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Women have encountered setbacks in society due to inherent sexism and misogyny from men. These setbacks and sexism can be viewed in the past as well as in the present, today. The works of Judith Sargent Murray and Elizabeth Cady Stanton can be related to present issues such as the Texas Heartbeat Bill.

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"On the Equality of the Sexes" by Judith Sargent Murray and the "Declaration of Sentiments" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton will be analyzed today.

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"On the Equality of the Sexes" - Judith Sargent Murray

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"On the Equality of the Sexes" - Judith Sargent Murray

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In this feminist essay, Murray argues that women and men have the same capacity for intelligent thought and spirituality. She argues that, just because there are physical and biological differences between males and females, does not mean that females are inferior to males. She also criticizes the treatment of girls in society, and how they are often denied an education equivalent to that of a boy.

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"Declaration of Sentiments" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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"Declaration of Sentiments" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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At the Seneca Falls Convention, held from July 19, 1848 to July 20, 1848, "The Declaration of Sentiments" written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a suffragette, was delivered in the form of a speech by Stanton herself. The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention and was organized to discuss the rights of women: social, civil, and religious. This document was modeled after The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, and designed to bring the women's grievances to light.

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The Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls

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On May 19, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the Heartbeat Bill into law, with it going into effect on September 1, 2021. The Heartbeat Bill states that women may receive an abortion until a heartbeat is detected in the fetus. Once a heartbeat is detected, an abortion is illegal after that. This law also states that members of the public can sue anyone who performs, receives, or helps a person receive an illegal abortion for a minimum of $10,000. "Texas leaders have devised a convoluted and dangerous workaround: a "heartbeat" bill that entirely outsources its enforcement to private citizens. It's a call to arms for antiabortion zealots -- or, really, anyone who'd like $10,000..." (The Washington Post 1). This bill has received backlash, because of it's policing of women's bodies. This bill is also receiving backlash because a man, Bryan Hughes, was the one who introduced the bill, while another man, Greg Abbott, was the one who signed the bill into law. Men should not make legal decisions regarding women's bodies. We do not see laws policing men's bodies.

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https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033202132/texas-abortion-ban-what-happens-next

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What the Texas abortion ban does — and what it means for other states

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The law bans abortions as early as six weeks after conception and allows Texans to sue anyone who aids, abets or performs an abortion past that mark.

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Paxton Smith was the valedictorian of The University of Texas at Austin. Governor Greg Abbott had signed the Heartbeat Bill into law just a couple weeks before she was scheduled to give a speech at her class graduation. Instead of delivering her pre-approved speech, she went off-script and used her platform to protest the new abortion ban.

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There is also a copy of NPR's transcript of her speech at this site: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/03/1002831545/high-school-valedictorian-swaps-speech-to-speak-out-against-texas-new-abortion-l

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The speech that high school valedictorian Paxton Smith pulled from inside her graduation gown was not the one she had shown the school. So she took a deep breath before launching into it, wondering if she would be allowed to share her thoughts about Texas' new restrictive abortion law.

"I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights," Smith said in her speech at the graduation ceremony for Lake Highlands High School in Dallas.

Despite swapping her text, Smith finished her speech and got a rousing cheer from her classmates and staff. In the days since her address on Sunday, video of the event has gone viral, and Smith has been praised for speaking her mind.(You can read a full transcript of her speech below.)

"I have dreams, and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does," Smith said. She later added, "And without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us."

Smith concluded her speech by stating, "We cannot stay silent."

Her remarks came less than two weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed new restrictions into law that ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected - as early as six weeks.

As Smith noted, many women do not realize they're pregnant at six weeks. The law does not allow exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

The senior had intended to use her speech to talk about TV and the media, but, she said, "it feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in the state."

Smith says she has received hundreds of messages of support, as videos of her graduation speech were widely shared across social media. In many ways, the speech went better than she anticipated, especially since the school had raised the possibility of remarks being cut short if they diverged from the approved script.

"I thought that the microphone was going to get cut off a couple minutes in, but it didn't," Smith told local TV station WFAA in Dallas.

In a statement released to local media, the Richardson Independent School District, which includes Lake Highlands, says that students choose their own messages to share at graduation. But noting that Smith's speech was not approved and "not in the podium book" of remarks for the event, the district says it will look at ways to prevent similar switches from taking place in the future.

Smith's father, Russell Smith, tells the Lake Highlands Advocate that he's proud of his daughter.

"It was something that she felt was important, and she had the nerve, determination and boldness to put herself out there and say her piece," he said. "So few people demonstrate this level of maturity and poise, regardless of age."
The text of Smith's speech, as transcribed by NPR:
I'm not usually very good at expressing my gratitude for the people that I care about. But I would like to say "thank you" to Coach. I think he's had a bigger role in my life than he realizes. [deep breath]

OK.

As we leave high school, we need to make our voices heard. Today, I was going to talk about TV and media and content, because it's something that's very important to me. However, under light of recent events, it feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in the state.

Recently, the Heartbeat Bill was passed in Texas. Starting in September, there will be a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, regardless of whether the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest.

Six weeks. That's all women get. And so before they realize - most of them don't realize that they're pregnant by six weeks - so before they have a chance to decide if they are emotionally, physically and financially stable enough to carry out a full-term pregnancy, before they have the chance to decide if they can take on the responsibility of bringing another human being into the world, that decision is made for them by a stranger.

