Susan B Anthony On Women's Suffrage

Most people who think of women’s suffrage think about women fighting for their right to vote. They think about the political campaigns and the brutality that came along with it. What most people don’t realize is that it took decades and even centuries for women to gain their freedoms and their rights, and not just the right to vote. Women gained the right to vote, the right to buy their own property, the right to gain an education, the right to decide what happens to her own body and even the simple right to work outside of the home to earn money. While some say women should be home to tend to the house and children, women are independent, intelligent, and are citizens of the country just as men are and deserve the same rights as men when
it comes to voting, education, holding a job and even decisions to their own bodies. Susan B.
Anthony was one of the leaders of the women’s suffrage. “Testing another strategy, Susan B. Anthony registered and voted in the 1872 election in Rochester, NY. As planned, she was arrested for "knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully vot[ing] for a representative to the Congress of the United States," convicted by the State of New York, and fined $100, which she insisted she would never pay a penny of.” (National Archives, N.D.) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, another leader in the campaign, decided before 1877 that women needed more rights than what they had. She started to stand up for what they deserved. On July 19, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York Stanton gave her first speech to set off the women rights movement. She believed that women deserved the right to vote and the right to own properties. Stanton said in her speech, “there are deep and tender chords of sympathy and love in the hearts of the downfallen and oppressed that woman can touch more skillfully than man.” (Great American Documents, 2008) She believed that women were equal to a man. This speech was very powerful. This speech said a lot of the same point of views that women fought for across the next
century. On August 26, 1920, women finally gained their right to vote. Women had gone through many marches, hunger strikes, protests, and even some were arrested to gain this achievement. They had started with the argument that they wanted the right because they were equal to men, to wanting the right because women were different than men. “The idea of women uniting for the common good, rather than dividing along party lines as men did, was a major theme of the women antis.” (Miller, 2015) Women had a different way of thinking and could bring new ideas to the table. Their new stance was that women were nurturing and caring. The votes came after many women marched in the streets many times to prove that they were human.
Marches and parades were more powerful than petitions were. Speeches made were more powerful than petitions as well. These actions showed that women were also people. Women had to obey they laws but had no say in them; this was why they wanted to change them. After the war ended many women were forced into getting jobs. This occurred around 1941. Women were not used to working. Many women stayed home to care for the home and children. When they had to go out and find a job, they could only find retail and factory jobs. Many women worked long hours and made very little compared to a man. Even children had to go work in these grueling factories and make little amount of money and put their lives in danger just to make end’s meat. After many years of not making as much money as men, women finally fought for their right to get equal pay. In 1963, the Equal Pay Act were passed by Congress. This act was passed so that women could support their families financially just the same as a man. They could work in the same places and not have to worry about not making enough money. Before the act was put into place most women only made a third of what men would make. Having a maternity leave, affordable childcare, and fair hiring, between male and female were all a part of the Equal Pay
Act. In 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendment was passed. This amendment occurred so that women would have the same rights as men when it came to gaining an education. Women had been able to get an education before but they didn’t have the same rights as a man. A lot of women were denied different things when it came to getting an education. Women were denied rights to sporting events and it was even harder for some women to gain access into a University. This amendment made it so there was no discrimination when it came to sex, race, origin, or nationality. Title IX of the Education Amendment adhered to more than just women’s rights but it helped them gain more rights in the education field. Women built and founded schools. Women were the ones who were teachers and were the ones who kept schools running all those years, yet they were the ones who were denied the most rights when it came to gaining a true education. “While men earned more degrees than women from the establishment of higher education in the United States through the 1970s, women have outnumbered men as the recipients of bachelor’s degrees since 1981; and during the 2012–13 academic year, women comprised an impressive 57 percent of the nation’s college students. In addition to a variety of demo-graphic, social, and economic factors that facilitated the striking increase in women’s higher educational attainment, the federal government played an important role in promoting this trend.” (Rose, 2015) Men were the ones who were able to get scholarships and were able to play sports. Men rarely had trouble getting accepted into colleges and universities like women. Women had a harder time to go when it came to gaining a higher education than men. Women have gone from caregivers of the home and barely being able to talk in public to having the same rights as men. They are now able to gain an education, vote, and purchase their own land. Women can also fight on the front lines alongside of men. Women are no more delicate and fragile than men. Women are capable of having their own opinions, thoughts, and freedoms just as a man, and they have now over decades and centuries fought hard for these freedoms.