Women's Rights For Women During The Progressive Era

The extension of women’s rights from 1877 to the mid 1970s, has changed over time along with the ideals of the different eras. From the original traditional values to those wild and free spirits that dominated the culture in the seventies, since then women and their rights have changed.

Throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, gender roles began to change as women became active participants in American society. For instance, women became active in expressing their views against alcohol and pushed for the prohibition and temperance. Organizations such as The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), argued that alcohol led to societal problems. Male and female reformers banned together to argue that alcohol was immoral and causing a negative impact on women. Women, if married, would experience an abusive, violent drunk husband who neglected his family and gambled his money away. Thus, the evils of alcohol became part of the progressive agenda that eventually led to the passage of the 18th amendment. Along with prohibition, women also took active roles in acquiring suffrage. In “The Politics of Good Government,” Gayle Gullett argued that in the California Women’s Movement built a nonpartisan broad suffrage umbrella that sought to enhance their “special interests.” Middle-class women assured their male allies that women’s enfranchisement was essential to progressivism. Furthermore, middle-and working-class women argued that suffrage would not only protect working women but women in general. Working class men and women also united to seek reform. Thus, through these heterogeneous groups, the California Women’s Movement built a unified coalition that led to women’s suffrage in 1911. [46] As America entered the First Great War, the

From the 1880’s to the 1920’s, the Progressive Era was a period in American history where women’s suffrage gained the most momentum. Due to justified Progressive Era reforms and the creation of various organizations during this time, women were able to successfully protect people who were, for example, immigrants, poor, and African Americans belittled by the norms of society. With the full participation of American women, they exercised their full rights as citizens to create public institutions and shape public policy. Redefining the social structure, these middle-class women received support from other women which essentially led to changes of the rights of and treatment of American women in society. Thwarted by a male-dominated society, pleas for better treatment and equal rights made by women in the forms of protests, conventions, parades, and speeches, were often seen as foolish and meaningless. However, women’s unrelenting efforts combined with the atmosphere of reform resulted in positive outcomes such as the right to vote, the creation of new educational opportunities, and the introduction of better working conditions for women, which drastically impacted the way women apply themselves in society today.

The exacerbation of issues that plagued America for centuries combined with the disturbing realities of urban and factory life gave birth to the Progressive Movement—a movement composed of a diverse coalition that sought to improve modern industrial society and American democracy. This period spawned many ardent American activists. Social critics such as Upton Sinclair, Jacob Riis, and Jane Adams advocated for wide-reaching social reform. Others targeted causes that would improve life for specific groups. Ida B. Wells and Alice Paul emerged as the leaders of two organized and passionate movements that, in many ways, defined this era. Wells launched her anti-lynching campaign in the late

Have you ever heard about “Women in Progressive Era”? Do you know about it? Well, The progressive era was from the 1840s to the 1920s. About women in the progressive era, it wasn’t that nice. As the days continued, middle-class women wanted a reform/change. The women’s organization had many events that had happened. The were also legislations. That includes the 16th Amendment, 17th Amendment, 18th Amendment, and the 19th Amendment.

While Gilman believed that, women would not have a revolution against the men, but we would “evolve” into equality. Society would over time, as women became more economically independent, balance its injustices. Then, women would finally be free to develop as individuals, and to offer their untapped resources to their families and society as a whole.

The word feminism became prevalent when women began speaking of sex openly and reassuringly. It was to “express their demand in greater liberty, free sexual expression and reproductive choice. The right to ‘control one body’ meant the ability to refuse sexual advances, including those of a women’s husbands ” (Handout 703-704) Men normally felt women to be vulnerable and were in need of protection. Women during the progressive era believed their biological makeup did not determine what men or the government can treat them. As women expressed their entitlement to the pleasures of sex just like men, the men had already found pleasure in alcohol and prostitution.”Drink appeared to be a spur to illicit sex... As medical science revealed the consequences

Today and throughout history, women have had to face a vast amount of discrimination towards themselves in politics, the workplace, and in the effort to receive a better education. Within the past decades, women have been discriminated against in many different aspects and have struggled throughout their day-to-day lives. However, many people have also taken significant action in standing up for the female population and working to improve their lives. Many individuals dedicated their lives to helping women to be treated as equal rather than inferior to men. Those who have fought for women’s rights have greatly impacted and improved the lives of women.

Gilman redefined womanhood of her time. She preached and declared woman to be equal to men, in all aspects of life, all around the

Gilman also worked toward social reform, always concerned people, not just women. Yet she was widely known [for her incisive studies of women's role and status in society]. Her works, such as Women and Economics, displayed her take on women's past and present subordination in society. Her main objective was the recognize the slave manship of women through economic dependence inside marriage, unpaid work and undervalue in the home as well as in society. She wanted to transform current economic thinking to show women they had more purpose than just in the home. Her aim was to show women that they had more to offer society than just maintaining the home and rearing children, women were more than their husbands, more than a mother. Gilman’s contribution to the discipline has earned her recognition for time to

Women were striving to change their daily lives. They were seen as the center of the household, and moral leaders of the family. The men would work, and provide for the family. Gilman emphasizes these things when she talks about how she feels “confines and dominated by those around her, particularly her husband” (Gilman 60). Gilman also, “believed that women should be financially

Gilman’s novel was a utopia that illustrated how women were able to function without men. She stated her thesis in the introduction, for she believed that humans have the ability to change their societies and have the ability to control nature in a way that benefits them. Her main purpose for writing this monograph was to assert the feminist movement in the minds of non-feminist. Furthermore, her purpose also illustrated how women in the

I am in complete agreement with the speakers view that only by questioning accepted wisdom we can advance our understanding of the universe. When we shake and question the rules of the universe, we gain knowledge.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American author who wrote multiple forms of literature such as semi-autobiographical short stories, non-fiction, fiction and poetry in which she incorporated her knowledge of American federal law and therefore desire for social reform within the context of feminism.

I have never heard of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which I am unimpressed with because it shows the large ratio of the celebration of women writers in sociology to male sociologists. In the section “The Dependence of Women” from Women and Economics (1898), Gilman explains that the partnership of a husband and wife is a not a business partnership. Women seem to “earn all they get, and more, by house service” (Gilman, 1898, p. 151). Women’s labor in the home allows men to produce their wealth outside the home. However, a woman’s labour in the home is a functional duty, not