As a man I never knew what it felt like to be treated unequal in the sense of not being able to work the same job as other men do, or being stigmatized and frowned upon for being a male. This was the story for women in the United States until the 1800’s. This was the era in where women that felt like they should be treated equally in society finally grew the courage to fight for what they believed in. They wanted to show everyone that people are entitled to their freedom and liberty no matter their gender. Also they wanted to emphasize that discriminating on people based on gender, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, religion, or culture is unethical. People with these beliefs were considered what we call now a “Feminist”.
Feminist were considered evil, outlaws, and most definitely disobedient to the United States and of course men. In reality all these women wanted was an equal opportunity to life and liberty. These women knew it wouldn’t be easy to achieve it but they were willing to put in the time and effort to accomplish their goals. “Throughout history women have worked to improve their lives in a variety of ways, but historians often describe the organized women’s movements of the United States as two waves of feminism”(Kesselman, pg.555). These two waves were the beginning of a world changing norm, but unfortunately when they were started society was in an epidemic were men were superior and they wanted no parts of these movements.
The first wave, emerging in the late 19th and early 20th century’s had a goal to open up opportunities for women, focusing on their suffrage. There primary focus was to achieve the right to vote for all women. A convention was organized at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 by a gr...
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...ocedures in child custody, child support, and protection from abuse actions; and championed the rights of sexual assault survivors” ( Women’s Law Project).
Organizations like these are the start of how women can overcome their discrimination in today’s world. I believe there are many other ways people can get involved to accomplish these goals, besides education in school. I believe this problem should be introduced to our children in their early stages of lives. Parents should raise their children in a form where when growing up they know to treat women and people equally. The way I would go about this is the same way people who were involved in the two waves of feminism did, exposure. We need to expose these problems and situations throughout the world, the more exposure the more people would realize what’s really going on and the more people would get involved.
Women were only second-class citizens. They were supposed to stay home cook, clean, achieve motherhood and please their husbands. The constitution did not allow women to vote until the 19th amendment in 1971 due to gender discrimination. Deeper in the chapter it discusses the glass ceiling. Women by law have equal opportunities, but most business owners, which are men, will not even take them serious. Women also encounter sexual harassment and some men expect them to do certain things in order for them to succeed in that particular workplace. The society did not allow women to pursue a real education or get a real job. Women have always been the submissive person by default, and men have always been the stronger one, and the protector. Since the dawn of time, the world has seen a woman as a trophy for a man’s arm and a sexual desire for a man’s
Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.
In the years after 1870, there were many reasons for the development of the women’s suffrage movement. The main reasons were changes in the law. Some directly affect women, and some not, but they all add to the momentum of the Women’s campaign for the vote. Before 1870 there were few bills passed to achieve much for the movement. One bill that was passed, which did not directly affect women in too many ways, was one of the starting points of the campaign for the vote.
During America's early history, women were denied some of the rights to well-being by men. For example, married women couldn't own property and had no legal claim to any money that they might earn, and women hadn't the right to vote. They were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, and didn't have to join politics. On the contrary, they didn't have to be interested in them. Then, in order to ratify this amendment they were prompted to a long and hard fight; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the 19th century, some generations of women's suffrage supporters lobbied to achieve what a lot of Americans needed: a radical change of the Constitution. The movement for women's rights began to organize after 1848 at the national level. In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton(1815-1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), along with Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and other activists organized the first convention for women's rights at Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 people, mostly women but also some men, attended it. Then, they raised public awar...
There are countless examples of women standing up for themselves, protesting injustices, and empowering others. The idea also works the other way and influences behavior of people threatened by the idea of feminism. These people refer to themselves as either anti-feminists or meninists. A prime example of feminism in the real world is the protests at the early release of the Stanford rapist. This man raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and was sentenced to six months in jail. He served three of those months and is now on probation for a year. This is a classic example of how the justice system tends to blame the victim while favoring the attacker. Over one hundred women’s rights protestors gathered hours after his release demanding for the judge to be recalled. Because these women were calling for political reform, they would be considered liberal
"The beginning of the fight for women suffrage is usually traced to the Declaration of Sentiments' produced at the first woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N. Y. in 1848." (Linder) A few years before this convention, Elizabeth Cady St...
