Elizabeth Cady Stanton

8 Pages 2095 Words

lso studied with a group of boys, at Johnstown Academy (www.greatwoman.org). Winning a prize in Greek she felt she had proved herself and rushed home to her father with the thrilling news. But though her father was pleased, he sighed in regret, “Ah, you should have been a boy (www.elibrary.bigchalk.com)!” This early lesson of male prejudice was reinforced as she became aware of the troubles of the suffering women who brought their legal problems to her father. Although, as Elizabeth soon found out, Judge Cady’s hands were often tied, considering existing laws reduced a woman’s control over her own wages, property and even her children. Burning with eagerness, Elizabeth was ready to cut the problematic laws right out of the law books. As you can tell Elizabeth had wanted to take action at a young age, but her father informed her to wait and try to change the laws instead. So with her father’s disappointment in her sex and his advice to try to change the law, Elizabeth’s mind was full of ideas.
I believe Elizabeth’s childhood plays a momentous part in determining her values, and indefinitely shaped the woman she became later in life. After her brothers’ sudden death, she tries to become“boy” in her father’s eyes to try and fill the emptiness he felt from losing his only son. Like I stated previously, she mastered such skills as mathematics, Greek, and riding, skills that were considered at the time to be manly, or reserved for boys only. Mastering such boyish skills made Elizabeth a well-rounded woman, something that was quite uncommon in her era.
I also believe that her father’s profession had a great impact on what Elizabeth would become. Listening to the women who brought their problems to her father, Elizabeth found herself thinking that law books were prejudice towards women. This I believe is what stemmed Eliz...