Women's Rights: History of the Movement

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Women's Rights: History of the Movement

 

Living the Legacy:

The Women's Rights Movement 1848 - 1998

 

Introduction Revolution Declaration Convention Backlash Expansion

Vote Won! Second Wave New Issues ERA Complex Issues 1998

 

" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can

change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. " That was

Margaret Mead's conclusion after a lifetime of observing very diverse

cultures around the world. Her insight has been borne out time and

again throughout the development of this country of ours. Being

allowed to live life in an atmosphere of religious freedom, having a

voice in the government you support with your taxes, living free of

lifelong enslavement by another person. These beliefs about how life

should and must be lived were once considered outlandish by many. But

these beliefs were fervently held by visionaries whose steadfast work

brought about changed minds and attitudes. Now these beliefs are

commonly shared across U.S. society.

 

Another initially outlandish idea that has come to pass: United States

citizenship for women. 1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement

by women to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over the past

seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been

accomplished that are now so accepted that they go unnoticed by people

whose lives they have utterly changed. Many people who have lived

through the recent decades of this process have come to accept

blithely what has transpired. And younger people, for the most part,

can hardly believe life was ever otherwise. They take the changes

completely in stride, as how life has always been.

 

The staggering changes for women that have come about over those seven

generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment,

in education - these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women

themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have

not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and

human nature. Seven generations of women have come together to affect

these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition

drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They

have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have

succeeded hugely.

 

Throughout 1998, the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement

is being celebrated across the nation with programs and events taking

every form imaginable. Like many amazing stories, the history of the

Women's Rights Movement began with a small group of people questioning

why human lives were being unfairly constricted.

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A Tea Launches a Revolution

The Women's Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. On

that sweltering summer day in upstate New York, a young housewife and

mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women

friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation

of women, Stanton poured out her discontent with the limitations

placed on her own situation under America's new democracy. Hadn't the

American Revolution had been fought just 70 years earlier to win the

patriots freedom from tyranny? But women had not gained freedom even

though they'd taken equally tremendous risks through those dangerous

years. Surely the new republic would benefit from having its women

play more active roles throughout society. Stanton's friends agreed

with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group

of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and

carry out a specific, large-scale program.

 

Today we are living the legacy of this afternoon conversation among

women friends. Throughout 1998, events celebrating the 150th

Anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement are looking at the massive

changes these women set in motion when they daringly agreed to convene

the world's first Women's Rights Convention.

 

Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had

picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and

placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called

" A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition

and rights of woman. " The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan

Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.

 

In the history of western civilization, no similar public meeting had

ever been called.

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A " Declaration of Sentiments " is Drafted

These were patriotic women, sharing the ideal of improving the new

republic. They saw their mission as helping the republic keep its

promise of better, more egalitarian lives for its citizens. As the

women set about preparing for the event, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used

the Declaration of Independence as the framework for writing what she

titled a " Declaration of Sentiments. " In what proved to be a brilliant

move, Stanton connected the nascent campaign for women's rights

directly to that powerful American symbol of liberty. The same

familiar words framed their arguments: " We hold these truths to be

self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are

endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among

these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "

 

In this Declaration of Sentiments, Stanton carefully enumerated areas

of life where women were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the

number of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had listed in

their Declaration of Independence from England.

 

Stanton's version read, " The history of mankind is a history of

repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman,

having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over

her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. " Then it

went into specifics:

 

* Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law

* Women were not allowed to vote

* Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their

formation

* Married women had no property rights

* Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives

to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity

* Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to

women

* Women had to pay property taxes although they had no

representation in the levying of these taxes

* Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work

they were paid only a fraction of what men earned

* Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law

* Women had no means to gain an education since no college or

university would accept women students

* With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to

participate in the affairs of the church

* Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and

were made totally dependent on men

 

Strong words... Large grievances... And remember: This was just

seventy years after the Revolutionary War. Doesn't it seem surprising

to you that this unfair treatment of women was the norm in this new,

very idealistic democracy? But this Declaration of Sentiments spelled

out what was the status quo for European-American women in 1848

America, while it was even worse for enslaved Black women.

 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's draft continued: " Now, in view of this entire

disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their

social and religious degradation, -- in view of the unjust laws above

mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed,

and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that

they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which

belong to them as citizens of these United States. "

 

That summer, change was in the air and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was full

of hope that the future could and would be brighter for women.

