How Woman Changed Their History Essay

How Woman Changed Their History
Lydia
American History Since 1865 floppy you choose

How Woman Changed Their History
As images flash across the television of women wearing burqa’s American women sit in disbelief that this can possibly be happening in the modern world. Although there was once a time when American women did not hold rights of being an American citizen it took the hard work and determination of women to fight for those. During World War II women developed a slogan that is still in use today “we can do it” read the ad with a women in a mans flannel shirt showing her muscles (WWII). While women used this ad to keep up the home front during the war it explains the fight through history such as the suffragists, the ability
to find their sexual freedoms, the fight for birth control, equal pay and jobs as males, as well as the right to be in combat.
The rights American girls are born with today where not always that way it was not very long ago women where fighting to be able to just have the right to vote. The idea seems so complex in our modern society often we take the right to vote for granted but it was not always available to women and minorities. Movies, television, and older family members can tell you of a time when woman concerned themselves more with finding a husband then a career. Now the idea sounds more taboo and young women dominate colleges and succeed in high profile careers. School children boys and girls both dream of their future careers and both sexes have the same availabilities to be whatever they want instead of girls just being housewives.
To really understand how these rights came about we can look back to where they took off with the women’s suffrage movement. Research shows the women’s suffrage began in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York when Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments for women 62 women signed and 32 men (Bowles, 2011). These women where opening the door to start a war of their own while a war to free slaves was coming about. Their struggle was long and hard and would continue for 72 years when they would finally be given the right to vote.
To understand the true hardships these women faced one can watch movies, documents or read about them. Although, Hollywood often embellishes sometimes adding a fairytale twist to what really happened. It is true to say these women where in battle against the male dominated government. An article in The North American Review from 1911 takes us back in time to a time when men where not supportive of these rights. One man Max Eastman wrote of how by gaining the right to vote it would be beneficial to the household for both the husband and children. A women’s increased political knowledge as well as to educate women that know little about the importance of politics. He went on to write for our nation to advance woman need to be educated. Therefore they will have men think higher of them and we will progress. He even quotes Plato explaining how thousands of years ago the great philosopher had written about how true happiness can be achieved with the equality of both sexes (Eastman, 1911). This was by far the mindset of every man in America, but shows great indication of the changing thoughts men had on the matter. Had the minds of men been so easily convinced it would not have been such a long time for the women to obtain the right to vote. Perhaps men just thought of women as small minded who could not handle being in the political world. Or it could be they where afraid to lose the positions women held in the family tending to the man, children, and household either way the suggestion of women voting was unconventional to men during the time.
Women during this time where held with little regard, and where not treated with the same respects we see now. To use physical brutal police force on a women now would have a whole police station on trial and in the eyes of the media however the suffrage movement was a different time period where women did not have this right. Through research we can truly see the horrors these women faced one such incident has been labeled the “Night of Terror”. On November 5th 1917 women protesters where arrested for protesting in front of the White House. One of these women was Alice Paul after being arrested male guards beat her and handcuffed her hands above her head to a cell door. After going on a hunger strike within the jail she was brutally force-fed (Anonymous, n.d). It is frightening to imagine ones self-being in this situation just to gain the right to vote, which now comes with being a citizen of this country. In our text it explains how after women fought through police brutality and years of political leaders who would not vote for the right they finally won the right in 1920. That year women across America cast their vote for the next president of the United States for the very first time (Bowles, 2011). Now when it is time to vote women do not always vote it is discussed as casual conversation. However, it is not whether they vote or not it is the fact that they have the options to vote. Women have become the successors of these heroic suffragists and have made great strides in reshaping this country.
Another women who was making efforts in women’s rights was Margaret sanger who was determined to give women a right to their own body through birth control. Yet again it seems taboo to not have the right to birth control. In our modern society mothers are putting their daughters on birth control in high school sometimes even before they are sexually active to prevent unwanted pregnancies. To not allow the usage of birth control for family planning is now just something we see from certain religious leaders or shows that exploit large families who get paid more by how many children they have.
