19th Amendment Essay

The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote but the process of achieving this hard-earned goal was first instigated by the first wave of feminism. Women initially were seen almost as objects that could not think for themselves and many women wished to have equal rights as men. To achieve this goal, many women decided that they first needed the right to vote, leading to the first wave of feminism. The first wave of feminism marked the beginning of women gaining equal rights as men and eventually led to the 19th Amendment being passed, granting women the right to vote, and opening the door to achieving gender equality.
Feminism is “the set of beliefs and ideas that belong to the broad social and political movement to achieve greater equality for women” (Fiss, 1994, 413). To end discrimination against women, feminist activists, otherwise known as feminists or suffragists, first came to be in the late 1900s. However, before any feminist movement had taken place, women's suffrage was standard. Men back then believed that “just as the interests of children are

Currently, gender inequality, although less than before, still exists, for example in wage gaps. “The gender gap in paid work is narrowing, but women still do most of the domestic work and child care… all of which is low-waged labor” (Lorber, 2001, 6). Many expectations for male and female roles, especially in religious customs, continue to exist and “legitimate the social arrangements that produce inequality, justifying them as proper” (Lorber, 2021, 6). Women are somewhat encouraged to work more “feminine” jobs which is causing many women to continue working in more low-paying, domestic jobs. However, there are still many, and a growing increase in successful women working high-paying jobs, inspiring more women to do the