J. Elizabeth Jones was a 19th-century abolitionist and women's rights activist. Despite her views, she opposed the term "Woman's Rights." As she stated in her 1850 speech (Jones' speech begins on page 52 of the linked PDF) "The Wrongs of Woman:"
I like not the expression [woman's rights]. It is not Woman's Rights of which I design to speak, but of Woman's Wrongs. I shall claim nothing for ourselves because of our sex-I shall demand the recognition of no rights on the ground of our womanhood.
Jones--influenced by her strong abolitionist leanings--encouraged women to model their activism after the abolitionist movement. Abolitionists did not advocate for African-American rights based on race. Instead, abolitionists argued that:
the colored man is a human being, and as such, entitled to the free exercise of all the rights which belong to humanity.
Likewise, Jones argued that supports of rights for women should:
demand our recognition as equal members of the human family; as persons to whom pertain all the rights which grow out of our relations to God, and to each other, as human beings[.]
Jones believed that if woman's rights advocates would do this, then people would no longer see any distinction between the rights of men and the rights of women. Ultimately, she believed this would make the term "Woman's Rights" obsolete.
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