September 18, 2014
Critical Evaluation Essay
“Now We Can Begin” an essay by Crystal Eastman is a very powerful essay. Eastman makes the point know in her essay that an honest and true feminist no matter where she stands in the movement she will see to the woman’s fight with strength and courage and how it matters in the future and as well as its difference in its approach for the workers fight for industrial freedom. Eastman state “In fighting for the right to vote most women have tried to be either non-committal or thoroughly respectable on every other subject. Now they can say what they are really after; and what they are after, in common with all the rest of the struggling world, is freedom” (Eastman). The women’s rights movement had many women who fought for women’s rights, some of these women included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott and many more. These women worked extremely hard as activist for women’s rights. The fight lasted for many years, but they day finally came and women got the right to vote and now they could begin. History.house.gov states “ fortified by the constitutional victory of suffrage reformers in 1920, the handful of new women in Congress embarked on what would become a century-long odyssey to broaden women’s role in government, so that in Catt’s words, they might “score advantage to their ideals.” The profiles in this book about these pioneer women Members and their successors relate the story of that odyssey during the course of the 20th century and into the 21st century” (history.house.gov). During 1920 Eastman wrote an essay about this very issue. In Eastman’s view she is pointing out to her audience what women went thorough as a whole group doing that time frame. This essay was also an appeal to society now that women in the American society had the right to vote that they also be treated just the same as the men in American society that they were a part of.
Cited: "Now We Can Begin." Women 's History - Comprehensive Resources - Biographies, Quotes, Events. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2014. "The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848-1920 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives." US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.