“Woman's Suffrage (Not Universal Suffrage)” by Ann Gordon is a historical analysis of the process white women suffragists followed and how race played a more prevalent role than one has thought of before. White women's demands for suffrage date back to the mid-19th century, starting with women speaking at constitutional conventions and state legislatures. Suffragist organizations such as the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Women's Suffrage Association (AWSA) were created to explore women's suffrage through two different avenues; through individual states or a constitutional amendment. The AWSA focuses its efforts on specific issues that a constituency of women would find important, such as votes for schools and…
Women in United State went through great challenges, to change the societal views and discriminations on them. The suffrage movements, during 1848 to 1920, were accentuated with their strong assertion of their natural rights as human beings, just like any other great builders of what is now called United States of America. Subtle approaches to guarantee democratic representation of women were taken through factual, logical, and informational reasoning for their assertion.…
Women emerged as strong advocates during abolitionism as many began to question their own status in America during the fight to eliminate slavery (6). They wanted freedom from the domestic sphere they were confined too. However, instead of waiting for their government to change the laws, they began a social movement with the skills they learned during abolitionism such as “organizing, political and rhetorical skills” (7). Finally, in 1919, the 19th amendment was passed by Congress giving women the right to vote. After gaining the right to vote the movement continued with women fighting to “be allowed to achieve their own personal dreams and to be valued for themselves, not just for how well they serve their husbands and children” (9).…
During the 1920s was a time of great change in America. The role as a woman was changing in a big way not only at home, but also in the workplace and society. On August 18, 1920 the congress ratified and passed the 19th amendment, which guarantees all women the right to vote. In Crystal Eastman’s essay “Now we can begin” she gives her view of feminism during this time period and how it was viewed as negative since all the feminist leaders at the time was associated with socialism or communism. This negative social view prevented progressive movement in feminism. In “Now we can Begin” Crystal Eastman effectively uses examples on how the women’s right to vote in the 1920s would lead to social changes, economic changes, and women’s freedom overall which were unpopular at the time.…
Because her cause was one that challenged the standards of society, the women’s suffrage movement saw great opposition in what they were working toward. However, these arguments were often not collected nor similar and were simply extreme points of view that would make the average American oppose them. Shaw claims that women suffragists are mocked as “socialists and anarchists”, but she does not understand “how a human can be both at the same time” (Shaw). Her opposition makes strong arguments against her, yet they serve no truth nor unity of ideas. “The beauty of it is they always answer their own arguments” (Shaw) by simply accusing the suffragists with any extreme title in society, even if they do not realize how contradictory they are.…
During the mid-19th century, there were organizations made throughout America and Europe on the woman's rights to vote and run for office which was later known as the woman's suffrage. During this time period, only men were sought out as equals and acceptable to vote and/or run for office, whereas women were not viewed as working class citizens. In the middle of the 19th century, there was a demand in woman's equality that became profound and well know as well as continuing to be a transformative history in time and today (Brown, 1993). Before the woman's suffrage movement, women were not seen as citizens only as housewives who could not claim any money that they have earned or properties if they were married, let alone the right to vote. It wasn't until…
The purpose of this research bibliography was to present the most important theories about feminism in the 18th and 19th century. One of them was Liberal Feminism which was discussed in the book Feminist thought. For all the ways liberal feminism may have gone wrong for women, it did some things very right for women along the way. Women owe to liberal feminists many of the civil, educational, occupational, and reproductive rights they currently enjoy. They also owe to them the ability to walk increasingly at ease in the public domain, claiming it as no less their territory than men’s. Perhaps enough time has passed for feminists critical of liberal feminism to reconsider their dismissal of it.…
From the time period of 1900-1920, woman’s rights gained popularity with women, who fought and had some success but were only truly successful in their struggle due to the federal government’s efforts. At this time, there were countless women’s organization in existence that embraced the reform movement and led efforts for change. The National Council of Jewish Women, the National Congress of Mothers, and the Women’s Trade Union League are just a few among many. In fact, there were over one million members in the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1912. With these numbers, women could have joined together and gotten the right to vote, however they faced many challenges. Perhaps the largest disadvantage they met was disunity. Until the National American Women Suffrage Association was formed, there was no single group devoted to getting voting rights for women. Different groups had different methods and reasons that sometimes contradicted each other. Also, in many cases, African American women were excluded from these groups…
