Life Liberty And The Pursuit Of Human Rights Essay

The Founding Fathers were inspired by the Enlightenment and the ideas of natural rights. In the Constitution Thomas Jefferson writes about “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” which was taken from John Locke who wrote “Life, Liberty, and Property”. However, when the Founding Fathers spoke about natural rights they were only applying to white men. Now when people talk about natural rights, more people recognize them as something for all genders. Women are now allowed to attend school and vote. I find that this is a great improvement from treating one demographic as the superior. To me natural rights means that everyone deserves basic human rights, no matter what gender.
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence “...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. This quote says that everyone are equal and deserve the same human rights. However, Jefferson, who wrote this owned over 600 slaves throughout his lifetime, despite claiming that he believed in natural rights. In a

letter to his wife in 1783 Jefferson wrote concerned about what his wife would wear to an event, saying “A lady who has been seen as a sloven or slut in the morning, will never efface the impression she then made with all the dress and pageantry...Nothing is so disgusting to our sex as a want of cleanliness and delicacy in yours”. He called all women who were not clean enough to his standards or did not dress the way he preferred sluts and disgusting. Now in the U.S. 51% of the population is women. If someone who wrote the basis for this country had biased views against two large demographics in our country then how sincere was he really?
Today, natural rights in America mean that everyone, all races, genders, and sexuality deserve basic human rights.

Some people believe the worse in some people based on a prejudice stereotypes, however, most agree that everyone has the right to basic rights, such as the right to an education, own property, to vote, etc. There has been plenty of progress over the centuries, for example women now have access to all of the above, and can now even have a job, and chose whether to have children or not. Of course, there are still plenty of inequalities left, according to CNN “Women who work full-time earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts….with black women making 64 cents and Latinas making 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man”. This shows how there are still gender and race prejudices that need to be improved

on.
Even if the Declaration of Independence says that everyone has natural rights the writer’s beliefs contradicted what he wrote. We don’t only know this from other quotes and actions of his, we know this from statistics today that show that there is still a huge gap in equality because of other people’s genders. Although the definition of natural rights hasn’t changed, who it applies to has.
Over the years the meaning of natural rights have changed significantly, and it still is changing. Now we live in a society where so much of what was forbidden is now allowed. The mindset of people has changed with the ways of society. It is important to remember how even though the meaning of natural rights has changed and the laws have moved us towards equality, it wasn’t that long ago people just like us didn't have the basic human right we take for granted today. It is equally as important to remember that even though society has made such progress in human rights our work is not done.