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Exercises
Free
But Not Equal
It was July 19, 1848. Five women
were meeting in Seneca Falls in
New York. They had come from many parts of the country to
prepare a statement that would be presented at a special mass
meeting the following day.
"The
history of mankind is a history of repeated
on the part of man toward woman," the statement began. "To
prove this, let these facts be known."
After hours of serious discussion, the five
women put together their list of facts. It stated: man had
forced woman to obey laws he had passed and in which she had
no voice; he had taxed her to support a government which recognized
her only when her property could provide it with income; he
had denied her the chance of obtaining a better occupation
or profession by denying her a better education; in her relationship
with her husband, she must promise to obey him, thereby accepting
him as her master with the right to take away her liberty
and the right to punish her as he saw fit; by his superior
attitude, he had destroyed her confidence in her own powers
and had lessened her self respect. The five women agreed that
each of the situations listed must be changed. Each objected
to the traditional relationship between men and women.
The leader of the group, Elizabeth Candy Stanton,
believed it was essential to add one more point to this list.
Mrs. Stanton had already gained a national reputation as a
leading rebel in the fight for women's rights. Now, she wanted
to go one step further.
"We must demand and get the right to vote,"
declared Mrs. Stanton. "Without the vote, we have no share
in the nation's political system. And, without that political
right, we will never be free!"
The
other women, moved by Mrs. Stanton's fiery words, voted to
add her statement on women's
to their list of facts. And, the following day,
before a cheering audience of three hundred women and men,
the entire list was accepted as the first platform of the
newly born women's rights movement.
The rebels from Seneca Falls moved out to
fight the battle for women's rights. They talked; they argued;
they paraded; they made speeches. But, throughout the East,
they lost every attempt to gain for themselves the right to
vote.
However, something amazing happened in the
western territory of Wyoming. In 1869, the Wyoming Territorial
Council quietly passed a bill giving the women of the territory
the right to vote. Only a token few voted in the elections
of 1870; but, in later elections, more and more exercised
their political rights.
To the surprise of many men, the women of
Wyoming proved that they were well qualified to
 handle
their new rights, without neglecting their children or their
homes. Unfortunately, most men in other parts of the country
did not think this way, so they fought to prevent the same
action from taking place in their own states.
For the next thirty years, the battle for
women's suffrage went on. For most of those thirty years,
except in a handful of western states, the battle was a losing
one. Attempts were made every year in the United States Congress
to pass a women's suffrage bill; every year, they failed.
When the United States entered World War I,
the national women's groups gave their entire support to the
war effort. Not only did this give women the opportunity to
provide essential help in a time of crisis, but it also helped
them gain recognition as a valuable asset to their country.
Finally, on August 26, 1920, the battle was
won. The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.
gave 17 million American women the right to vote.
Seventy-two years after Mrs. Elizabeth Candy
Stanton first voiced her demand for women's suffrage, women
were finally getting a taste of political power. But
most of the other changes sought by the first women's rights
in 1848 were still
to be won.
After the passage in the Nineteenth Amendment,
women did not automatically take a place alongside men in
high political office or in top industry positions. They did
move out into the world of work in far greater numbers, not
necessarily because men welcomed them, but because the country
needed their labor.
By 1941, with America's entrance into World
War II, a labor force was needed to build planes and guns
and tanks for the nation's fighting men. Very often, that
labor was made up of women, who worked successfully in dozens
of essential occupations that had always been considered "man's
work."
The women did their jobs well, but they only
needed to look inside their pay envelopes to see that their
income was far less than a man's income for the same work.
And, of course, as soon as the men came home from war, most
women were fired.
Certain areas were still open to women. They
could teach or work in offices, factories, and service jobs,
but usually at pay far lower than that earned by men for the
same work.
Just as disturbing to many working women was
the attitude of men toward them. A woman might be qualified
for a position in the field of law, medicine, or engineering.
But she knew that any job she got in her chosen profession,
if she could find one, would be at a level far below her skill
and training.
Women with superior scores in civil service
tests found that men with lower scores got the best jobs.
Women who were qualified for management jobs or important
assignments were not given them because of the attitude of
so many men: "Who wants to work for a woman?"
In
occupations of every kind, women faced
just because they were women. Men, but not women,
were permitted to smoke on the job; women, but not men, were
told what to wear; women, but not men, were denied the right
to return to their jobs if they took sick leave. And always,
women were paid anywhere from one-third to one-half less than
men for doing the same job.
By the 1960s, almost 45 percent of the women
in the United States were working at some occupation outside
the home. In spite of their numbers, most of them were aware
that they had made only a token advance. It seemed that little
had changed since that day in 1848 when five rebels protesting
the relationship between men and women, had written the first
women's rights platform.
The period of inactivity in the women's rights
movement came to an end in the 1960s. During these years,
many people were moved to action in a wide range of social
and political problems, and many women turned again to the
active search for equal rights.
Thousands of women in dozens of cities across
America joined in parades, mass meetings, and demonstrations
to repeat the same demands they had been making for years:
equal job and education rights; free
day care centers for the children of working mothers;
an end to the traditional relationship that insisted that
man must support the family while woman must stay home and
care for the children.
The National Organization For Women, NOW,
was formed to carry on the fight for women's rights.
"The time has come," said the leaders of NOW,
"for true equality for all women in America and for a fully
equal partnership between men and women. The time has come
for an end to discrimination against women in government,
industry, the professions, the churches, the political parties,
the labor unions, and in every other important field of American
life."
More important, the leaders of NOW, and of
other women's rights groups, are concerned about educating
people away from the traditional roles in which society has
placed men and women. According to them, this traditional
role of education begins almost at birth. Boy babies are given
toy trucks to play with; girl babies are given dolls. Boys
are asked to do certain "male" jobs while girls are encouraged
to "play house." Books and TV show boys taking part in exciting
adventures while girls seem to be left out. Now and then,
a girl may be pictured as doing something daring or brave,
but her presence is only a token one.
Girls are often encouraged to train for traditional
"women's" occupations while boys have their choice of the "superior" professions. And the girl who chooses to do something
outside, or in addition to, the traditional house-wife-mother
role is often considered somewhat unusual.
Believers in women's rights know that in time
the hundreds of laws that discriminate against women will
be changed. They also know that the final fight for women's
rights will have to be carried on, not through the courts,
but through the re-education of men and women to their own
needs and the roles they choose to play. Only when women,
and men, too, can pick occupations and life styles according
to their own needs and life desires, and not according to
what is traditional in society, will the battle for women's
rights be won.
(1 530 words)
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