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The First Women's Rights Convention

The convention was convened as planned, and over the two-days of

discussion, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received

unanimous endorsement, one by one, with a few amendments. The only

resolution that did not pass unanimously was the call for women's

enfranchisement. That women should be allowed to vote in elections was

almost inconceivable to many. Lucretia Mott, Stanton's longtime

friend, had been shocked when Stanton had first suggested such an

idea. And at the convention, heated debate over the woman's vote

filled the air.

 

Today, it's hard for us to imagine this, isn't it? Even the heartfelt

pleas of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a refined and educated woman of the

time, did not move the assembly. Not until Frederick Douglass, the

noted Black abolitionist and rich orator, started to speak, did the

uproar subside. Woman, like the slave, he argued, had the right to

liberty. " Suffrage, " he asserted, " is the power to choose rulers and

make laws, and the right by which all others are secured. " In the end,

the resolution won enough votes to carry, but by a bare majority.

 

The Declaration of Sentiments ended on a note of complete realism: " In

entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount

of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use

every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall

employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national

Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our

behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of

Conventions, embracing every part of the country. "

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The Backlash Begins

Stanton was certainly on the mark when she anticipated " misconception,

misrepresentation, and ridicule. " Newspaper editors were so

scandalized by the shameless audacity of the Declaration of

Sentiments, and particularly of the ninth resolution -- women

demanding the vote!-- that they attacked the women with all the

vitriol they could muster. The women's rights movement was only one

day old and the backlash had already begun!

 

In ridicule, the entire text of the Declaration of Sentiments was

often published, with the names of the signers frequently included.

Just as ridicule today often has a squelching effect on new ideas,

this attack in the press caused many people from the Convention to

rethink their positions. Many of the women who had attended the

convention were so embarrassed by the publicity that they actually

withdrew their signatures from the Declaration. But most stood firm.

And something the editors had not anticipated happened: Their negative

articles about the women's call for expanded rights were so livid and

widespread that they actually had a positive impact far beyond

anything the organizers could have hoped for. People in cities and

isolated towns alike were now alerted to the issues, and joined this

heated discussion of women's rights in great numbers!

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The Movement Expands

The Seneca Falls women had optimistically hoped for " a series of

conventions embracing every part of the country. " And that's just what

did happen. Women's Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850

until the start of the Civil War. Some drew such large crowds that

people actually had to be turned away for lack of sufficient meeting

space!

 

The women's rights movement of the late 19th century went on to

address the wide range of issues spelled out at the Seneca Falls

Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and women like Susan B. Anthony,

Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth traveled the country lecturing and

organizing for the next forty years. Eventually, winning the right to

vote emerged as the central issue, since the vote would provide the

means to achieve the other reforms. All told, the campaign for woman

suffrage met such staunch opposition that it took 72 years for the

women and their male supporters to be successful.

 

As you might imagine, any 72-year campaign includes thousands of

political strategists, capable organizers, administrators, activists

and lobbyists. The story of diligent women's rights activism is a

litany of achievements against tremendous odds, of ingenious

strategies and outrageous tactics used to outwit opponents and make

the most of limited resources. It's a dramatic tale, filled with

remarkable women facing down incredible obstacles to win that most

basic American civil right - the vote.

 

Among these women are several activists whose names and and

accomplishments should become as familiar to Americans as those of

Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

* Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course. And Susan B. Anthony. Matilda

Joslyn Gage. Lucy Stone. They were pioneer theoreticians of the

19th-century women's rights movement.

* Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, who

led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage, in Wyoming

in 1869. Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight in

Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s.

* Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of

thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women.

* Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and

Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone's daughter, who carried on their

mothers' legacy through the next generation.

* Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the

National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the

20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.

* Alice Paul, founder and leader of the National Woman's Party,

considered the radical wing of the movement.

* Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now a Supreme Court Justice, learned the

story of the Women's Rights Movement. Today she says, " I think about

how much we owe to the women who went before us - legions of women,

some known but many more unknown. I applaud the bravery and resilience

of those who helped all of us - you and me - to be here today. "

 

 

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After the Vote was Won

After the vote was finally won in 1920, the organized Women's Rights

Movement continued on in several directions. While the majority of

women who had marched, petitioned and lobbied for woman suffrage

looked no further, a minority - like Alice Paul - understood that the

quest for women's rights would be an ongoing struggle that was only

advanced, not satisfied, by the vote.

