Cherokee Women

It seems as if this bit of text is almost included more to give the background of the place of women in the Cherokee culture than for particular merit in rhetoric. I found it difficult to read; the punctuation was oddly spaced. These difficulties caused me to miss at first what I now consider the most important part of "Cherokee Women Address Their Nation."

Nowhere do the women apologize for speaking. Nowhere do they defend their right to speak. Instead, they consider it their duty to speak out.

This is in stark contrast to most of the other woman rhetors we have read so far. Each finds some way to demonstrate how humble she is, how beneath the notice of the male reader, calling their suggestions mere hints and their talents poor faults. They line up exceptional women of the past as reasons that they should be allowed, permitted to speak.

Not so, for the Cherokee women. Though history proved that their children did not listen to their pleas to hold onto the land, they spoke when it was their duty to do so, frankly and without apology.