fifty years we have been plaintiffs in the courts of justice,
but as the bench, the bar and the jury are all men, we are
nonsuited every time. Some men tell us we must be patient and
persuasive; that we must be womanly. My friends, what is man's
idea of womanliness? It is to have a manner which pleases
him--quiet, deferential, submissive, approaching him as a subject
does a master. He wants no self-assertion on our part, no
defiance, no vehement arraignment of him as a robber and a
criminal. While the grand motto, "Resistance to tyrants is
obedience to God," has echoed and re-echoed around the globe,
electrifying the lovers of liberty in every latitude and making
crowned heads tremble on their thrones; while every right
achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force;
while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on
women--shall men still tell us to be patient, persuasive,
womanly?

What do we know as yet of the womanly? The women we have seen
thus far have been, with rare exceptions, the mere echoes of men.
Man has spoken in the State, the Church and the Home, and made
the codes, creeds and customs which govern every relation in
life, and women have simply echoed all his thoughts and walked in
the paths he prescribed. And this they call womanly! When Joan of
Arc led the French army to victory I dare say the carpet knights
of England thought her unwomanly. When Florence Nightingale, in
search of blankets for the soldiers in the Crimean War, cut her
way through all orders and red tape, commanded with vehemence and
determination those who guarded the supplies to "unlock the doors
and not talk to her of proper authorities when brave men were
shivering in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To
me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of
circumlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that
she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object.
Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with
children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of
reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty
to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and as
promptly as possible.

Mrs. Stanton urged that women should have more power in chur