 

In 1919, as the suffrage victory drew near, the National American

Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of

Women Voters to ensure that women would take their hard-won vote

seriously and use it wisely.

 

In 1920, the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was established

to gather information about the situation of women at work, and to

advocate for changes it found were needed. Many suffragists became

actively involved with lobbying for legislation to protect women

workers from abuse and unsafe conditions.

 

In 1923, Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's Party, took

the next obvious step. She drafted an Equal Rights Amendment for the

United States Constitution. Such a federal law, it was argued, would

ensure that " Men and women have equal rights throughout the United

States. " A constitutional amendment would apply uniformly, regardless

of where a person lived.

 

The second wing of the post-suffrage movement was one that had not

been explicitly anticipated in the Seneca Falls " Declaration of

Sentiments. " It was the birth control movement, initiated by a public

health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing

its victory. The idea of woman's right to control her own body, and

especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a

visionary new dimension to the ideas of women's emancipation. This

movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth

control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom

for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves

whether they would become mothers, and when. For decades, Margaret

Sanger and her supporters faced down at every turn the zealously

enforced laws denying women this right. In 1936, a Supreme Court

decision declassified birth control information as obscene. Still, it

was not until 1965 that married couples in all states could obtain

contraceptives legally.

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The Second Wave

So it's clear that, contrary to common misconception, the Women's

Rights Movement did not begin in the 1960s. What occurred in the 1960s

was actually a second wave of activism that washed into the public

consciousness, fueled by several seemingly independent events of that

turbulent decade. Each of these events brought a different segment of

the population into the movement.

 

First: Esther Peterson was the director of the Women's Bureau of the

Dept. of Labor in 1961. She considered it to be the government's

responsibility to take an active role in addressing discrimination

against women. With her encouragement, President Kennedy convened a

Commission on the Status of Women, naming Eleanor Roosevelt as its

chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented

discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life.

State and local governments quickly followed suit and established

their own commissions for women, to research conditions and recommend

changes that could be initiated.

 

Then: In 1963, Betty Friedan published a landmark book, The Feminine

Mystique. The Feminine Mystique evolved out of a survey she had

conducted for her 20-year college reunion. In it she documented the

emotional and intellectual oppression that middle-class educated women

were experiencing because of limited life options. The book became an

immediate bestseller, and inspired thousands of women to look for

fulfillment beyond the role of homemaker.

 

Next: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting

employment discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race,

religion, and national origin. The category " sex " was included as a

last-ditch effort to kill the bill. But it passed, nevertheless. With

its passage, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was

established to investigate discrimination complaints. Within the

commission's first five years, it received 50,000 sex discrimination

complaints. But it was quickly obvious that the commission was not

very interested in pursuing these complaints. Betty Friedan, the

chairs of the various state Commissions on the Status of Women, and

other feminists agreed to form a civil rights organization for women

similar to the NAACP. In 1966, the National Organization for Women was

organized, soon to be followed by an array of other mass-membership

organizations addressing the needs of specific groups of women,

including Blacks, Latinas, Asians-Americans, lesbians, welfare

recipients, business owners, aspiring politicians, and tradeswomen and

professional women of every sort.

 

During this same time, thousands of young women on college campuses

were playing active roles within the anti-war and civil rights

movement. At least,that was their intention. Many were finding their

efforts blocked by men who felt leadership of these movements was

their own province, and that women's roles should be limited to fixing

food and running mimeograph machines. It wasn't long before these

young women began forming their own " women's liberation " organizations

to address their role and status within these progressive movements

and within society at large.

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New Issues Come to the Fore

These various elements of the re-emerging Women's Rights Movement

worked together and separately on a wide range of issues. Small groups

of women in hundreds of communities worked on grassroots projects like

establishing women's newspapers, bookstores and cafes. They created

battered women's shelters and rape crisis hotlines to care for victims

of sexual abuse and domestic violence. They came together to form

child care centers so women could work outside their homes for pay.

