“The lights went up, the music went off, and you could hear a pin drop.”

Teenager Julia Bluhm was aware of the kinds of pressures put on adolescent girls to look a certain way. So Julia decided to do something about it by starting an online petition asking Seventeen to include unretouched photos in their magazine.

This essay expounds on the injustices and false perceptions faced by women in the welfare system. Tillmon contends that the system is overrun with sexism and that until American women are liberated by equal pay, the welfare system will continue to be a trap for them.

Abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott convened the first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Their Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, demanded the full rights of citizenship for women.

Sojourner Truth delivered this speech at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Born into slavery, Truth is widely known for her abolition and women’s rights work. Two versions of this speech are included.