At one time this decision was not a women’s but the governments. Research shows that in 1916 Margaret Sanger opened a center to teach women about birth control and how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. During the time Margaret began her work immigrant women where in desperate need of knowing how to control pregnancies. They had been sticking knitting needles and shoe hooks into their as well as pouring Lysol and household products into their vaginas to terminate pregnancies. Her radical beliefs and the opening of her birth control center led to her arrest shortly after (Margaret Sanger, 1997). During a time when sexual education was not taught in school it is easy to understand how women where unaware of how to stop unwanted pregnancies. This was a time period where talking about sex in general was rarely done and so her ideas where ridiculed not just by men by religious entities and politics as well.
Although it was years before her attempts so legalize birth control research shows the nation had been dissuaded in the use of birth control by the ignorance of their early mindset. President Theodore Roosevelt had said by using birth control it was race suicide. The government prompted for more births of Anglo-Saxon decent to assist in their manifest destiny (Sanger, 2007). These ideas imposed by men who yearned to conquer the world to make them selves a super power now seem ignorant and hard to imagine with how large the population has grown in modern society. These ideas where before Margaret Sanger even began her work in birth control, but helped define the type of government she was working against.
She went on in her work towards educating women in the prevention of pregnancies. In the film Margaret Sanger it shows how she was going to be tried, but instead of preparing for trial she wrote pamphlets on what types of things to buy from drug stores to use as preventative measures or to terminate pregnancies in a healthier way. She escaped to England for a year and on her return her young daughter passed away from pneumonia. After this the public outcry on how a women could be tried after losing a young child leaving the prosecution to drop the case. She still persisted on her journey to give and teach women about safe birth control. After being arrested and spending time behind bars she even lectured birth control there. In later years her efforts led to Planned Parenthood, and the international Planned Parenthood (Margaret Sanger, 1997). In so many ways this one woman reshaped the face of the world not just the country. With her hard worked and determination after facing legal troubles and hardships she did not give up. Now in modern America it is accessible and in lots of cases free to receive contraceptives. It is also taught in schools and in social groups where women discuss openly the different types of birth controls they are on. This helps not just with unwanted pregnancies but with family planning to financially support children when the time is right.
While the world was changing with the rights to vote and the education of birth control becoming availability it seems only necessary women took the next step in discovering their own sexuality and fashion desires. The roaring twenties introduced a newer freer more liberated women from the earlier Victorian years the flapper girl. Research of the flapper girl introduces a brave young confident woman whose appearance was very different from that of her mother’s generation. She had bobbed hair, wore makeup, and dresses that came above her knees and stockings rolled below them. These women drank, cursed, and enjoyed things previously only designated for men. They where also engaging in sex before marriage and enjoying their new feminine sexual freedoms (Yellis, 1969). These women did more then just introduce a new style to an era or decade they introduced the sexual and adventurous freedoms women did not have before. This was an era where these young women had grown up seeing headlines and watching the women suffragist fight for the right to vote. As well as the literature that Margaret Sanger had written on birth control.
The Flapper’s where the picture and the idea of the changes they saw in the women around them themselves where revolutionists in their fashion and attitudes. Their racy outfits and short hairstyles where more then just fashion they depicted the women as being free. Free from the corsets and long dresses, free from the long hairstyles and buns of the past, free from being unable to drink or curse, and free from the sexual limitations and oppression she had faced for hundreds of years. In a recent movie The Great Gatsby (2013) it brought to life the era in a modern twist to show how these women where indulging in parties and drinking as well as the fashion of the era. While the movie is set to captivate audiences in a love story it brings to life the thrill and excitement found then and can show one how much things had changed then and would continue.
As all things keep changing women’s roles continued to change and mostly continued to revolve around tending to the household that was until World War II. In a way we can mirror the feeling of patriotism with how a majority of American’s felt when 9/11 happened. People cheered at the idea of war because someone needed to pay for this travesty. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor America knew it had to go to war as well. This meant sending thousands of men overseas so who would continue to run the economy and keep jobs going this is where women stepped in. They not only employed the jobs men could not the joined the military and filled positions to keep men on the front lines. Like we had mentioned before the slogan “we can do it” was popular during this time luring women show their strength and ability to do what men had been doing. In ways this was their chance to show their capability to handle male dominated career fields.
