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Historical context of women's rights
Womens suffrage in america
Women’s suffrage in the 19th and 20th century
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Through years of gender inequality throughout the nation, one of the most important causes for women was when they received the right to vote, as it allowed them to have a voice within the country. While looking throughout the fight for Women’s Suffrage, many would say that it ultimately ended on August 26, 1920- when the 19th Amendment was officially ratified. Although this seems accurate, many others would say that the fight ended when the Supreme Court 's ruling ultimately established the Nineteenth Amendment. This is best shown by the ratification of the 19th amendment, Leser v. Garnett, and the overall process to reach the final ruling during the case.
In the early 20th century, women fought for the right to vote. After more than half a century of continuous activism, the 19th amendment was passed, granting women voting rights. This triumph was merely the beginning of what the women’s rights movement would accomplish. Over the next several decades, women campaigned for policies which challenged societal norms and gave them equal footing with men. Pinpointing a sole cause of this movement has proved to be somewhat problematic, as there are several factors to its rise.
Furthermore, during the early 1900s, women campaigned for other rights, such as education on birth control (Doc F), giving women the right to own property, reducing discrimination in the workplace, and more liberal divorce and marriage laws. Progressive reforms continued to increase their activists in the National Women’s Party propose as constitutional amendment that would grant women equal rights as men beyond just voting rights. It is clear that the values of the women's’ rights activists and Progressive reforms carried into the 1920s as they fought for voting rights and other rights for
Thirty years later on August 26, 1920, the nineteenth amendment was passed guaranteeing women the right to vote and the ability to participate in the democracy. This was important for helping to further extend the rights of all citizens in the United States (“The Fight for Women’s
“The only true woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family.” This idea, called the “Cult of True Womanhood” by historians, led women to develop a new way of thinking about what it was to be a US citizen. In the first ever women 's rights convention in 1848, a group of women and men gathered to address the lack of women’s rights. They agreed that both men and women were created equal and should have the same alienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; meaning they should have the right to vote. In 1890, the idea that men and women are equal, and for that women should be able to vote was discarded, and a different option came up; women and men are different and that is the main reason
Nothing has given me more pleasure than the privilege of doing what I could to hasten the day when the womanhood of the nation would be recognized on the equal footing it deserves” (Monroe, 1998, p. 78). Women now had the official and legal right to vote in the United States. In the 1920 presidential election, more than 8 million women across every precinct in the United States went to the polls to exercise their right to vote (Anderson, 2013, p. 57). Although women had now gained the right to vote, they still had only completed the first step to achieving equal
Before the 1900s, women were portrayed as fragile individuals incapable of taking part in any hard work or making any decisions for themselves. Their dreams of taking part in the economy, politics, and society were denied simply due to their gender. It wasn’t until suffragists such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided to take a stand in 1848 and hold a meeting known as the Seneca Falls Convention. This was the first step towards a change for women’s rights that had lasting effects on American society. This suffrage movement grew influence throughout the Civil War and even post-war to the point where women all over the United States joined the suffragists in fighting for thier rights.
“ A crusade in political education by women and for women, and for most of its existence, a crusade in search of a consistency” this quote by historian Nancy Woloch describes early suffragists efforts to take one step further to equality among men and women (Office of the Historian, 2007). The women 's suffrage movement changed the political, social and economic stance of women in The United States during the early twentieth century. Today women are one step closer to full equality of the sexes because of the women who fought for suffrage. Before this became the huge movement it was still legal for some women to vote in a few states. In Massachusetts and New York emphasis placed on owning property was the determining factor in voting rights.
Up until 1920, all woman weren’t treated equally. Although some states had allowed women voting rights, many had not. That is until 1920, with the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving all women the right to vote. This was not an easy accomplishment.
Regardless, according to Sara Evans, “At the beginning of the twentieth century, women were outsiders to the formal structures of political life—voting, serving on juries, holding elective office—and they were subject to wide-ranging discrimination that marked them as secondary citizens,” which emphasizes the reason for the movement to pick up speed with the progression of the century (Evans, 2012). Furthermore, she additionally claimed, “According to the Supreme Court, they [women] were not ‘persons’ under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law,” which highlights the horribly discriminatory past females were forced to endure in our past (Evans, 2012). Nevertheless, with the start of World War I came altering roles for women in which they were forced to take over the jobs left by the men. Therefore, due to their selflessness, President Woodrow Wilson called for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to reward women for their wartime contributions. As a result, female political activism skyrocketed, where the League of Women Voters formed to encourage women to become politically engaged (Evans, 2012).
“The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1920. This granted all women the right to vote. This was a monumental achievement in women's rights. After fighting for this right for decades, this became a turning point in American history. This benefited their ability to vote and numerous opportunities in all areas of society.
For as long as before the American Revolution, an apparent inequality already existed between men and women. These gender roles resulted in men being the dominant people in families while women were usually confined in their homes, doing a limited amount of societal, economical, and political influence in America and themselves. Therefore, many women, particularly in the late 1800s to 1900s, began to realize their potential in society and the deterioration their imprisonment caused, demonstrating signs of resistance through two waves of feminist movements. They first targeted the voting rights of women, which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The following is directed to achieving equal rights for women, which was inspired by the
Strangely enough, even women had to fight for equal rights. Women’s fight for equal rights was nothing compared to African Americans or even Asian Americans. Women did not go through the hate and ridicule that these other two groups went through. Despite not being targeted, women were still not treated equally. Similar to African Americans, women were not allowed to vote and had to fight for their right to vote.
Women’s suffrage was granted with the ratification of the 19th amendment in the year 1920. The fight to achieve the right for women to vote and run for political office was a difficult and long fight that took decades to win. Over the course of this long struggle for equal voting rights for women, activists faced much difficulty in attempting to have their voices heard and make a change that would give them the power to be more active in their role as citizens. Historians have approached this topic in several perspectives. Mary M. Carver’s “Everyday Women Find Their Voice in the Public Sphere: Consciousness Raising in Letters to the Editor of the Woman's Journal” provides an overview of the Women's Journal, which was published with the purpose
It wasn’t until the date of August 18, 1920 that women somewhat got a relief of being treated equal when they gained the right to vote. Now is that really all that women want? In recent time, people have seen that women are doing the same jobs as men that also require the same skills, but are getting
