Sojourner Truth's Ain T I A Woman

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The mid-nineteenth century was a time when, Sojourner Truth powerfully vocalized a resonant argument that directly correlated the issues of both race and gender at a time when abolition and women's rights reformers were grappling with ever-mounting pressure from within the movements. Her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, is considered one of the important stepping stones of women's rights advocacy. In "Ain't I a Woman?," Truth questions the reigning norms within which women are marginalized and, more specifically, the African American woman. She makes a compelling mixture of salient strategies, which include appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos, hence securing a place as one of the best possible …show more content…

This choice of diction conjures a sense of familial trust and respect among her audience, enhancing her credibility. Furthermore, the recounted personal hardships of ploughing fields and enduring physical labor equal to men, with the suffering of children sold to slavery, all serve to show grounds of what qualified her to speak on issues of inequality and injustice. Sharing this experience in this way—so publicly—makes her not only much more human in front of the public, but also a person with tenacity and expertise in gender and racial issues. Truth weaves these into her speech, and effectively then lays a foundation for her ethos in that she compels her audience to view her arguments with the seriousness and respect they warrant. Sojourner Truth skillfully uses logos in her persuasive, logical argumentation, while she structures her arguments to show discrepancies between the logical appearances of cultural norms. Her rhetorical questions indeed establish a kind of logical framework guiding the listener to revisit his or her attitudes towards the roles of women and

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