Women health care professionals opened women's clinics to provide

birth control and family planning counseling -- and to offer abortion

services -- for low-income women. These clinics provided a safe place

to discuss a wide range of health concerns and experiment with

alternative forms of treatment.

 

With the inclusion of Title IX in the Education Codes of 1972, equal

access to higher education and to professional schools became the law.

The long-range effect of that one straightforward legal passage

beginning " Equal access to education programs..., " has been simply

phenomenal. The number of women doctors, lawyers, engineers,

architects and other professionals has doubled and doubled again as

quotas actually limiting women's enrollment in graduate schools were

outlawed. Athletics has probably been the most hotly contested area of

Title IX, and it's been one of the hottest areas of improvement, too.

The rise in girls' and women's participation in athletics tells the

story: One in twenty-seven high school girls played sports 25 years

ago; one in three do today. The whole world saw how much American

women athletes could achieve during the last few Olympic Games,

measured in their astonishing numbers of gold, silver, and bronze

medals. This was another very visible result of Title IX.

 

In society at large, the Women's Rights Movement has brought about

measurable changes, too. In 1972, 26% of men and women said they would

not vote for a woman for president. In 1996, that sentiment had

plummeted to just over 5% for women and to 8% for men. The average age

of women when they first marry has moved from twenty to twenty-four

during that same period.

 

But perhaps the most dramatic impact of the women's rights movement of

the past few decades has been women's financial liberation. Do you

realize that just 25 years ago married women were not issued credit

cards in their own name? That most women could not get a bank loan

without a male co-signer? That women working full time earned

fifty-nine cents to every dollar earned by men?

 

Help-wanted ads in newspapers were segregated into " Help wanted -

women " and " Help wanted- men. " Pages and pages of jobs were announced

for which women could not even apply. The Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission ruled this illegal in 1968, but since the EEOC had little

enforcement power, most newspapers ignored the requirement for years.

The National Organization for Women (NOW), had to argue the issue all

the way to the Supreme Court to make it possible for a woman today to

hold any job for which she is qualified. And so now we see women in

literally thousands of occupations which would have been almost

unthinkable just one generation ago: dentist, bus driver,

veterinarian, airline pilot, and phone installer, just to name a few.

 

Many of these changes came about because of legislation and court

cases pushed by women's organizations. But many of the advances women

achieved in the 1960s and '70s were personal: getting husbands to help

with the housework or regularly take responsibility for family meals;

getting a long-deserved promotion at work; gaining the financial and

emotional strength to leave an abusive partner.

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The Equal Rights Amendment Is Re-Introduced

Then, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment, which had languished in

Congress for almost fifty years, was finally passed and sent to the

states for ratification. The wording of the ERA was simple: " Equality

of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United

States or by any state on account of sex. " To many women's rights

activists, its ratification by the required thirty-eight states seemed

almost a shoo-in.

 

The campaign for state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment

provided the opportunity for millions of women across the nation to

become actively involved in the Women's Rights Movement in their own

communities. Unlike so many other issues which were battled-out in

Congress or through the courts, this issue came to each state to

decide individually. Women's organizations of every stripe organized

their members to help raise money and generate public support for the

ERA. Marches were staged in key states that brought out hundreds of

thousands of supporters. House meetings, walk-a-thons, door-to-door

canvassing, and events of every imaginable kind were held by ordinary

women, many of whom had never done anything political in their lives

before. Generous checks and single dollar bills poured into the

campaign headquarters, and the ranks of NOW and other women's rights

organizations swelled to historic sizes. Every women's magazine and

most general interest publications had stories on the implications of

the ERA, and the progress of the ratification campaign.

 

But Elizabeth Cady Stanton proved prophetic once again. Remember her

prediction that the movement should " anticipate no small amount of

misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule " ? Opponents of the

Equal Rights Amendment, organized by Phyllis Schlafly, feared that a

statement like the ERA in the Constitution would give the government

too much control over our personal lives. They charged that passage of

the ERA would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets,

gay marriages, and women being drafted. And the media, purportedly in

the interest of balanced reporting, gave equal weight to these

deceptive arguments just as they had when the possibility of women

winning voting rights was being debated. And, just like had happened

with woman suffrage, there were still very few women in state

legislatures to vote their support, so male legislators once again had

it in their power to decide if women should have equal rights. When

the deadline for ratification came in 1982, the ERA was just three

states short of the 38 needed to write it into the U.S. constitution.

