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Women are in bondage; their clothes are a great hindrance to their engaging in any business which will make them pecuniarily independent, and since the soul of womanhood never can be queenly and noble so long as it must beg bread for its body, is it not better, even at the expense of a vast deal of annoyance, that they whose lives deserve respect and are greater than their garments should give an example by which woman may more easily work out her own emancipation?

Lucy Stone#4

FreedomSocietyClothingIndependence

About this quote

What does it mean?
Women are constrained by dependency and clothing, and examples of independence should encourage others to work for emancipation.
In plain terms
Dependency and fashion hinder women's independence and should be challenged.
What can you take from it?
Visible independence inspires others to seek freedom.

Where it applies

  • advocacy
  • personal choice
  • social reform

Putting it to work

  • advocate for economic independence
  • challenge restrictive norms

Questions to consider

  • How does clothing affect freedom?
  • What example sets the standard?

Another view

Focusing on clothing overlooks deeper legal and economic barriers.

More from Lucy Stone

  1. This letter writing is a miserable way of communicating, after all, though I would not on any account be deprived of it. But when ones soul is full, and only a…

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  2. We want rights. The flour merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all t…

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  3. If, while I hear the shriek of the slave mother robbed of her little ones, I do not open my mouth for the dumb, am I not guilty? Or should I go from house to h…

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