It baffles me that this was such a controversial idea at the time – that all humans have value and deserve the same rights.
What did women in the late 19th century ask for? Access to complete education, the right to own property, political equality, financial credit and being paid for their work, a voice in legislation and the right to choose a jury of their peers. It seems basic, looking at it now, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the women at her side (Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony to name a few) started the biggest shift in modern society asking for these rights.
At the end of the book there’s a short history of Stanton’s life and there we learn more about her involvement in the abolitionist movement and her work with the National American Women Suffrage Association.
What’s amazing to me is that she never thought that women’s right to vote would happen in her lifetime, and still she dedicated her life to this mission. She wrote in her journal: “I never forget we are sowing winter wheat, which the coming spring will see sprout, and other hands than ours will reap and enjoy”.
So, I started with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech Solitude of Self. It’s written 40 years after her first women’s rights convention and her more famous Declaration of sentiments speech, but still 30 years before women got the right to vote – early first wave feminism.
What I found was both obvious – women are people too – and still surprising. There’s no blame on the system, legislators, or men, as I would’ve expected. The main idea is that in our hardest moments we can rely only on ourselves, and we all need education and equal rights so we can achieve safety and happiness. She makes a point to say that every person has a birthright to be equally prepared for these challenging moments – regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth. It baffles me that this was such a controversial idea at the time – that all humans have value and deserve the same rights.
What did women in the late 19th century ask for? Access to complete education, the right to own property, political equality, financial credit and being paid for their work, a voice in legislation and the right to choose a jury of their peers. It seems basic, looking at it now, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the women at her side (Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony to name a few) started the biggest shift in modern society asking for these rights.
At the end of the book there’s a short history of Stanton’s life and there we learn more about her involvement in the abolitionist movement and her work with the National American Women Suffrage Association.
What’s amazing to me is that she never thought that women’s right to vote would happen in her lifetime, and still she dedicated her life to this mission. She wrote in her journal: “I never forget we are sowing winter wheat, which the coming spring will see sprout, and other hands than ours will reap and enjoy”.
March 1, 2017
Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the US Senate with these words in 1892. A tireless activist and impassioned speaker, Stanton passed away two decades before Congress finally gave women the vote in 1920. This speech is notable more for what it is not than for what it is. Instead of placing blame on men and institutions for the ill-treatment of women, she argues instead that it is a fundamental right of both men and women to pursue "self-sovereignty". By denying them the tools and resources they need to master their lives, women are unable to earn their place in the world through "personal merit" instead of inheritance, wealth, marriage or position. The focus on "solitude" - the condition that women must rely on themselves alone, is startlingly modern, and her use of masculine imagery evokes a proto-Rosie the Riveter chanting "We are women hear us roar":
"No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass to stand at the wheel; to watch the winds and waves, and know when to take in the sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman; nature, having endowed them equally, leaves them to their own skill and judgment in the hour of danger, and, if not equal to the occasion, alike they perish."
In today's fraught world where women are fighting many of the same battles that Stanton and her compatriots fought, these words are inspiring indeed.
"No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass to stand at the wheel; to watch the winds and waves, and know when to take in the sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman; nature, having endowed them equally, leaves them to their own skill and judgment in the hour of danger, and, if not equal to the occasion, alike they perish."
In today's fraught world where women are fighting many of the same battles that Stanton and her compatriots fought, these words are inspiring indeed.
November 19, 2014
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Throughout Solitude of Self, Elizabeth Cady Stanton reflects on solitude and its integral relationship to self-reliance and equality. She asserts that we face our most challenging moments alone, and that it is the birthright of every person to be prepared for these moments — regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth. If we are equally educated and equally trained on all fronts of life, then, says Stanton, we can call upon our inner resources when we need them most.
Throughout Solitude of Self, Elizabeth Cady Stanton reflects on solitude and its integral relationship to self-reliance and equality. She asserts that we face our most challenging moments alone, and that it is the birthright of every person to be prepared for these moments — regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth. If we are equally educated and equally trained on all fronts of life, then, says Stanton, we can call upon our inner resources when we need them most.
July 13, 2016
A wonderful speech that was eloquently written, and can apply to modern day, simply by changing some pronouns. I genuinely enjoyed reading this and think that everyone should read this, as you can learn a lot from it, even though this was written during the era of women fighting for their independence and right to be recognized by their governments.
July 27, 2016
Amazing, I loved the argument, and I am not a fan of self-reliance theories. But the way she's talking about life is compelling - it reminds me of Hamlet and his 'sea of troubles'. Stanton makes a strong point about equality between sexes, about the responsibilities of each individual towards himself and towards others.
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March 12, 2010Read in class ("Women in America to 1900")
July 3, 2020
Recommended in 5 books editor
April 29, 2016
One of the most phenomenal pieces of work I've ever read.
June 3, 2021
Excellent.
January 6, 2014
The book was a gift and I loved reading it.
April 12, 2014
Hot damn!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews