Women 's Rights Socially, Economically, And Politically

During the late 19th and early 20th century in America, the rise of Feminism challenged the traditional gender roles. The female authors of this time period represented realistic aspects of women’s struggles, which often reflected limitations from society and their own lives. The three female authors who advocated women’s struggles in their writings were Sojourner Truth, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton. In the speech to the American Equal Rights Association, Truth reveals that women do not have rights to present their voices in the court. Cather addresses women’s devastating labor life after the marriage in “A Wagner Matinee.” Likewise, in “April Shower”, Wharton portrays men’s criticism upon economically successful women. American female authors of the late 19th and early 20th century demonstrates the ideas of Feminism by men objecting to representation in politics, prohibiting career over marriage, and criticizing economic self-sufficiency.

1. African women worked indoors doing house chores and cooking. The author describes that the women would rather work outside in the field because they were under constant observations by the Master’s wife. Many African slaves were raped by their masters and as a result they had biracial babies. Many masters sexually abused their slaves in order to have more slaves in their plantation. Due to the unfair abused towards slave women, white mistresses had resentment towards the slave girls and believed the slave girls were the ones seducing their husbands into bed. Some of the biracial children can pass off as white or they were very light skinned so they would be sold at “fancy” auctions for a hefty price, therefore it was common for black families to be separated.

Although the issue of women’s rights has attracted international recognition and support, women still face many inequalities and barriers. Gender-based violence and economic discrimination are problems in many parts of the world.

Women’s rights in America in late 1800’s women’s right to vote women in medicine and the equal rights for women are the 3 main points that were big in the 1800’s.

The United States of America was built on the unfair labor of others. The United States used slaves to produce an abundant amount of cotton in the South. Many mill owners started using children to work in the factories. Later on, many mill owners employed young, unmarried women to work in the textile mills, straightening cotton threads as the cotton entered the water-powered looms. The United States has been developed on wrongful labor of others by racism being the effect of slavery, lack of education being the effect of child labor, and unfair woman rights being the effect of the labor of Lowell females.

In america the rights women have gained are good, on the other hand people still think there are still some things to overcome. In most places women have had the right to vote. Some say that women remain at a disadvantage in education as well and women continue to make up more than most of students who drop out before completing the fourth grade, as well as making up for half of the world is one billion adults. Each year the number of females entering into higher educational programs and universities increases greatly. Another great thing for women is that of own body rights. In many nations abortions are legal and women have a wide variety of different things , such as birth control. This right in many nations remains as a central continuing debate issue.

The Gilded Age caused the solution of many problems to not happen. During this time, in the late 19th century, there was extreme corruption that was not being fixed. Soon, in 1890, the rise of progressivism took place, trying to fix the problems that were made. Many different progressive era reformers focused on many different issues and tried to mend the corruption relating to that specific topic. Women’s rights was a huge problem during this time, and two specific reformers tried to solve the problem. Progressive era reformers, Alice Paul and Margaret Sanger tackled the problem of women’s rights in similar ways.

There has been a substantial amount of progress in women's rights since America was founded. Before women were only seen as housewives and nothing else. Now women can be anything they set their mind to. However, even though there are more opportunities they still suffer inequality.

The fight for women’s rights in America has been a long one, spanning many generations. It has been a little less than a century since women saw their first significant victory in the 19th Amendment, which acknowledged women’s the right to vote. Of course, women forged on, calling for more recognition and equality in the workplace, the classroom, and the church. Among them stood leading women like Mary Daly, who “trenchantly and thoroughly assailed the deification of maleness in the church” (West 113). However, these feminist leaders were predominantly white, middle-class women whose main issue was that they were women. In the mid-1900s, racism was still a normal part of American society, which was evident in the beginnings of the feminist

I remember in the 10th grade when my English teacher had us do a class poll. He told us to raise your hand if you believed that woman's in today's world are treated fairly. I was the only student to not raise her hand. Because I knew that woman in America might have a lot of rights but in the rest of the world women are treated as Second class citizens. The 19th amendment states “guarantees all American women the right to vote”. Most countries allow women to vote but I think it's sad that it took so long for many of these countries to give women a right that they deserve. Vatican City the home of the pope is the only place a women can not vote. This brings up the fact that religion is the main reason why women do not have many of the rights

Throughout history women’s rights have been a conflict in society because of the many unfair advantages given to men and not women. Social injustice is shown through women’s rights by their voting rights, employment, and healthcare. Due to these dilemmas women all over the world have gathered together to create a group enforcing women’s rights. For example, in the book, The American Women’s Movement it talks about the group known as “The National Organization for Women (NOW)” (MacLean 71). It became one of the largest, most membered feminist organization in the country. The organization branched out to different sized region cities.

People were not only discriminated due to their race but some of their gender, which affected their political rights in a multitude of ways. To illustrate, one of the Colonies most unspoken laws, dating from Ancient Greece to 1920, is that women have no right to vote and that only the gentry could contribute in political matters according to the Governor. Additionally, a law from Great Britain in stated that if a landowning woman is to marry, she must sign a document stating she is giving her property to the husband. However, in the case of Anne Cart, a wealthy indigo farmer who was engaged, she testified to a jury that the land was worth more under her ownership and she won the right to own it. Another example is that 97% of court cases involving dark magic is directed towards women accused of witchcraft and found that 78% of the women are convicted and hung. This shows that in the 16th century, people thought women were generally inferior to men and treated them as such politically.

Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This is the time when the first wave of feminism in the United States hit. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first women’s rights convention - and the emergence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s American Equal Rights Association in the middle of the 19th century are among some of the noteable events that sparked this movement in literature. Women across America were inspired by the changing of the times, and that is reflected in many American female authors’ writings.

Human rights which include the right to life and liberty as well as freedom that belong to all human beings inherently despite of their statuses without discrimination (United Nations, 1948). Among issues of human rights, women’s rights could be one of the most serious ones. In the 1990s, women’s rights were not generally accepted as human rights and suffered various violations (Bunch, 1990). Despite women’s rights have been improved so far in most regions that female have almost equal employment opportunities and enhanced status in society, the issues of female rights need to be considered because they still have inferior positions compared with men in workplace and society due to a lot of factors.

Women’s rights has been a problem for a very long time and still is today. Some of the biggest movements to fight for women 's equalities happened in the 20th century. People like Betty Friedan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony helped to make it possible. In the 20th century there were two waves of feminism and third started in the 80’s but still continues today. I talk about the first and second wave in this essay. Then how these waves have changed the role of women in society.