Ginzberg

Textbooks that portray Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a heroine of feminism fail to tell the whole story, said Lori Ginzberg, professor of history and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University, during her University Lecture on campus March 6. Although Stanton "belongs by any measure in the pantheon of people who shaped this nation," she also "made comments so racist they can leave us speechless."

Ginzberg, the author of "Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life" (2010), speaking on "Rights, Racism and 'A Very Radical Proposition': Grappling With the Complex Legacies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton" in Goldwin Smith Hall, said that the activist's biases shaped the women's rights movement more than many realize.

"Her racism and elitism were not merely words. They reflected a thread in her thinking," Ginzberg said, "that continues to limit how we think of feminism and of Stanton today."

Stanton was born in 1815, about 250 miles from Ithaca. Her father -- a slave owner -- was by no means a moral progressive. When he told his daughter that he wished she were a boy, Ginzberg said, "she retained a strong sense of injustice."

Yet Stanton's most formative experiences were in her father's law library, where she developed "an acute sense" that politics and the law were the most effective ways to bring about social change.

After the Civil War, Ginzberg said, radicals debated whether to accept the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- which granted voting rights to black men (and was ratified in 1870) -- or to hold out until women too could participate. With her fellow women's rights advocate Susan B. Anthony, Stanton declined to support the amendment.

"Some tell us that this is not the time for us to make this demand, that it is the Negro's hour. No, my friends, it is the nation's hour," Stanton wrote.

In Ginzberg's view, this was a mistake that still affects feminism today.

"There was more at stake here than mere figures of speech," Ginzberg said. "In staking her claim to universal rights on the priority of white women's rights, Stanton did damage to ... the legacy of feminism itself."

Stanton's focus on fighting for voting rights for white middle-class women excluded black women in the South -- many of whom were recently freed slaves. The vote was meaningful for them because of how "it was used in the larger interests of the community," even if they themselves could not explicitly participate in the voting process.

This brought Ginzberg to a larger question: Who defines the goals of a movement in the first place? Stanton was a "master" at defining her goals as universal ones. Yet for black women, Ginzberg said, "Stanton, who boasted often of her genius for napping, did not lose much sleep."

Despite Stanton's failings, however, she remains an inspirational figure.

"Stanton left a huge legacy, and it gets no smaller by complicating it," Ginzberg said.

The lecture was a keynote talk as part of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies' spring events to celebrate its 40th anniversary. It was supported by the Africana Studies and Research Center, the Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, Department of History, the Women's Resource Center and the University Lectures Committee.

Elisabeth Rosen '12 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.