The Feminist Visionary Who Lost the Plot

"Several American women, including Mott, had been elected by U.S. abolitionist groups to serve as delegates to the convention. But when they arrived in London, the organizers, who were all men, had refused to seat them. Could women really advocate for liberty, they asked? Would including them make the cause look ridiculous?"

"Stanton was enraptured by the abolitionist women she was meeting in London, who, she observed with faint awe, "talk as those who had been accustomed to think." How could all their passion and intellect be allowed to go to waste? How could her own?"

"To understand Stanton, who became one of the most famous feminists of the nineteenth century, you have to keep in mind that injuries like this were formative. She was brilliant, relentless, and possessed of a pride that bordered on conceit."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London as a delegate, expecting to participate in abolitionist discussions. However, male organizers refused to seat the American women delegates, forcing them to sit silently in the gallery while men debated their participation. This exclusion deeply affected Stanton, who was impressed by the intellectual capabilities of the abolitionist women she met. The experience became formative in her development as a feminist activist. Stanton possessed exceptional intelligence and pride bordering on conceit, qualities that fueled her radical politics but also contributed to her eventual descent into bigotry.

Read at The New Yorker