The Women's Rights Movement

The Women's Rights Movement was a significant crusade for women that began in the late nineteenth century and flourished throughout Europe and the United States for the rest of the twentieth century. Advocates for women's rights initiated this movement as they yearned for equality and equal participation and representation in society. Throughout all of history, the jobs of women ranged from housewives to factory workers, yet oppression by society, particularly men, accompanied them in their everyday lives. Not until the end of the nineteenth century did women begin to voice their frustrations about the inequalities among men and women, and these new proclamations would be the basis for a society with opportunities starting to open for women. The supporters of women's rights strived for voting rights, equal pay in jobs, no job discrimination, and other privileges that would put them on the same level as men in both society and in the workplace. Starting with the Seneca Falls Declaration in 1848 and continuing through the twentieth century with documents like the United Nations Declaration of Women's Rights, women became significant leaders that aided in the advancement of twentieth century life and society.

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...

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...laration of Womenís Rights Aspects of Western Civilization, 511-

12.

7 Donald Kagan, et al The Western Heritage Brief Edition Volume II: Since 1715 (Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996) 742-43.

8 Joan Konner Women in the Marketplace Aspects of Western Civilization 516-18.

Additional Sources

- Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill. One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage

Movement. Troutdale, NewSage Press, 1995.

Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and

author of several books on womenís rights, wrote One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering

the Women Suffrage Movement as a commemoration of the Nineteenth Amendment. This

Amendment gave women the right to vote, and this book explores the movements and

accomplishments women made towards womens suffrage.