First Wave Feminism Analysis

Whereas the women’s suffrage movements focused mainly on overturning legal obstacles to equality, the feminist movements successfully addressed a broad range of other feminist issues. The first dealt primarily with voting rights and the latter dealt with inequalities such as equal pay and reproductive rights. Both movements made vast gains to the social and legal status of women. One reached its goals while the other continues to fight for women’s rights.

The status of women after World War II owes a lot to the waves of feminism and the women’s movement. The first wave of feminism took place in the 19th century, they formed a feminism group to campaign for the right to vote and become a politician. The second wave of feminism was most prominent in the 1960s and 1970s and was focused on gaining equality with men. These feminists wanted equality in all forms of work, the law, and general social standing. They targeted a larger range of aspects of life and the presented a wider challenge to the “traditional” ideas of women’s rights. This led to a massive change to the daily lives of mainstream Australian women.

Australia allowed women both to have the right to vote and to be elected into parliament on a national base in 1902. Groups of women formed to create suffrage groups. These groups created petitions, flyers, posters, debates and meetings along with others to raise awareness and persuade people to join their side.

As the century immediately following the American Revolution, the 19th century experienced a rise in feminism as it harbored the first feminist movement in America. Although some women chose to embrace their “roots” by retaining their domestic sphere of influence, many women began to show discontent with the limited number of rights women held. Soon enough, the fight for women’s rights resulted in women gaining more prominence in society.

The importance of woman and there role and contribution  to Australia has not always been the same as it is now in the present. In the 1800s woman were not involved in participating in writing a vote for a prime minister and state leaders of their choice and they were also not allowed to join a parliament house and become a leader. The goals of Vida Goldstein and Rose Scott were to have equal rights of men and women in all needs of life like parliament, some of these woman are called feminists (people that want equality of sexes).

The progression of the rights and freedoms of women has changed drastically over the past 100 years. Women have felt the need to stand up for their rights and change the traditional stereotype of women from, weak and unambitious to strong and determined beings. There were two main time periods where their rights were recognized throughout Australia. The first took place in the early 20th century, where women rallied for the rights to vote and stand for elections. The second took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when traditional roles of women were challenged. The third aspect that will also be looked at in this essay, are influential women in the two time

Prior to the implementation of statute law it was the men who participated in the running of Australia and were involved in public debate. In Victoria the Electoral Act 1863 (Vic) used the phrase “all persons” in relation to voting rights. However this act excluded women indirectly as it was based on voting roles which is based on property ownership, a right women were still struggling for. Where UK suffragists used ‘deeds not words’, Australian suffragists used peaceful and legal means to achieve political change. One example of this was a petition consisting of ‘over 40,000 signatures in support of women's suffrage on two important petitions. Covering much of the nation, women suffrage campaigners travelled thousands of miles knocking on doors and eventually getting around 1% of the entire population of Australia to sign.’ In 1895 South Australia became the first state in Australia to grant women the right to vote. In 1902 the Commonwealth Franchise Act was passed which enabled all women (excluding Indigenous women) the right to vote in and state for, federal elections. In 1903 there were four women standing in the federal election however it was not until 1921 in the Legislative Assembly of WA that Edith Cowan became the first woman elected to any Australian

In 1907, the Men's League for Women's Suffrage was formed. Their methods were much more civil, signing petitions and approaching the problem in a more political way. Their efforts weren’t acknowledged. Although most women wanted the same rights as men, some didn’t. In 1908, The Women's National Anti-Suffrage League was formed. They believed that women shouldn’t have a say in how the government is, that is was a man’s job. Some of these efforts were heard and women were first able to vote at the first Commonwealth election in 1901. In addition, women were able take part in The Democratic National Convention in Denver in 1908. And that same year, we celebrated the very first International Women’s Day.

Women’s Suffrage was a huge movement in the 1800’s and the beginning of the 1900’s. Women fought long and hard to earn the right to vote and the right to be considered equal along with men. “The day may be approaching when the whole world will recognize woman as the equal of man” (Susan B. Anthony). They also earned the right to own property. Many men argued against women’s rights. Women struggled for 50 years against the hate and the repressment by men.

The evolution of the rights of woman in Australia owes much to successive waves of feminism, or the woman’s movement. The first of these took place in the late 19th century and was concerned largely with gaining the right to vote and to stand for election into parliament. The second wave of feminism took place in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on gaining equality with men in other areas, such as work, the law and general social standing. These protests for the changing rights and freedoms of woman targeted many different aspects of life and presented a broader challenge to traditional ideas of

The women’s suffrage movement is a movement to secure legal, economic, and social equality for women who are fighting to secure property rights and suffrage for women. It was insisted that men were superior to women although, this movement was directed for the removal of attitudes and practices that preserve inequalities based upon this assumption. This essay will argue about what events lead to the success of women’s suffrage movement.

Increasingly frustrated by their withheld rights and more determined than ever in their fight against female objectification and socially imposed identities, many British women took the gender war to the next level: politics. In the early 1900s the suffragettes campaigned peacefully in order to be granted the right to vote. Since this had no effect whatsoever, some of them radicalised and undertook more violent militant tactics. But the outbreak of the First World War made them leave their campaign trail to support the Nation’s war efforts. The male workforce being absent, female participation in the labour market was unprecedented. In 1918 the realisation that women could be of help in the democratic process eventually dawned on politicians

Stereotyping affects women’s perception of gender roles and supports the concept that glass ceiling still exists. The main stakeholder in the issue of glass ceiling in the work force, are the women themselves. Feminism is a word used to describe individuals who express a different view in gender equity, and desire to make changes in society’s perception of women. In history we have seen many forms of feminism, in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft led the early liberal feminist movement, which raised awareness of the inequity of women. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that everybody should have the right to self-determination, “that is the reasoning by which liberal enlightenment thought opposed the divine rights of the kings and aristocracies should be used against the divine right of the husbands and women’s obedience to men,” (Bowden & Mummery, 2009). The Feminist movements began in Australia in 1827 with riots in Parramatta Sydney, over unfair

The women's rights movement of the mid-nineteenth century unified women around a number of issues that were seen as fundamental rights for all citizens; they included: the right to own property, access to higher education, reproductive rights, and suffrage. Women's suffrage was the most controversial women's rights issue of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and divided early feminists on different lines. In 1917 women secured their right to vote, and the women’s right lost it’s momentum. During World War I and II women did outside jobs that they liked, to help economic while husband’s were at war. After WWII, the women’s right had difficulty to come together for important issues. It was not until the socially explosive 1960s

Social change in Britain has been achieved primarily through the hard work of organized political groups. These groups created events to recruit and educate supporters of social equality to join them in fighting for progress. The Women’s Suffrage Movement between 1866 and 1928 in Britain is no exception to this trend. The reason for the great efficacy of these political groups, including the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and the Women’s Social and Political Union, was the women who pioneered the groups and fought alongside them to create the change that they believed in. The goal of these political groups was finally realized in 1928 with the passing of the Representation of the People Act. However, the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain would not have been successful without the influential actions of several significant women. In addition to the overall necessity of female leadership for British Women’s Suffrage, the central efforts of Millicent Fawcett, Lydia Becker, and Emmeline Pankhurst particularly played a large role in the movement’s success.