Womens Rights In The 1840's

In the 19th century, there was an up rise in feminism for their social role in life. Women were expected to be an average house wife, to take orders from their husbands without questioning them. The woman did not have privileges such as right to vote, to be educated, be free spirited and hold jobs. They lived in patriarchal society where man made all the decision in the household and his wife followed them. The inequality between the genders created frustration amongst females, of which after a prolonged mental impact they revolted. It can be said that the ambition for women to fight for their rights sparked the feminist movement. This movement was based on set of viewpoints, political ideologies, cultural and moral beliefs where women felt compelled to obtain their given rights. The feminist movement was a multi-facet of waves, each of which left an impression to the issues in relation to social status, legal inequalities, and liberation.

Suffrage is the right or exercise of the right to vote in public affairs. The freedom of an individual to express a desire for a change in government by choosing between competing people or ideas without fear of reprisal is basic to self-government. Any exclusion from the right to suffrage, or as it is also called, the franchise, excludes that person from a basic means for participation in the political decision-making process1.

The Women’s Rights Movement was a long and persistent battle fought by many brave female advocates that came before us such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. These women selflessly dedicated their lives to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which forever changed the lives of womankind in America. Prior to their efforts, the United States was still in shambles over the Civil War and spent most of its focus on rebuilding the country and securing rights to African American men. Several activists resented the fact that women were not included in this effort and took matters into their own hands.

Women have been making their mark on history ever since America was established back in 1776. During the earlier years of our lives in America, women had specific roles in which they were expected to fulfill. Women rarely worked outside of the home, personal interests were not advised, and their role was known by all. The roles of women included but were not limited to marrying, tending the home, and raising the family (Ruthsdotter). As we moved forward, however, women began expanding their roles in the world. Women took on a different way of life after they made their first mark on history in 1920 when they fought for and gained the right to vote. Establishing a right to vote was the first step in the ongoing process of gaining women’s rights. Alice Paul induced the next step for women when she brought about the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. This amendment suggests that both men and women should have equal rights within the United States. Although this amendment gave women the same rights as men, and women hold the same rights as men today, they still struggle to get the recognition that they deserve. Women’s rights have made bounds of progress from the beginning back in 1776, but between men and women, women are held more accountable than men and compromise much more in their lives.

In the mid nineteenth century America was going through an age of reform. The person who would be the center of these reforms would be the women in society. Women soon realized that in order to make sure that all the reforms went through they would need more power and influence in society. The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The women fought so zealously for their rights it would be impossible for them not to achieve their goals. The sacrifices, suffering, and criticism that the women activist made would be so that the future generations would benefit the future generations.

The nineteenth century encountered some of most revolutionary movements in the history of our nation, and of the world – the movements to abolish slavery and the movement for women’s rights. Many women participated alongside men in the movement to abolish slavery, and “their experience inspired feminist social reformers to seek equality with men” (Bentley, Ziegler, and Streets-Salter 2015, pg. 654). Their involvement in the abolition movement revealed that women suffered many of the same legal disadvantages as slaves, most noticeably their inability to access the right to vote. Up until this time, women had little success in mobilizing their efforts to gain the right to vote. However, the start of the women’s rights movement in the mid-1800s, involving leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, paved the path for the expansion of women’s rights into the modern century.

Women were perceived as either being a housewife, a nurturer, or a person for company. They did not have the right to vote till later on, work, and if they had an opinion that a male do not agree with, women are considered “wicked”; not savvy, not prudent but wicked to the core. It is unfair, unethical, atrocious, but through it all there was one female who dared to challenge the mind of men and the notion that women can be more than what men perceive them as being. Her name is Margaret Fuller. The goals of Margaret Fuller were precise. Men should realize that women are not an epitome of a statue but human beings, just as men, women can achieve full adulthood and citizenship, but most vitally Margaret aimed to change the assumptions about

On Election Day in 1920, American women exercised their right to vote for the first time. It had taken nearly 100 years for activists and reformists to convince the U.S. that women were just as equal as men (Dunlap). Women, like men, deserved all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship like men did. They used to be seen as a type of property either owned by their father’s or husband’s. Women’s education focused mainly on “ladylike” accomplishments such as sewing and music. Many women around the 1800s like Jane Austen or Mary Wollstonecraft were big on the treatment of women. In fact, both of the women wrote radical stories during their time over the rights of women. Austen wrote “On Making an Agreeable Marriage” and in it, she writes to her niece and her suitor and rambles on if he is the right fit for her and to marry him for “true” love. The more radical of the two texts is, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft because it shows the need for education, revolution in female manners, and the problem with sensibility.

At the turn of the century a woman’s main role was to be a housewife who took care of the children, the home, and the their husbands. Women were looked at as if they were more of an accessory than anything else, and consequently had they little to no voice. However, toward the middle of the 1800s, women decided to change this ideology. In 1850, a group of women gathered in Massachusetts to begin the fight for equal rights. More of these congregations were held and started to increase in attendance of women. Later on the meetings became known as the National Women’s Rights Convention. It was then that the fight for equal rights began and the movement known as Women’s Suffrage began to spread across the nation. However, success did not come at first. For years the suffra...

Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.

Women fought for so long to achieve equality and perceive the right to vote throughout history. They have been denied their access to multiple sources labeling them as minorities and property. In this era women played the role of a house-wife that only stayed at home to obey their husbands and to take care of their children. Therefore, women were portrayed as weak and submissive beings who had a second-class role in the society. However, the restriction for them to vote led to them standing out for the rights they deserved. The women of the 1800s finally realized that something had to be done about this; as a result, the women’s fight to gain their right to vote started.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.” (Oscar Wilde, 1893) Women generally have fewer opportunities than men, and Oscar Wilde sarcastically says that as a forbidden fruit is sweet, women can taste a sweeter fruit than men. Women and men have never had equal rights or roles in society, and mostly men were dominating. In all times women were considered as a weaker sex, and there are dozens of examples from history that can prove it. However, in 19th and early 20th century a weaker sex started to manifest itself with feminist activity. In this paper I will attempt to outline feminist views of two different women, namely Caryl Churchill and Virginia Woolf, who write about different times of history. Furthermore I will make some comparisons and contrasts of their ideas and their ways to define these ideas. Finally, I will make some critical analysis of two texts and share my personal opinion on the subject of feminism.

A woman’s job is to cook, clean, and bear children. Although it may not remain true now, many thought this for most of history. A woman had her duty to her husband and that served as almost all of her worth. During the Enlightenment, some women began to question this norm and to voice their unhappiness. The Enlightenment period was an intellectual movement that sought to reform society and advance knowledge (“Age of Enlightenment”). Even with all of the Enlightenment’s great advancements, women still did not possess many rights. Women continued to be “oppressed and kept to the private sphere,” separated from men (“Women in the Enlightenment”). Few women challenged these social norms, but a few existed such as Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft changed European thought on women through the writing of her essay “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” Her essay proposed controversial ideas on a woman’s position as a wife, right to education, and rights in society.

Throughout European history, women have struggled endlessly to become the intellectual and social equals of their male counterparts. After hundreds of years of physical labor, housekeeping, child rearing and many other difficult tasks, women’s attitudes about their place in life began to change. In the last few years of the eighteenth century (after tough and troubled decades) possible beginnings of early women’s rights were born when society began to evaluate the education and potential of women as a social class.