Matilda Joslyn Gage
Radical suffragist who inspires us today.
Words and music by Sarah Pirtle, Discovery Center Music, BMI © 2021.
The song quotes Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm.
Lyrics
Chorus:
I just want to shine your light.
I just want to say your name
I just want to bring you back so people hear your voice again.
You are the woman who was ahead
of the women who were ahead of their time.
We want to see your life shine.
You are the woman who was ahead
of the women who were ahead of their time.
1. Matilda Joslyn Gage, stepping up to the stage.
Your eyes were clear and fixed, you were just 26.
National Women’s Rights convention,
youngest speaker, strong intention.
Every year you dared and you ducked the hate.
Your writing spread -- Women, Church and State.
You were the woman who was ahead
of the women who were ahead of their time --
We want to see your life shine. 2x.
2. You organized a demonstration at a well-known location.
The Statue of Liberty, the greatest hypocrisy.
When the statue was first unveiled, your chartered boat set sail
To crash the procession. Your banner spoke this lesson.
It’s an outrage for a woman to stand for liberty.
It’s the sarcasm of the century.
When not one single woman in the length of this land
could protect herself, vote, own property, hold justice in her hand.
We just want to shine your light. We just want to say your name
We just want to bring you back so people hear your voice again.
I hear you shouting at the edge of the world
and I want you heard, I want you heard. I want you heard.
3. When you said the vote is not enough, forces rose up loud and tough.
You spoke for full women’s rights to ourselves, our bodies and our life.
You held up a mirror to women’s suppression.
Called out the Church on its oppression.
Unbossed, unbought, and unrefined.
You were the woman who was ahead of her time.
Chorus:
We just want to shine your light.
We just want to bring you back
and let your words ricochet. No woman may be attacked.
I want to have you recognized.
I want to look you in the eyes.
I hear you shouting at the edge of the world and we want you heard.
Bridge:
Today I wear a mask. It’s not made of cloth.
It’s made of the lies I bought. I want to take it off.
Women are still unsafe. Women’s rights still can break.
People of the world unite. Get back into this fight.
Refrain:
We just want to shine your light. We just want to say your name
We just want to bring you back so people hear your voice again.
4. You also spoke for Native Rights.
Native women first shone this light.
Mohawk sisters saw you true. They gave a name to you.
Your name -- She who Holds the Sky.
Your name shows your spirit fly.
Holding us through battles yet to come.
We hear you shouting at the edge of the world.
And you are heard.
You are the woman who was ahead
of the women who were ahead of your time.
We stand together in this line.
We stand together in this line.
Note on lyrics: The song incorporates the words of Gloria Steinem who called Gage, “the woman who was ahead of the women who were ahead of your time.” Shirley Chisholm’s campaign slogan said Chisholm was “Unbossed, unbought.”
About This Song
Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) said, “I think I was born with a hatred of oppression.” Writing this song has led to a teen collaboration of youth leaders described below.
Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner is the Executive Director of the The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, Inc. and Gage Center for Social Justice Dialogue. I decided to write this song after reading her book, We Want Equal Rights: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on the Women's Rights Movement, Native Voices,2020.
The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation is “dedicated to educating current and future generations about Gage’s work and its power to drive contemporary social change.” It is located in New York State in the house where Gage lived from 1854 to her death. https://matildajoslyngage.org
On their website, they write, “Imagine there was a suffragist who exposed sex trafficking and the sexual abuse of women and children by priests over 100 years ago? Who offered her home to people escaping slavery when she was pregnant with her third child, and faced thousands of dollars in fines and six months in jail for doing it? What if she also saw Indigenous societies as far superior to her own, supported native treaty rights, recognized Native Nation sovereignty and was honorarily adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation?”
Matilda Joslyn Gage has the power to inspire us to take a stand. This is why the organization also works with teens. The Gage Foundation website describes the Gage (Girl) Ambassador Program directed by Vanessa Johnson for ages 15-18 years old who want to focus on feminism, social justice, global connections, and community service.
As a consequence of sharing this song with Sally Roesch Wagner and Vanessa Johnson, the Gage Ambassadors are now colleagues with the teen group that I lead. In my work for Traprock Center for Peace and Justice I started a weekly group called A Long Line of Women Leaders for Racial Justice. We have launched “The Respect Girls Project” with young women in Sierra Leone who are part of WILPF Sierra Leone, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Gage Ambassadors.
This song gathers details about her life. Gage’s major book was Woman, Church and State. She was on the Revising Committee of the Woman's Bible which Elizabeth Cady Stanton edited, and she contributed key sections to that book.
"A rebel! How glorious the name sounds when applied to woman. Oh, rebellious woman, to you the world looks in hope. Upon you has fallen the glorious task of bringing liberty to the earth and all the inhabitants thereof."
-- Matilda Joslyn Gage.