Women's Legal and Political Rights

Women's Legal and Political Rights

Until the end of 18th century there was a large opposition to women's

legal and political rights, though some improvements were made, the

issue of giving women the vote was still highly opposed. Feminism is

linked to the women's movement and is commonly connected with two

basic beliefs, that women are disadvantaged because of their sex, and

that this disadvantage should be overthrown. Since the nineteenth

century women's movement gained a central focus of the campaign for

female suffrage and the right to vote. It was Mary Wollstonecraft and

Lucretia Mott, who can be considered as the most famous pioneer of

women’s rights and feminism movement. They made a great impact and

influenced nowadays world. Women did great achievement in their

rights, but still are not equal to men. The reasons for such

inequality go from the history and social structure of the society

those days.

The history of feminism and women’s right movement begins from Mary

Wollstonecraft and her “Vindication of the rights of women” (1792).

This book written during French revolution was about the equality

between men and women what the main idea of a feminist movement is.

Mary Wollstonecraft has been called the "first feminist" or "mother of

feminism". Her book is about women's rights, especially women's

education. Mary Wollstonecraft agreed to the idea that that women's

sphere is family, but she didn’t isolate family life from public life

as many others did at that time. For Mary Wollstonecraft, the public

life and domestic life wasn’t separate, but connected. The family was

important for her because it formed ...

... middle of paper ...

... for women's education, and that education

significantly changed the lives and opportunities for women in all

aspects of their lives. Without equal and quality education for women,

women would be doomed to vision of a separate and always inferior

sphere. Even not in all countries, ex. South Arabia, women are still

equal to men both in social and family life. And on the contrary, ex.

Germany or Britain, women can and become the head of the state.

Reading a “Vindication of the Rights of Woman” today, some parts seem

relevant to nowadays public and family situations, and others seem

archaic. This reflects the great changes in the value society places

on women's reason today, as contrasted to the late 18th century; but

it also reflects the many ways in which issues of equality of rights

and duties are still with us today.