Who Supported The 19th Amendment

The 19th Amendment was passed on August 18th, 1920; women had been in a 70 year protest to finally gain women suffrage. Even after women gained equal voting rights as men, they struggled to get past the state laws that still held them unequal in numerous ways violating their natural rights. It wasn’t until 1974, almost 54 years after the amendment was passed, that the Supreme Court finally considered an Equal Pay Act, due to an employer paying women less than men for the same work (Corning Glass Works v. Brennan). Only a year before that, in 1973, did the supreme court revise and clarify that employers could not publish sex-segregated “Male/Female Help Wanted” ads. Although it may be protected under the constitutional right of freedom of speech and of the press, but instead was considered illegal because of sex-biased preference in hiring (Pittsburgh Press v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations). Both cases happened after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, further providing evidence that gender equality was still an issue, even after laws were previously put in place in an attempt to prevent that.

Not only was voting rights an issue, but issues such and equal pay, employment, and general gender bias were still amidst in this century. Although these gender transgressions were brought to attention, not all judges/justice’s would agree with the opinion of the court. For example, in the case of Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the ultimate decision was that no violations to the Equal Pay Act were enacted, regardless of how unjust the female to male pay ratio was, in male