Write A Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Women's Rights Speech

Interdiscursivity, discursive and social practices

Ernestine L. Rose delivered her speech at the Second National Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester on 15 October 1851. It was the first convention during which American feminists received communicates from their European counterparts and thus acknowledged the movement’s expansion in other parts of the world. Yet, the Conference was deeply rooted in the American values as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The Convention was held eight times more, the last time in 1860. It later resumed in 1863 as the First Woman’s National Loyal League Convention.
In her address Rose refers to the ideals of Enlightenment, such as freedom, democracy, and equality which laid the foundations for the political philosophy of Liberalism. Her speech is suffused with elements of the liberal and post-Enlightenment discourse. In the opening phrases of the text, Rose alludes to the social ferment of the turn of the nineteenth century and its first decades and acknowledges the achievements of grassroots movements in Europe and the US. She purposefully addresses the “observing and reflecting” minds, presumably those of the liberals, who adhere to the ideals of the Enlightenment. Also, she mentions the famous motto of the revolutionary France “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,” which is yet another allusion

On the one hand, Rose underscores that women should be equal to men when it comes to their legal status within society, which complies with the liberal feminism’s assertion of male-female sameness. On the other hand, she projects women as morally superior and thus, at least to some extent, better and more dignified than men. This approach, in turn, is representative of difference feminism which emphasizes the differences between men and women and generally perceives women as the “better half” of the