The country is crying out for freedom and equality. Every man and woman has the right to express their opinions,” echoes Mariah S. Stewart, the first African-American woman to speak to a racially and gender-mixed audience. From the moment men forced women to behave like children, seen and not heard, fervent female voices have rejected patriarchal oppression aimed at suppressing the efforts of their female gender. With a social order firmly in place and generally accepted by those in political and social power, women activists continued to work to prevent subjugation, which cast them as the weaker, non-intellectual, non-spiritual, less virtuous sex and inarticulate. While some of these women used the power of Christianity as a vehicle to assert their concerns about women's lack of freedom, they simultaneously chastised men for condemning their gender as less just, which was essentially against God's order The prevalence of women's activist roots contextualizes women in a cultural manifestation of social change. Tracing a synopsis of some of the key figures in the anti-slavery agenda, women's war on race and sexism, women's fight for equality in religiosity and ministerial vocation and, most exclusively, the women's rights movement women, we can identify with a historical tradition of rhetoric, the pre-eminence of the female voice and its passionate declaration for individual rights to freedom and happiness. Recognized as a contemporary of, as well as a collaborator with, the major philosophers of the Common Era, Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, and Aristophanes, historians regard Aspasia of Miletus as a key figure in political and rhetorical theory. In Cheryl Glenn's essay, "Sex, Lies and Manuscript: Refiguring Aspasia in the... middle of paper... significant for the women's movement, but also for contemporary studies in which women's voices are often marginalized and to keep quiet." compared to their male colleagues. Challenging the “contemporary academic and cultural scene” forces women to regain their place in Western rhetorical history, while urging women to be aware of the importance of writing themselves into history (Glenn 181). Willard talks about the action women must take to persevere despite feminine hardships; he states, “The world is wide and I will not waste my life on friction when it could be turned into momentum.” With these words, it is important to consider that change is not met by the stagnation of a voice, but is instead initiated by passionate women who with their voice can fearlessly reach the majority of opposing listeners and demand with great articulation that change must persist..