In the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, women became very active in political and social movements. Women played roles that shaped the future of the laws that prohibited women in many ways. Women’s suffrage and women’s role in prohibition are two ways in which women have shaped political and social moments in United States history. Women have never given up on fighting for rights, many times with monetary and social consequences for trying to gain rights they felt belonged to them. Along with gaining those rights women have fought for destigmatizing women and consider them equals to men. This view has been questioned since colonial times; however, no action was taken until almost a century later. One account states that the…
Women’s Suffrage is a subject that could easily be considered a black mark on the history of the United States. The entire history of the right for women to vote takes many twists and turns but eventually turned out alright. This paper will take a look at some of these twists and turns along with some of the major figures involved in the suffrage movement.…
For years throughout U.S. history women were not afforded the same rights that men were. Throughout history women were thought of being intellectually inferior to men and a source of evil and temptation (Women 's International Center, 1994). In early America women were not allowed to vote or work outside of their home and were ridiculed when they did. It was the culture of early America that women were to remain behind the men being in a supportive role but not to voice their opinions. Through much suffrage, it was not until 1848 that the women’s movement came to its beginnings. Focusing on the social, civil, and religious condition and rights women at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York began to express their rights and wants. Headed by Elizabeth C. Stanton and Lucretia Mott, it marked a new era for women in the United States. While the right for equality continued and the creation of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) by Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, it brought opposition of the 14th and 15th Amendments (extending citizenship rights and granting voting rights to freedmen) due to its exclusion of women (U.S. Office of Art & Archives, n.d.). By the 1920’s the struggle for equality was answered and the status of women had grown. On August 18, 1920, the right to vote was ratified by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution affording the right to vote for women. Today, women throughout the U.S. still fight for woman equality through established organizations. The National Organization for Women (a major source of protection on workplace equality and reproductive rights) has been at the forefront in support of women. With the assistance of so many organizations in the fight for women’s rights, that statuses of women are equally more today than that of years passed.…
Ever since the earliest wave of feminism, women all across the nation have been effected by the battles and outcomes of feminists for centuries. My grandmother being one of those women said during our interview that many of the rights feminists fought for had changed her life before she was even born, as she did not have to grow up under such a patriarchal nation as a young child into her adulthood. The most significant social change that affected my grandmother’s life was the right to vote. Although white women got the right to vote in 1916 provincially and 1918 nationally; which was before my grandmother was born, she remembers how the right for women to participate in something so important and fundamental to our nation brought a sense…
Before and as well as during the nineteenth century, women were severely inferior to men. According to most males, women were spoken to and not heard. Women were supposed to be homemakers and baby-makers. Men were the ones educated and given the role of financial provider for the family. The women had jobs too: cooking food, washing clothes, and cleaning their homes. Education was merely not an item of importance for women. Women felt that they did need not need to think differently, and many did not even question the way of the world until the middle of the 1800s. It was then that feminism actually became an organized movement. Feminism is defined as "the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the…
The late 19th century was the start of formal coalitions of women’s rights: filled with protests and organizations for women’s suffrage and heterosexual marriage equality. Multiple…
In traditionally patriarchal societies any improvement in the status of women has far-reaching consequences and produces fundamental political changes. Therefore it is always resisted by the established powers. However, it seems certain that they will ultimately have to relent, because the emancipation of women is both necessary and desirable. It will provide for a greater degree of social justice and thus benefit everyone. Indeed, from the beginning, the great "feminists" or champions of women's rights have always insisted that they worked in the interest of the whole human race. The feminist movement therefore has always been a humanist movement. Some of its representatives were reformers, others revolutionaries, but virtually all of them worked for a better, more equitable, and more humane world. Much can be learned from their experiences. They often suffered ridicule, persecution, and defeat, but also won admiration, support, and victory. Gradually, they achieved many of their goals. Their opponents, on the other hand, learned that a just cause cannot be suppressed forever. Where needed reforms are consistently blocked, revolution becomes inevitable.…