Women 's Rights During The American Revolution

During the American Revolution, not only did men have to face the struggles of war time atmosphere, but women had to as well. The country during the war was divided into three different groups of people; the loyalists, the patriots and the remaining people who did not care. Catherine Van Cortlandt, a loyalist had to endure different struggles then the patriot women Eliza Pinckney and Abigail Adams. However, parts of their stories are similar when it came to their family struggles.

The role of women played in any given war is quite often severely underestimated. This sentiment especially goes for the American Revolutionary War, where women actually played an absolutely essential role in our victory against the British. Not only where there different types of women who had helped, but there were many different ways each of them helped--particularly as nurses to help save lives and tend to injured soldiers. Without women helping in the war, we would have most certainly lost (National History Education Clearinghouse).

The American Revolution was an important sequence of events over a period of time that has affected early American society up to today’s modern society. It all started with the Revolutionary War, which led to the Declaration of Independence from Britain, and in turn created a reason for America to write the Constitution and develop their own government. Ideas of equality became a major point of the Revolution, and although it wasn’t very quick to happen, ideas eventually spread throughout the colonies, giving the equality that poor to middle classes, African American slaves, and women deserved.

Women were generally not active in the political sphere, but there were some exceptions. A famous instance of this was Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams. She was intelligent and well read, and in her letters to her husband, she employs the rhetoric of the Revolution to address all the issues of power between men and women.

Since the Revolutionary War, women have been seen as inferior to men, a status that was especially clear in the lack of legal rights for women [1]. Women’s’ rights has been an issue that is still fought today with the struggles of being treated equally against men. In 1779, Judith Sargent Murray, was an essayist in support for women’s rights, once wrote that “women’s minds were as good as men’s and that girls as well as boys, therefore deserved access to education” [1]. Women were very domesticated by their husbands in this era which most men believed that a women’s only place was to maintain the household and taking care of children. The war gave some women the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to show responsibilities regarded as a

    Abigail Adams was also a very intelligent woman for her time.  She was never formally educated, but she wanted to be as educated as she could be.  Instead of being formally educated she was educated through her peers, friends, family members, and books.  Being a female it wasn’t seen as important for a women to get a formal education, “Female education in the best of families went no further than writing and arithmetic.” (Holton, 7).  They were suppose to focus on the family and the work at home.  She loved reading.  Her education played a great role in her relationship with her husband John Adams.  For example, John gave Abigail books as a way to win her over, because he knew her love for expanding her knowledge.  They also would show off to each other their own knowledge, and while doing so Abigail learned many new things.  Abigail was also very involved in the politics that were going on around her.  She kept up with them very religiously.  While John was away she would write to him about the politics going on at home and she felt about them.  She wanted to be educated in politics and believed that women should have more rights.  Overall Abigail didn’t let gender restrictions, or any other ideas or practices get in the way of

Consumed with the desire to gain liberty and equality, Americans fought for changes in their society resulting in the American War for Independence. Unfortunately the fight for independence did not bring liberty and equality to all Americans. Native Americans, African slaves, and women continued under the control of those with more money and power, which mainly included white, property owning men. As time went on the young American Republic continued to fight for ideals independence eventually making a revolutionary change in the way American’s live.

Abigail Smith Adams was born on November 11, 1744, in Weymouth, Massachusetts to Elizabeth Quincy Smith and Reverend William Smith. Her father was one of the best educated and most prestigious citizens of the community. Abigail’s mother spent most of her time caring for the sick and providing for families in need. From a young age, Abigail was taught to be a leader in her community. New England schools of the time rarely admitted women. Few people believed they needed much schooling. These limitations did not satisfy Abigail, and she began to read books from her father’s library. She went on to become well educated in many subjects and one of the most well read women in eighteenth century America (NPS). Abigail learned a great deal during her

In the mid to late 1700's, the women of the United States of America had practically no rights. When they were married, the men represented the family, and the woman could not do anything without consulting the men. Women were expected to be housewives, to raise their children, and thinking of a job in a factory was a dream that was never thought impossible. But, as years passed, women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell began to question why they were at home all day raising the children, and why they did not have jobs like the men. This happened between the years of 1776 and 1876, when the lives and status of Northern middle-class woman was changed forever. Women began to

“While the word suffrage, derived from the Latin “Suffragium,” simply refers to the right to vote, the modern connotation specifically calls to mind the women’s suffrage movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part of the larger social movement of Women’s Rights and the fight for equality within patriarchal societies , the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States spans a seventy-two year period” (Dolton 31)The campaign for women’s suffrage began in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and 30s, most states had extended the franchise to all white men, regardless of how much money or property they had. During this same time, many reform groups across the United States–temperance

“Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” Letters of an American Farmer, Michel- Guillaume Jean de Crévecoeur.

The American Revolution (1775-1783) was a time of great change in America. American men were fighting for their right to be free from an oppressive ruler 3000 miles away. They wanted to have their say about what went on in their own country. America won the Revolution and its freedom, but while this was going on something else was happening. Internally changes were coming about too during all this fighting. The Revolution was the catalyst for women to make progress towards freedom. Women were making economic and political gains to further women's rights.

Abigail Adams faced many hardships throughout her life. She was the daughter of a minister and had two sisters and a brother. In the 1700’s, children did not have a high survival rate due to the amount of diseases and nothing to treat them with. Abigail Adams said in her old age that she “was always sick” (Akers 5). This reminds people how tough life was in the 1700’s and how easy it was to pass away from a mere cold. Abigail also did not have any education growing up. Women, in the colonial era, were not supposed to have an education and were supposed to watch the kids, cook, and clean. Readers of this book learn that many women back then were illiterate and were self-taught, if they had any education. Abigail did find a love for literature due to her sister’s spouse, Richard Cranch. He influenced her love for literature at a young age and she started to become more literate. Along with the disease and educational deficiency, women were considered as property. A young woman could either give up

After the first shots of the Revolutionary war; revolutionaries adopt the Declaration of independence of 1776 that declared “All men are created equal”, but it did not include women. After the revolutionary war not change the old ideas and the married women status where they continue be a “coverture, it means a married women had no legal or economic status independent of her husband” (pp.187). Some women see how in the new republican failed to women’s rights, these women were Abigail Adams, Judith Sargent Murray, and Mercy Otis Warren. Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John Adam, she wrote “remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the husbands”; she wants that women will be independence and had rights and not only depend of a man. Judith Sargent Murray was another woman who argued that women’s minds were as good as any man’s and that girls should receive the same education as boys; she believed in the same educational opportunities because at the time, girls received little or no education.

Women’s rights and the fight for equality are extremely important to me. Many dismiss internalized misogyny in America, which only fuels the perniciousness of rape culture underlying society. Rape culture manifests itself in examples ranging from slut shaming, micro aggressions, gender roles, and stereotypes, all of which society perpetuates through its cultural teachings, social traditions, and political policies. These seemingly miniscule and covert attacks help support the rationalization and acceptance of women’s rampant abuse and mistreatment as a simple, unavoidable fact of life. In an effort to combat this, I consider myself profoundly pro-women, aligning myself with any and all movements that promote the equality, protection, and wellbeing of women, whether it be pro-choice, or anti-abuse movements, due to my partialities on the subject.