Women who had children at home or where married now had the opportunity to step out of that predesigned role and into their husband’s shoes. The World War II museum offers an opportunity to really see how their support was detrimental to the war but also the no thank you welcome they received after the war. Women poured into defense plants took jobs such as streetcar drivers and even joined the military (WWII Museum, n.d). Their eagerness to prove their worth and do something to help win the fight proved that they really “can do it”. Unfortunately this was not always met with eagerness from the rest of society who always saw fit to decide where a women’s place in life was.
Women where though to just be domesticated and needed to tend to the homes and children. Then as women where joining the military research shows the critics where not as enthused making claims that women soldiers where a threat to society. They boasted that if they where to become the breadwinners and independent from men it would change the “natural order”. The men in the army even where against the women joining thinking they would make matters worse and lead to the men always having to protect them. However the women who wanted to join where excited and wanted to do whatever it took to serve their country (Permeswaran, 2008). It is a sad story to think of the women who wanted to be more then just a housewife they wanted to be a “legend” to be the “war hero”. This is not what is important but to these women being anything then just the housewife left waiting may have been more desirable. Instead they where looked down upon and judged.
At the end of the war the men came home to a hero’s welcome we had won the war and remained a victorious nation. The hero’s where the men in the nations eyes with little attention and respect given to the women who joined the ranks of the military or took over the jobs men had dominated before. Research shows that at the end of the war women who wanted to remain in those jobs where pushed out. Women who had served in the military faced major problems when trying to get the benefit’s for veterans such as the G.I. Bill unlike the males who where able to take advantage of theirs (WWII Museum, n.d). As women regularly enlist in the military today it is hard to imagine a time when they where chastised for doing so and lost their benefits. The idea of keeping women down economically was not one that ended with World War II women would need to continue to fight. The fighting continued into another momentous era where movements of equality where taking place and just as they had before in the beginning of the century women jumped on board. Research shows in 1963 women had won the right to get equal pay and not be discriminated on by sex. However this has not ended and continues to be an ongoing battle for women since the law is not being enforced. This leads to a lot of women making only 75 percent of what their male counterparts do in a job they are both well qualified for (Newman, 2011). Like history has shown it takes the fight and determination of women to press the issues of equality. The government’s lack of enforcement of this law in ways shows how woman are still being held down by the same government that claims to support them. In the completion of their degrees at university’s it is unnerving to know the women who achieved the same credits as a male at that same university may apply for the same job both are hired and she receives less due to the sex organs in which she was born with.
The achievements women worked for may not be showing in the civilian sector but are changing the frontlines of the battlefield in todays military. As women are now able to join the military and are continuing to create their own space within the military they are redefining the rules and positions they can now serve in. According to The Air Force Law Review women had served and continue to serve alongside males in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2012 the death total had been 105 in Iraq and 25 in Afghanistan (McNulty, S, 2012). These women understood the risks they faced going into combat and still did it this is a perfect example of the courageous female spirit. While some may still hold reservations against women being in the military and especially being faced with actual combat it is a new reality and women who choose to do so have the opportunity.
As women came into a new century they not only adapted to the new century they wanted it to adapt to them and demanded women’s suffrage working relentlessly for their cause.
This type of gun hoe spirit paved the way for other feminine activists such as Margaret Sanger and her dedication to developing birth control and spreading reproduction education to all women. Women where redeveloping themselves in sexuality and in their desires for work and equal pay they redefined their roles in society time and time again. In our modern world we see women being shipped off to war leaving children behind to be cared for while they serve their nation they are not just another military member but they refuse to let women continue to be defined as weak or incapable.

References
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Bowles, M.(2011). American History 1865 - Present. End of Isolation. Bridgepoint Education Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUHIS204.11.2/sections/fm
Eastman, M. (1911). Is woman suffrage important?. The North American Review, 193(662), 60-71. Retrieved from
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