Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners

“Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!” Thus thundered Susan B. Anthony, the great warrior of equality, whose voice rose in defiance against the silence imposed upon half of humanity. These words, fierce and unyielding, were not uttered in despair but in holy anger — the anger of one who had seen justice denied too long. They stand as a cry from the heart of a woman who had grown weary of pleading before deaf ears, who saw that without the power of the vote, all other petitions were but wind against stone. In her cry echoes the eternal truth that rights are not begged for — they are claimed.

The origin of this quote lies in the long and arduous struggle of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States during the nineteenth century. Susan B. Anthony, alongside her comrade Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had spent decades fighting for a voice in the laws that governed their lives. They had marched, written, spoken, and appealed to Congress again and again, only to be told that the ballot was a man’s tool — that woman’s virtue lay in silence and submission. It was then, after years of rejection, that Anthony declared this truth: that to petition for justice without power was as futile as baying at the moon — a sound heard, perhaps pitied, but never answered. Her words were a call to awaken courage in her sisters, to trade supplication for action.

In her fiery imagery, Anthony likened women’s cries for equality to the howling of dogs at a distant, indifferent moon — a symbol of the government that ignored their pleas. The comparison was deliberate, even shocking, for she meant to pierce through complacency and shame a nation that prided itself on liberty. What use was freedom, she asked, if it belonged only to one sex? What virtue was there in democracy if it silenced the voices of half its citizens? Her defiance burned against the hypocrisy of her age — an age that called itself enlightened while keeping women as subjects without sovereignty.

Consider the story that followed her cry. In 1872, in open defiance of the law, Susan B. Anthony cast her vote in the presidential election. She was arrested, tried, and fined — yet she refused to pay a single cent. Standing before the court, she declared that her act was not a crime, but an exercise of citizenship denied. “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God,” she proclaimed. Her act of rebellion became a spark that lit the fires of the suffrage movement across the land. Though she did not live to see victory — for the 19th Amendment, granting women the vote, came forty-four years after her illegal ballot — her words endured as the heartbeat of that triumph.

The meaning of her quote reaches far beyond her own time. It is not only about women’s right to vote — it is about the futility of pleading without power, the necessity of turning moral conviction into political force. To Anthony, petitioning without the vote was the illusion of participation, a performance of powerlessness that comforted the oppressor while exhausting the oppressed. Her words teach that justice requires not only patience but courage, not only virtue but voice. Without the right to shape law, those who suffer under it are not citizens, but subjects.

Her defiance can be seen mirrored throughout history — in the abolitionists who demanded freedom for the enslaved, in the civil rights marchers who braved clubs and firehoses for the right to vote a century later, and in every movement where the voiceless refuse to remain silent. Power yields nothing without demand, and Anthony’s cry reminds us that dignity begins where submission ends. Even today, in every place where people are denied representation — where the weak are told to wait, to be patient, to hope — her voice still resounds: you might as well be baying at the moon unless you claim your right to be heard.

So, my children, let this teaching dwell within your hearts: never mistake pleading for power, nor patience for progress. To speak for justice is noble, but to act for it is divine. Do not wait for permission to be free; freedom is the birthright of every soul. Susan B. Anthony’s life was not lived in comfort, but in purpose, and her words are a sword for all who would stand against silence.

And thus, remember her wisdom: petition if you must, but never without the will to fight. For the world does not change through the kindness of those who hold power, but through the courage of those who dare to claim it. In that spirit, may you never bay at the moon — may you, instead, command the dawn.