The Death Of The United States

Did you know that women in the United States did not have the right to vote until the year 1920? Exactly 144 years after the United States was granted freedom from Great Britain. The women’s suffrage movement, however, did not actually start until 1848, and lasted up until they were granted the right to vote in 1920. Women all over the country were fighting for their right to vote in hopes of bettering their lives. The women’s suffrage movement was a long fought process by many people all over the world, over all different races, religions, even gender. (Cooney 1)

After being sent to jail, the suffragists continued to fight. They went on hunger strikes, which led to the public getting involved. The police treated specifically women suffragist harshly. They put the women in unsanitary, rat-infested cells ("Alice Paul Bio 3."). Famous suffragist Alice Paul was put through these conditions. Since they were treated in such horrible ways, Alice Paul went on a hunger strike. She demanded better food, and then only she would eat ("MISS ALICE PAUL ON HUNGER STRIKE."). The

In 1921, women were granted suffrage, but suffragists were still hungry for more. Knowing that the right to vote would not eliminate sex discrimination in America, Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment to step closer to equality. After half a century of struggle, women in America are still fighting for rights that men were given to when they were born. Even though women are just as intelligent, capable and hardworking as men, if not more, they are not considered an equal under the U.S. Constitution. Can you believe that today, in the 21st century, we still degrade women and treat them as inferiors to men? Can you believe that just because you are a woman, you are less than equal to the male population? Look around you, all those boys and girls are not equal to each other under our “just” country’s laws. As it is long overdue, the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified because there is no other amendment that talks about sex discrimination, it would eliminate any inequality in regards to sex, and it would make the judicial stance on sex discrimination cases much clearer.

This photo captures American women voting for the first time after the 19th Amendment was passed on August 26, 1920. Women were always thought of less than man and were expected to stay home and take care of the children. They lacked important rights such as voting, being able to own property, and having legal claim to any money they might earn. But after about seventy years women proved that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Gaining the right to vote was a historical step for women in America that was achieved through hard work and perseverance.

In the year 1923, Alice Paul, a famous suffragette, proposed an amendment to the Congress of the United States of America that would explicitly require the United States government to treat men and women equally. This proposed amendment, commonly referred to by the masses as the Equal Rights Amendment, reads as the following:

3. In June 1919 a bill was passed by Congress, the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. This bill was made law on August 26, 1920.

Almost all the suffragists and those people devoted to women’s rights followed her orders. And another outspoken woman is Alice Paul. When she studied in London, she learnt how to use some “unladylike” strategies to achieve her cause. When she returned to America, she brought this tactics to other women which helped promote the

The rivalry between the National Women’s Suffrage Association lead by Carrie Chapman Catt, and the National Women’s Party lead by Alice Paul was only intensified by each group’s intense desire to as quickly as possible get the vote for American women. Progress having been stalled and stagnated after the Civil War, ignited by this halt in momentum the two groups to give no ground or tolerance for anything that might stall their progress.

“On May 1913, in an unseasonable hot Washington spring, a determined young women was building a woman suffrage organization, whose sole pressure congress to pass a federal amendment giving woman to vote” (azlibrary.com). “In 1920, while showing how Paul had became a suffragist and the battles that defined a generation of fractious feminist activism, the book leaves the rest of her long life” (azlibrary.com). Alice had ended that the 23 year old National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) never was effective because this wasn’t enough at the federal level. (Source 3 page 1 and

During the 20th century, male and females were not being treated equally a lot of women started getting mad because they weren’t getting jobs or the right to vote as men, so it led to the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Rights Amendment was involved, because women weren’t treated equally or given the same rights as males. The Civil RIghts Movement was when there was a lot of racism and black and white people weren’t given the same rights, it was unfair to the black because they couldn’t do so many things like vote and also there was sex discrimination. In 1923, Alice Paul, leader and founder of the National Woman’s Party, considered that ERA should be the next step in the 19th Amendment in granting equal justice under the law to both sexes, male and female, in the U.S. Alice Paul said “ We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.” A text from the amendment said “Equal of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Women’s suffrage, or the crusade to achieve the equal right for women to vote and run for political office, was a difficult fight that took activists in the United States almost 100 years to win. On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, declaring all women be empowered with the same rights and responsibilities of citizenship as men, and on Election Day, 1920 millions of women exercised their right to vote for the very first time.

Alice Paul died on July 9, 1977, almost sixty years after the fight for Women’s Suffrage ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her ninety-two year life Alice Paul experienced times of financial well-being, accomplishments in schooling, radical activism, and the fulfillment of one of her political aims – Women’s Suffrage. Even though she never saw the passage of her ultimate objective of an Equal Rights Amendment, she could be recognized as a woman who could have independently terminated the seventy year battle for Women’s Suffrage. Alice Paul’s extremism played one of the most vital parts in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Alice Paul returned to the United States of America in 1910 where she enrolled in yet another school. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a Ph.D. in sociology. This is one piece of evidence supporting the great leadership that Alice Paul portrayed. She found a cause to identify to and then obtained the needed knowledge and education needed to achieve her goals. After graduating from the University, Paul launched herself into her vocation, becoming a “full-time” suffragist. Paul then joined National American Woman Suffrage Association which was founded by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony among others. Paul soon realized that the leadership styles employed by these two suffragist leaders did not agree with her personality and so she broke from the group, forming her own. Another piece of evidence, Paul understood herself and so knew what methods would agree with her leadership type and personality, essentially magnifying her impact. Paul then founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage with Lucy Burns. “In 1916, NAWSA found itself on the conservative side of the movement.” (ocp.hul.harvard.edu) Paul a radical at

Alice Paul and her followers believed that this was the next necessary step to have “equal justice under law”. This amendment would get rid of any gender inequalities that occurred in the legal system and in society in general. She believed that the ERA would end all discrimination against women. “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” Is a direct quote from the ERA that became recognizable because it outlines the primary purpose of the amendment. The amendment did not only grant equality in the constitution, but it also guaranteed women their rights and protected them from lawmakers to weaken their privileges as women. This would mean that if men were required by law to sign up for military selective service, so were women (Roberta W.,

“If a creator stands in front of a man’s house, constantly demanding the amount of the bill, the debtor has either to remove the creditor or pay the bill,” according to Alice Paul’s biographer, Amelia Fry (qtd. in Butruille). Alice Paul was an activist that wanted to get women’s right to vote. Due to that, Paul never gave up even when it seemed impossible, and when nothing was in her favor. She had fought constantly for women’s suffrage by protesting day and night, rain or shine, and in cold or heat. Nonetheless, even “being jailed six times, fighting politicians, and even other suffragists” like herself, Paul continued to be forceful against the President and Congress to allow women to vote (“Suffragist and Feminist”