A decision that will affect the rest of their lives is made by a stranger.

I have dreams and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does. And we have spent our entire lives working towards our future. And without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us. [applause]

I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, I am terrified that if I am raped, then my hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts for my future will no longer matter. I hope that you can feel how gut-wrenching that is. I hope you can feel how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken away from you.

And I'm talking about this today - on a day as important as this, on a day honoring 12 years of hard academic work, on a day where we are all gathered together, on a day where you are most inclined to listen to a voice like mine, a woman's voice - to tell you that this is a problem, and it's a problem that cannot wait.

And I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights. A war on the rights of your mothers [cheers], a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters.

We cannot stay silent. Thank you.

[cheers, applause]

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High School Valedictorian Swaps Speech To Speak Out Against Texas' New Abortion Law

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The speech that high school valedictorian Paxton Smith pulled from inside her graduation gown was not the one she had shown the school. So she took a deep breath before launching into it, wondering if she would be allowed to share her thoughts about Texas' new restrictive abortion law.

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'A war on my body': Texas valedictorian goes off script over new abortion law

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Connecting the Heartbeat Bill to the Works

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Connecting the Heartbeat Bill to the Works

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In "On the Equality of the Sexes", Judith Sargent Murray also speaks on in the inherent misogyny of men. She speaks of how boys and girls are raised differently, and are given different hobbies and activities to focus on growing up. Where girls are typically given activities like sewing, cooking, and cleaning, boys are given a proper education. "Is the needle and kitchen sufficient to employ the operations of a soul thus organized? I should conceive not." (Murray 2). Her essay covers how males and females, though different physically and biologically, still have the same intelligence. "But, suffer me to ask, in what the minds of females are so notoriously deficient, or unequal." (Murray 2).

In Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "The Declaration of Sentiments", she includes a list of grievances. One of these grievances states, "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides." (Stanton 2). In this grievance, Stanton is saying that women at the time were not considered citizens and did not have voting rights. They could not make any government decisions and thus had no power over how they were being governed. It can also be interpreted that men were the only sex who held positions in government, and could not relate to the struggles of the feminine, and therefore, their laws and regulations governing women were not in the women's best interest. This particular grievance can be related to the struggles today concerning the Texas Heartbeat Bill, because the politicians who put this law in place were mostly men. This law affects only women; women's lives and women's bodies. Men should not be policing women's bodies and making legal decisions over them, when men themselves do not and cannot experience the same life as a woman.

"Abortion access is still a constitutional right. Judges should not tolerate Texas's cynical efforts to restrict it via intimidation." (The Washington Post 1). This makes one question whether the Heartbeat Bill is really about abortion, or if it is really a war on women due to generations of inherent sexism. The Republican party platform during the Trump Administration "repeatedly mentions eliminating abortion rights" (Chemerinsky, Goodwin), calls for legal punishment for women who have received an abortion, and "even opposes contraception being referred to or counseled about in school-based health clinics and sexual-education programs." (Chemerinksy, Goodwin). These three factors combined show that this "ban on abortion" façade is really just a war on women and women's rights due to the inherent misogyny that men belonging to the Republican political party typically have. "Some argue that men's migration to the  Republican Party is related to the Democrats' association with feminism and women's organizations, and feminist identification has been... a factor driving the gender gap..." (Bumgardner, Simas). "There may be another factor dividing men and women that heretofore has been largely ignored: modern sexism, or "the denial of continued discrimination, antagonism towards women's demands, and lack of support for policies designed to help women."'(Bumgardner, Simas). With this information, the inherent sexism in men can be seen through their alignment with the Republican Party simply because they do not want to be associated with feminism and women's issues. The "modern sexism" mentioned above is the exact issue that is currently being faced with the Texas Heartbeat Bill.

Even yet, there are fallacies with the logistics of the Heartbeat Bill. The law says that at six weeks, once a heartbeat is detected in the fetus, then an abortion is no longer legal. However, "this term is a misnomer, because at six weeks of gestation there is neither a fetus nor a heartbeat. Indeed, there is no heart.... The so-called "heartbeat"... is actually a pulsing of some cells..." (Donegan 1). This point further proves the theory that this abortion ban is not really about the morals of abortion at all, but rather misogyny by trying to control women and police their bodies.

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Here's What Makes Texas's 'Heartbeat' Abortion Bill Uniquely Dangerous

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Here's What Makes Texas's 'Heartbeat' Abortion Bill Uniquely Dangerous

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https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A669499356/AONE?u=txshracd2560&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=e28eb53b

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https://ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/abortion-woman-s-private-choice/docview/1916145922/se-2?accountid=7079

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https://ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/modern-sexism-2012-u-s-presidential-election/docview/1933611399/se-2?accountid=7079

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Texas Abortion Ban is a Performance of Misogyny

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Texas Abortion Ban is a Performance of Misogyny

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https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A662721735/AONE?u=txshracd2560&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=50843e75

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The issues faced by women today were issues faced by women of the past. The works of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judith Sargent Murray helped launch the feminist movement and basic rights for women, but the same roadblock is always shown: men and their misogyny. This misogyny is seen in the current Texas Heartbeat Bill, and has been seen in the past with instances like the Equal Rights Amendment of the 1970s. Women today are still facing the same issues that women of the past have faced, which are the problems of the feminine.