Seventy-five percent of the women legislators in those three pivotal

states supported the ERA, but only 46% of the men voted to ratify.

 

Despite polls consistently showing a large majority of the population

supporting the ERA, it was considered by many politicians to be just

too controversial. Historically speaking, most if not all the issues

of the women's rights movement have been highly controversial when

they were first voiced. Allowing women to go to college? That would

shrink their reproductive organs! Employ women in jobs for pay outside

their homes? That would destroy families! Cast votes in national

elections? Why should they bother themselves with such matters?

Participate in sports? No lady would ever want to perspire! These and

other issues that were once considered scandalous and unthinkable are

now almost universally accepted in this country.

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More Complex Issues Surface

Significant progress has been made regarding the topics discussed at

the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. The people attending that

landmark discussion would not even have imagined the issues of the

Women's Rights Movement in the 1990s. Much of the discussion has moved

beyond the issue of equal rights and into territory that is

controversial, even among feminists. To name a few:

 

* Women's reproductive rights. Whether or not women can terminate

pregnancies is still controversial twenty-five years after the Supreme

Court ruling in Roe v. Wade affirmed women's choice during the first

two trimesters.

* Women's enrollment in military academies and service in active

combat. Are these desirable?

* Women in leadership roles in religious worship. Controversial

for some, natural for others.

* Affirmative action. Is help in making up for past discrimination

appropriate? Do qualified women now face a level playing field?

* The mommy track. Should businesses accommodate women's family

responsibilities, or should women compete evenly for advancement with

men, most of whom still assume fewer family obligations?

* Pornography. Is it degrading, even dangerous, to women, or is it

simply a free speech issue?

* Sexual harassment. Just where does flirting leave off and

harassment begin?

* Surrogate motherhood. Is it simply the free right of a woman to

hire out her womb for this service?

* Social Security benefits allocated equally for homemakers and

their working spouses, to keep surviving wives from poverty as widows.

 

Today, young women proudly calling themselves " the third wave " are

confronting these and other thorny issues. While many women may still

be hesitant to call themselves " feminist " because of the ever-present

backlash, few would give up the legacy of personal freedoms and

expanded opportunities women have won over the last 150 years.

Whatever choices we make for our own lives, most of us envision a

world for our daughters, nieces and granddaughters where all girls and

women will have the opportunity to develop their unique skills and

talents and pursue their dreams.

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1998: Living the Legacy

In the 150 years since that first, landmark Women's Rights Convention,

women have made clear progress in the areas addressed by Elizabeth

Cady Stanton in her revolutionary Declaration of Sentiments. Not only

have women won the right to vote; we are being elected to public

office at all levels of government. Jeannette Rankin was the first

woman elected to Congress, in 1916. By 1971, three generations later,

women were still less than three percent of our congressional

representatives. Today women hold only 11% of the seats in Congress,

and 21% of the state legislative seats. Yet, in the face of such small

numbers, women have successfully changed thousands of local, state,

and federal laws that had limited women's legal status and social roles.

 

In the world of work, large numbers of women have entered the

professions, the trades, and businesses of every kind. We have opened

the ranks of the clergy, the military, the newsroom. More than three

million women now work in occupations considered " nontraditional "

until very recently.

 

We've accomplished so much, yet a lot still remains to be done.

Substantial barriers to the full equality of America's women still

remain before our freedom as a Nation can be called complete. But the

Women's Rights Movement has clearly been successful in irrevocably

changing the circumstances and hopes of women. The remaining

injustices are being tackled daily in the courts and conference rooms,

the homes and organizations, workplaces and playing fields of America.

 

Women and girls today are living the legacy of women's rights that

seven generations of women before us have given their best to achieve.

Alice Paul, that intrepid organizer who first wrote out the Equal

Rights Amendment in 1923, said, " I always feel the movement is sort of

a mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a

great mosaic at the end. " Women, acting together, adding their small

stones to the grand mosaic, have increased their rights against all

odds, nonviolently, from an initial position of powerlessness. We have

a lot to be proud of in this heroic legacy, and a great deal to

celebrate on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the founding of

the Women's Rights Movement.

 

© By Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, the National Women's

History Project. 1998

This Site Is Maintained by the National Women's History Project