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Marissa Simone

Professor Moore

Composition 1302

31 January 2017

Womens Freedom Of Rights

Crystal Eastmans Now We Can Begin speech was written after the 19th amendment was

passed, which gave women the right to vote on August 23rd 1920 (Teen Ink). The speech was a

bold new movement that considered her a fearless spirit for interest in human rights and intelligent

self-interest. She defines different measures such as voluntary motherhood, motherhood

endowment, and economic independent and equal choices. Her main concern was that women

should begin on a bold new journey for freedoms and rights. Although Eastman includes many

convincing logical arguments through the use of historical facts, her audience that are men may

doubt her objectively because of her sarcastic remarks towards men.

One of Eastmans purposes of Now we can begin is to connect more with her readers by

using the word like She. Pathos is displayed when Eastman expresses the emotions and feelings

of women that had to deal with not having rights and when men reacted to the situation thinking it

was not a good idea for women to have their own rights. Her last sentence in the speech says, It

will be time enough then to consider whether she has a soul (Eastman par. 13). Although Eastman

is referring to no specific person, she refers to all women in the society and if they are willing to

have courage to fight back for their rights. Eastman has a good understanding and can relate to

each type of woman, but her main focus is housewives. Strongly her fearless spirit sets off to help

women understand her different measures of what women go through that men never have to deal
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with. Each of these measures has a pin point towards the enemy which is men, and to show a point

that women deserve to have the same rights economically and independently.

Ethos being displayed because of the fact that Eastman was a woman during the womens

rights movement was happening, that being she had firsthand experience and she knew exactly

what she was talking about to convince that women can do more than just being a housewife.

Eastman makes several different comments towards men such as, Two self-supporting adults

decide to make a home together: if both are women it is a pleasant partnership, more fun than

work; if one is a man, it is almost never a partnership the woman simply adds running the home

to her regular outside job (Eastman par. 9). The smart remark in the quote towards men is to

persuade the audience that women can have an outside job and be a full time housewife. Being a

housewife is not considered a job by society if a woman stays home all day taking care of the

house, but to men that is all women can do. Eastmans comments towards women having the

freedom of choice of occupation are strong and reasonable because she gives examples from other

womens own personal lives to support the issue, which shows she has a personal stake in with the

problem.

Eastman using logos to back up her arguments by expressing her feelings of being a woman

that lived in womens rights movement and women had to back up her reasoning. She points out

facts of many womens lives with marriages and household work. Eastman makes a remark saying,

It seems to me to be this: how to arrange the world so that women can be human beings, with a

chance to exercise their infinitely varied gifts in infinitely varied ways, instead of being destined

by the accident of their sex to one field of activity housework and child raising (Eastman par. 3).

These facts introduce and support the idea of motherhood endowment through her whole speech.

Eastman continues with many more statistics about the reputation men have.
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Continuing on with logos, Eastmans comments towards men about their ignorance against

knowing how to cook, sew, clean, and do other household responsibilities are supportive from her

own word about men and them not doing their fair share of chores. Eastman comments, The

average man has a carefully cultivated ignorance about household matters from what to do with

crumbs to the grocers telephone number, a sort of cheerful inefficiency which protects him better

than the reputation for having a violent temper (Eastman para6). Basically most men grew up

with the idea of not having to deal with or do womens work. In addition women had to deal

with their husbands and their housework. These statistics are a few of many that logically support

her claim that it is a real problem that men do not do their fair share on housework and depend the

woman to do it. The details in Eastmans own opinions about men build an appeal to logos and

impress upon the audience or reader that it is a problem worth discussing.

Eastman caught many womens attention through her way of emotional use with ethos, pathos,

and logos. By using these rhetorical devices Eastman found her way through everything she

mentioned in her speech. The use of her emotional appeals about womens rights was to get clear

to her audience about the idea of the future for women. She mainly used logos for women to trust

and believe what she has to say for their rights, but for men it was hard for them to trust her

argument because of the sarcastic remarks towards men. Many of her audience may have viewed

her point in most her comments, but many men could not take her seriously with her sarcastic

remarks. Regardless of the way she was viewed by her male peers, Eastman was still a highly

influential woman in the 1920s feminists movement, inspiring many other women to fight for

equality.
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Works Cited

Crystal, Eastman Now We Can Begin. Tennessee Legislature, 23 Aug. 1920. Web. 31 Jan.

2017. http://www.famous-speeches-and-speech-topics.info/famous-speeches-by-women/crystal-

eastman-speech.htm

Lady, Harmonia. Rhetorical Analysis of Now We Can Begin. Web. 31 Jan. 2017.

http://www.teenink.com/nonfiction/academic/article/839789/Rhetorical-Analysis-of-Now-We-

Can-Begin-/