The
Women’s Movement
The civil rights movement helped to
prompt the revival of feminism in the United States. During
and after the Second World War, the employment of women
greatly increased. American women who got their right
to vote (suffrage 1920) much later than the blacks (1870),
demanded reforms to improve their status. For this purpose,
they called for an end to job discrimination and demanded
free abortion, establishment of child-care centers, and
more freedom for women to do things as they saw fit. In
many cases the women’s movement coincided with the black’s
civil rights movement. A great furor followed the publication
of Betty Friedam’s book, The Femine Mystique, in 1963,
and a vast new group began to form. The book infused the
start of Women’s Movement. Traditional and stereotypes
of women were: gentle, passive, emotional, and dependent.
Much of the society still expected women only to be wives,
mothers, and homemakers, even when more than 35% of all
women were working by 1963. The largest and most effective
of women’s organizations was formed in 1966 with Betty
Friedan as its first president—The National Organization
of Women (NOW). The first National Women’s convention
was held in 1967. In 1972, Equal Rights Amendment was
passed, saying that “Equality of Rights … shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any state
on account of sex.” The success of the movement includes
abortion, career opportunities, the use of languages,
etc.
The Women's Rights Movement
1848 - 1998
"Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
That was Margaret Mead's conclusion after a lifetime of
observing very diverse cultures around the world. Her
insight has been borne out time and again throughout the
development of this country of ours. Being allowed to
live life in an atmosphere of religious freedom, having
a voice in the government you support with your taxes,
living free of lifelong enslavement by another person.
These beliefs about how life should and must be lived
were once considered outlandish by many. But these beliefs
were fervently held by visionaries whose steadfast work
brought about changed minds and attitudes. Now these beliefs
are commonly shared across U.S. society.
Another initially outlandish idea
that has come to pass: United States citizenship for women.
1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women
to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over the
past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes
have been accomplished that are now so accepted that they
go unnoticed by people whose lives they have utterly changed.
Many people who have lived through the recent decades
of this process have come to accept blithely what has
transpired. And younger people, for the most part, can
hardly believe life was ever otherwise. They take the
changes completely in stride, as how life has always been.
The staggering changes for women
that have come about over those seven generations in family
life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education
- these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women
themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately.
Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous
changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of
women have come together to affect these changes in the
most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives,
lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance.
They have worked very deliberately to create a better
world, and they have succeeded hugely.
Throughout 1998, the 150th anniversary
of the Women's Rights Movement is being celebrated across
the nation with programs and events taking every form
imaginable. Like many amazing stories, the history of
the Women's Rights Movement began with a small group of
people questioning why human lives were being unfairly
constricted.
The Women's Rights Movement marks
July 13, 1848 as its beginning. On that sweltering summer
day in upstate New York, a young housewife and mother,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women
friends. When the course of their conversation turned
to the situation of women, Stanton poured out her discontent
with the limitations placed on her own situation under
America's new democracy. Hadn't the American Revolution
had been fought just 70 years earlier to win the patriots
freedom from tyranny? But women had not gained freedom
even though they'd taken equally tremendous risks through
those dangerous years. Surely the new republic would benefit
from having its women play more active roles throughout
society. Stanton's friends agreed with her, passionately.
This was definitely not the first small group of women
to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan
and carry out a specific, large-scale program.
Today we are living the legacy
of this afternoon conversation among women friends. Throughout
1998, events celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the
Women's Rights Movement are looking at the massive changes
these women set in motion when they daringly agreed to
convene the world's first Women's Rights Convention.
Within two days of their
afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a
date for their convention, found a suitable location,
and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier.
They called "A convention to discuss the social,
civil, and religious condition and rights of woman."
The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel
in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.
In the history of western civilization,
no similar public meeting had ever been called. These
were patriotic women, sharing the ideal of improving the
new republic. They saw their mission as helping the republic
keep its promise of better, more egalitarian lives for
its citizens. As the women set about preparing for the
event, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of
Independence as the framework for writing what she titled
a "Declaration of Sentiments." In what proved
to be a brilliant move, Stanton connected the nascent
campaign for women's rights directly to that powerful
American symbol of liberty. The same familiar words framed
their arguments: "We hold these truths to be self-evident;
that all men and women are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."
In this Declaration of Sentiments,
Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women
were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the number
of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had
listed in their Declaration of Independence from England.
Stanton's version read, "The
history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in
direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny
over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid
world." Then it went into specifics:
· Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law
· Women were not allowed to vote
· Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in
their formation
· Married women had no property rights
· Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for
their wives to the extent that they could imprison or
beat them with impunity
· Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no
rights to women
· Women had to pay property taxes although they had no
representation in the levying of these taxes
· Most occupations were closed to women and when women
did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned
· Women were not allowed to enter professions such as
medicine or law
· Women had no means to gain an education since no college
or university would accept women students
· With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to
participate in the affairs of the church
· Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect,
and were made totally dependent on men
Strong words... Large grievances...
And remember: This was just seventy years after the Revolutionary
War. Doesn't it seem surprising to you that this unfair
treatment of women was the norm in this new, very idealistic
democracy? But this Declaration of Sentiments spelled
out what was the status quo for European-American women
in 1848 America, while it was even worse for enslaved
Black women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's draft
continued: "Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement
of one-half the people of this country, their social and
religious degradation, -- in view of the unjust laws above
mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved,
oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred
rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to
all the rights and privileges which belong to them as
citizens of these United States."
That summer, change was in the
air and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was full of hope that the
future could and would be brighter for women.
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