Women's Rights

Professor Jane Hong

Hist. 102

20 February 2015

Essay 1

        The decades between 1890 through 1920 was a period of vital reform known as the Progressive Era. In this age, millions of Americans organized to formulate solutions to the problems created by industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. There are many events in history that have captivated America, but one of the most noted events would be women’s struggle for equal rights. The plight of equal rights for women has had an extensive and difficult history. Women could not vote, hold public office or choose a career of their choice. They were constantly subjected to a wide range of discrimination that marked them as secondary citizens. Thus, the birth of the women’s rights movement. They had countless goals and were determined for change. The movements vision was to make “the political, social, and economic status of women equal to that of men and with establishing legislative safeguards against discrimination on the basis of gender.”^[1] Although, women have fought intensely to attain their privileges and have made various accomplishments, they continue to battle for certain rights today.

At the end of the 19th century, many problems arose with start of industrialization. Woman activists, mainly middle and upper class women, pointed out the special contributions women could make in handling some of the problems, such as issues of public health and safety, child labor, and women’s work. “It was in this area, closely linked to the traditional female sphere, that women first claimed new roles for themselves and transformed their emphasis on motherhood into public policy”.^[2] Focusing on problems that appealed to women as wives and mothers began to create new spaces for women, laying a foundation for change in the 20th century.

        The women’s right to vote was one of the most prominent goals for activist. This was not an easy goal to accomplish. Men argued that women were too sensitive and emotional; therefore were not capable of making political decisions. The fight for the right to vote began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, where women discussed the inequalities that women face, including women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton acted as the leader of the meeting. In her journal she wrote “a question of magnitude presses on our consideration, whether man and woman are equal, joint heirs to all the richness and joy of the earth and Heaven or whether eternally ordained, one to be sovereign, the other slave...”^[3] The anger women felt due to these inequalities only made them want to fight harder. Thus, in the early 20th century the women's suffrage movement became a mass movement. This led to the National American Woman's Suffrage Association and the National Women’s Party.^[4] As a result, in 1920 Congress adopted the  19th Amendment, finally giving women throughout America the right to vote.

        Furthermore, another goal of the woman's rights movement was the right for a good education. The highest education a woman was allowed to complete was at the primary level. Due to this lack of higher education women were only eligible for domestic and factory jobs. Therefore, when women were able to attain higher levels of education they were able to get better jobs. Today, women work as office managers and CEO in top companies in the US. Women have achieved great success in education. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in the fall of 2014, some 21 million students were expected to attend American colleges and universities, in which females were expected to account for the majority of college students at about 12 million females attending compared to 9 million males.^[5]                         

The opportunity for a better education for women lead to another objective of women’s advocates which was the right for equal pay. While the number of women in the professional work force increased, they still faced other conflicts, such as discrimination. Men often thought that women were not cut out to handle the job as well as men. Also, when men and women shared the same jobs men were paid more. Over the years discrimination has lessen, but it still exists in the form of unequal pay. Women constantly have fought for the right to be paid the same as men. Consequently in 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, which made it illegal to discriminate against a worker on the basis of sex^[6]. Unfortunately, the act has not completely achieved its promise of equal pay due the limited ways to enforce the policy. Therefore, although women have the right to equal pay, there are still loopholes in which women can still earn less money than their male counterparts