Ain't I a Woman - Summary
Introduction
Sojourner Truth addresses the subject of all the "racket" that the call for women's rights has
created. She deduces that where there is so much conflict, there must be underlying causes.
White men find themselves caught between the demands of black people in the South and
women in the North, and she wants to address some of their points at the conference. Truth
points out the disparity between patriarchal notions of womanhood (that women need to be
helped into carriages or lifted over ditches) with the treatment of enslaved women, who do not
benefit from such cultural ideology.
Strength
Although a man at the conference has claimed that women are weaker than men, Truth claims
no one has ever treated her as if she were in need of assistance. She is just as strong as a man
with the same appetite and ability to work. She shows the audience the muscles in her arm and
lists the agricultural work she has done as evidence of her equal strength, demanding the
audience consider the question, "Ain't I a woman?" Furthermore, she harbors emotional
strength because she has given birth to multiple children, only to suffer through the pain of
losing them as they were sold away from her.
Intelligence
Some people contend that women are not as intelligent as men. Truth argues that if women's
intelligence is like a cup that holds a pint and men's hold a quart, men would be quite selfish to
withhold any of a woman's smaller measure. Intellectual capacity should have no bearing on the
rights of women or blacks.
Christianity
Truth rejects the notion that women are not equal to men because Christ was a man. She asks
the audience where Christ came from, after all. He was born of God and a woman. No man was
involved.
Conclusion
If women were responsible for original sin, as some claim, they have been deemed capable of
turning the world upside down and therefore also have the ability to right it. Men need to get out
of their way, Truth says, and let them get to work on setting the world right side up again.
