Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

34 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?tual. These criticisms would always be made of feminists. In fact, theorganizers of the Seneca Falls convention were exceptionally well-favored,well-adjusted, morally advanced women—and they were making socialand political history. As for being old maids, that too was inaccurate.Stanton, the movement's principal organizer and scribe, would have eightchildren. Nor was there anything sour about them. Referring to thewomen who participated in the Seneca Falls convention, Elizabeth CadyStanton and Susan B. Anthony later wrote that "they had not in their ownexperience endured the coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjustlaws, or association with immoral and unscrupulous men, but they hadsouls large enough to feel the wrongs of others without being scarified intheir own flesh." 32The small notice brought more than three hundred women to SenecaFalls. The organizers were not quite certain how to go about puttingtogether a convention, so they "resigned themselves to a faithful perusalof various masculine productions." 33They reviewed the procedures oftemperance and abolitionist conventions to see how they had been managed,and with the help of several sympathetic and experienced men, theywent ahead with their history-making program.The convention voted to adopt a "Declaration of Sentiments" writtenby Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who adapted the words of Jefferson's "Declarationof Independence" but specified that the liberties demanded werefor women as well as men. It opened thus:When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for oneportion of the family of man to assume among the people of theearth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied,but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitlethem, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that theyshould declare the causes that impel them to such a course. 34And she went on to speak of the truth we all hold to be self-evident, that"all men and women are created equal."The organizers presented a list of grievances, detailing injuries thatwomen suffer at the hands of men. Among them:He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to theelective franchise. ... He has compelled her to submit to laws, inthe formation of which she had no voice . . . thereby leaving herwithout representation in the halls of legislation. ... He has madeher, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. ... In the cove-