Women Suffrage: Chapters 16-28 How did women get recognized by men in the 1900s? History voices that females were accustomed to being the “home keepers” of the United States. Men did not recognize women’s voice and hard work after the war, but they did let them begin expanding out of homes. The world was a males empire and women wanted to be equals, except that in order to do that, years of petitioning and fighting for women’s right to vote had to take place. Councils and meeting would dispute on women’s voting rights, and for many years the quarrel did not end. Why did men fear the female’s right to vote and why did they find it so controversial? In early years, women were a mere travesty compared to blokes. Dames’ lives were determined by …show more content…
Yet, there was skepticism with the subject, especially from men. Why did they not want women to vote? Why did they feel that women shouldn’t progress? Jonathan Soffer wrote, “Some anti-suffragists argued that allowing women to vote would be disruptive to home life, as women would take time off from their domestic duties to vote and perhaps undermine male authority by arguing about politics with their husbands and sons” (Modern Women Persuading Modern Men: The Nineteenth Amendment and the Movement for Woman Suffrage, 1916–1920). This depicts the ideology of men, fearing that women would speak up and stop being submissive towards the male sex. Also, they thought that women would not be able to sustain a home if they gained the right to vote, and to them, that was preposterous. On the other hand, “some military-preparedness advocates, such as former Secretary of War Elihu Root, who complained that if women were allowed to vote the country would never again agree to fight” (Soffer), which again illustrated how men did not want change. They wanted to rule their homes as well as the nation’s future, they did not want females to interfere with male dominance. But women were not going to give up, they were going to keep progressing in order to fight equally with men, for their right to be part of …show more content…
Males got to branch out, go to school, learn about politics, and make decisions for the greater good. Women’s role was to stay at home, maintain the house, and take care of children. But, “[by] the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in American society was changing drastically: Women were working more, receiving a better education, bearing fewer children, and three more states (Colorado, Utah, and Idaho) had yielded to the demand for female enfranchisement” ("Woman suffrage amendment ratified"), women were changing their lives and the future of American females. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until another war outbreak, WWI, which men realized how powerful the feminine gender was. By aiding and helping in the war, women suffrage incredulity and blockades started falling apart. It wasn’t until after a horrific event, that men realized that women had more capabilities than those of home keeping. Women were not an inferior being to men, they were always an equal, but males’ stubbornness and unwillingness to change caused years and years of dispute. Providentially, “on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship” (The Fight For Women’s Suffrage). This major event in history has allowed women to act and make