Essay about The History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

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 Women’s Suffrage Movement of the 1920’s worked to grant women the right to vote nationally, thereby allowing women more political equality. Due to many industrial and social changes during the early 19th century, many women were involved in social advocacy efforts, which eventually led them to advocate for their own right to vote and take part in government agencies. Women have been an integral part of society, working to help those in need, which then fueled a desire to advocate for their own social and political equality. While many women worked tirelessly for the vote, many obstacles, factions, and ultimately time would pass in order for women to see the vote on the national level. The 19th Amendment, providing women the right to vote, enable women further their pursuit for full inclusion in the working of American society.

make 120s, or 60 pence, a day. It was reasons such as this that women

Women had attempted to call attention to the issue of woman’s suffrage for hundreds of years. Until August 18th, 1920 women had no right to vote for the politicians that governed them. Many women wondered why they had not been given suffrage, but African American men were given the right to vote nearly 50 years earlier. The fifteenth amendment states that citizens “shall not be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. Why couldn’t gender have been included in the amendment? Many claimed that was not fair to the women who had helped Americans in the most crucial of times. During previous wars women were left to take care of the household while men were at war. They also worked

For many, when they hear of women’s rights their minds go straight to a picture of the suffrage riots and protests of the early 1900s. However, many women had lobbied for the right to vote many years previous. At this time and before there had been a large number of conventions for the support of women’s rights headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In May 1869, both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and others formed The National Woman Suffrage Association. Men were actually able to join the Association, but women solely controlled the leadership. The formation of this association and others even created news publications such as, Women’s Journal and Women Voter.

The United Nations Convention on the Political Rights of Women, adopted in 1952, provides that “women shall be entitled to vote in all elections on equal terms with men, without any discrimination.” On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment granted the ballot to American women ending women 's suffrage.

The women’s movement has been going on for at least the last two centuries. The first wave of feminism focused on voting rights, property rights, equal education, and recognition under the law for women. It started in the United States with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was an American social activist and abolitionist. In 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention a declaration of Sentiments was composed that focused on important issues for women at the time. The declaration demanded women’s voting rights, the right divorce, property rights, the right to birth control, and many others important issues of the time. Stanton believed that women were equal to men and deserved equal political rights. The convention at Seneca Falls was one of the first steps towards women’s rights.

The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.

During the 1900s, women did not have the same rights as men. Many thought women’s rights issues were fixed after the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote; New York v. Sanger, which gave married women access to birth control; and the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which prohibited employers from discriminating based on race, religion, or sex. However, the United States is falling backwards on issues pertaining to women’s rights. On January 21, 2017, I had the pleasure of attending the Women’s March in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On the 19th of September, 1893, New Zealand women experienced a monumental change in political status when the right to vote in parliamentary elections was extended to them. Prior to this it was only men who were permitted to vote. Intense protest against such came at full force in the late 19th century, from women who were seeking political and legal reforms. Achieving franchise for women was the primary focus of the first wave of feminism in New Zealand. This was of massive importance because it was the first major step in achieving gender equality in New Zealand. The suffragists directly opposed and managed to rid New Zealand of a manifestation of the prevalent gender-based discrimination that women have dealt with throughout history. The idea that women should be barred from participating in the political sphere while men are able to is seriously misogynistic. When voting, people elect representatives who will make laws and policies that will govern their lives; it is the opportunity to put forward an opinion which could aid in solving the issues that an individual cares about. To deny women this right is to say that women’s beliefs and opinions have basically no worth. Enfranchisement, (as a result of extensive campaigning by suffragists) was recognition of the fact that women’s ideas are just as valid as men’s. This event is also significant as gaining the vote was an instigator for more feminist development, like the second wave of feminism

In 1869, women started to see some more change; it was a big year for them. In May 1869 the national Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton, where their main focus was getting the right to vote through an amendment to Constitution. In November another association was formed called the American Woman Suffrage Association by Lucy Stone and others, their main focus was to gain the right to vote through amendments to individual state constitutions. In Dec Wyoming passes the first women’s suffrage law and the year after women began to serve on juries in the territory. In Aug of 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

The battle for equal rights among women was a prolonged and challenging movement that stretched over two centuries of American history and is arguably one of the most important reform efforts in our nation’s affairs. The 1995 PBS documentary, “One Woman, One Vote” successfully established an informative timeline, using letters, film reels, photographs and a variety of voices, to recreate the events during this strenuous fight for equality. In a 72 year existence of the Declaration of Independence and woman having no right over their children, their own bodies and absolutely no political foothold; woman ceased to exist legally for far too long. Half of the citizens in America were keeping the other half from the ballots and those who cited women of having no rights were accused of blasphemy. The year of 1848, declared a necessary and paramount social issue, woman’s suffrage, in high hopes to prompt change among the western nation. These women knowingly commenced a revolution that would change the course of history forever.

Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women began to vocalize their opinions and desires for the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage movement paved the way to the nineteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution that allowed women that right. The Women’s Suffrage movement started a movement for equal rights for women that has continued to propel equal opportunities for women throughout the country. The Women’s Liberation Movement has sparked better opportunities, demanded respect and pioneered the path for women entering in the workforce that was started by the right to vote and given momentum in the late 1950s.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement was a political struggle, in which women protested and assembled to vote and run for office. The idea that women could not vote, run for office, be represented in the workplace, nor serve on juries contradicted early ideas that the American woman was a protector of the concepts of freedom and righteousness. The American suffrage movement originated from the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 (history.com). At this convention, women alongside a few men worked to write the Declaration of Sentiments, which would start the initial idea to fight for the rights of women and provide a list of grievances in reference to the rights of women such as: voting rights, property rights, and educational rights (Snider 2016). However, women would not receive suffrage until the post-Civil War era. Several leaders as well as movements would have to amalgamate over the course of several decades for the voice of women to be heard and changes to be made in accordance to law and society.

Feminist theory has a rich history. It developed from the social movement known as feminism by focusing on gender inequalities in societies. According to author, Christiania Hughes, “feminist history tells us of the significant campaigns that have been undertaken to enable women to vote to give them access to higher education and to equal pay and conditions in the workplace” (35). Inequality between genders has gone on for thousands of years. This inequality began to change in America in the 19th and early 20th century, when the first wave of feminism began. The first wave of feminism focused on voting rights, property rights, equal education, and recognition under the law for women. In 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention a declaration