Women had been “denied basic rights, trapped in the home [their] entire life and discriminated against in the workplace”(http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). Women wanted a political say and wanted people to look at them the way people would look at men. in 1968, many women even protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant because it made it look that women were only worth their physical beauty. A stereotyped image was not the only thing they fought, “Women also fought for the right to abortion or reproductive rights, as most people called it” (http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). These were the reason why the Women started the Women’s Liberation. African Americans, however, had different causes. After almost a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, black men are still being treated unfairly. They were being oppresed by the so-called “Jim Crow” laws which “barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures” (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/). They wanted equal rights, equal facilities and equal treatment as the whites. This unfairness sparked the African American Civil Right’s Movement. This unfairness was seen in the Women’s Liberation as well. Both were treated unfairly by the “superior”. Both wanted equal rights, from the men or whites oppressing them. They both wanted equal treatment and equal rights. During the actual movement
When you think of American history, do you think of war, slavery, or segregation? Something that these have in common is gender equality. Gender equality is something that has been an issue in America since the first day it was inhabited. This is a problem in America. A more particular time period would be, World War II. During this time, women were being used to do men’s jobs and duties but, they still had to have a feminine aspect to them. While most men were at war, the women picked up jobs playing baseball, and working in factories to build the necessary items for war and daily living. During World War II, it was necessary for women to work. The government statistics prove this:
Beyond the individual's perspective, society also looked at women as separate from men. It wasn't until The Women's Suffrage Act of 1920 that women were given the right to vote. With this on their side it was only a matter of time until the women of society were to break out. Nine years later on one very dark Tuesday, the stock market crashed and then came The Great Depression. When it hit the modern day workingman was now worth no more than any housewife. Because money wasn't worth enough to have a job, these professions that only could be held by men were no longer a factor in the limitations between the gender gap.
This movement had great leaders who were willing to deal with the ridicule and the disrespect that came along with being a woman. At that time they were fighting for what they thought to be true and realistic. Some of the great women who were willing to deal with those things were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary McClintock, and Martha C. Wright. These women gave this movement, its spark by conduction the first ever women 's right’s convention. This convention was held in a church in Seneca Falls in 1848. At this convection they expressed their problems with how they were treated, as being less than a man. These women offered solutions to the problem by drafting the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. They cleverly based the document after the Declaration of Independence. The opening line of their document was “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” (Shi & Mayer 361). In this declaration they discuss the history of how women have been treated and how men have denied them rights, which go against everything they believe in. This convention was the spark that really
White women had been oppressed, and eventually when America began to diversify, those coming into the country were becoming oppressed and alienated. Even those who had been in the country were being discriminated against, but it’s because white Americans were prejudice towards those who identified as other than white. Sexism was and is definitely prevalent within the feminist movement, as feminism is fighting for the equality between men and women in general. Sexism creates and justifies systems of domination based on sex and gender (FYS Class Notes). The feminist movement began on the acts of sexism, as women did not have the same rights as men. Today, I think that women still aren’t treated as equal to men because people, especially men, think that women aren’t capable of doing the things a man can. I also think that part of the reason that men think women aren’t equal is because women can have children, and they just assume that the woman is supposed to take care of that child for the rest of her life. Yes, it’s her child, but it’s also the man who helped her create the child’s responsibility to take care of the child as
The first well-known quest for women's rights began in Seneca Falls, New York, on July19, 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a women's conference in hopes of discussing the role of women in society and establishing a sense of what women would need to do to overcome the barriers they had faced for several centuries. Stanton and another supporter, Lucretia Mott, developed the Seneca Falls Declaration as a document that would highlight the discrimination that women had endured for hundreds of years. They hoped that this wou...
The Feminist movement was a successful action because it established bigger freedoms for Women. The main goal of this movement was to one day retrieve freedom and equal opportunities for. Before the Feminist movement, women were denied equal opportunities in the workforce and suffered from this significantly. Surely, these women proved they weren’t incapable of much after replacing men in the workforce during WWII. With this success, they then proceeded to fight for equality. In 1972 Congress approved The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which supported equality for women (Roark 787). By 1977, 35 states in total ratified the amendment, however during the process it was interrupted by a conservative activist by the name of Phyllis Schlafly (Roark 787). Accord...
Throughout the 19th century, feminism played a huge role in society and women’s everyday lifestyle. Women had been living in a very restrictive society, and soon became tired of being told how they could and couldn’t live their lives. Soon, they all realized that they didn’t have to take it anymore, and as a whole they had enough power to make a change. That is when feminism started to change women’s roles in society. Before, women had little to no rights, while men, on the other hand, had all the rights. The feminist movement helped earn women the right to vote, but even then it wasn’t enough to get accepted into the workforce. They were given the strength to fight by the journey for equality and social justice. There has been known to be
First wave interrelated with temperance, and women’s suffrage. Feminists organized for the first time in Seneca Falls in 1848, where men and women discussed equality and women’s rights. Civil rights were argued heavily in successive waves with topics being family