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The Women 's Rights Movement

Decent Essays

Life as we know it would not be the same if it were not for the women’s rights movement. The movement started in the mid-1800s and continued until the 1920s, changing from women’s suffrage to what is known as feminism into the 1960s. The basis of the movement is avocation for women’s rights. Women felt (and still feel) as though they are equal to men, and that they deserve all the rights that men have. Women before the movement had hardly any rights, they could not vote, could not own land or houses, and could not legally have custody of their children. Women were thought of and treated as property, of either their fathers or husbands. Many people felt as though the women’s rights movement would result in men losing their “property”, women taking their jobs and abortion becoming a readily available form of birth control, just to name a few. On the other side of the issue were women who wanted an equal chance at life. They wanted to vote, have jobs, be able to keep their kids in the event of a divorce, be protected against marital rape and abuse. These women wanted to be protected by the law just as men were. The women’s rights movement was a massive movement enacting social, political, and economic change. Key figures in this movement include (in no particular order) Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Susan B. Anthony, Elisabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton, Tracy Thurman, and Anita Hill. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the

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