Women Rights Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the years, women have been seen as someone to have children, someone

to cook, someone to clean, and someone who does not deserve rights. Until women

like Elizabeth Cady Stanton rose up against these stereotypes, it looked as if

women would always be seen as them. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not alone in her

fight to earn rights for women; Susan B. Anthony was helping her. These two

women joined together to start the fight for women?s rights. Almost 100 years

after they started this fight, Gloria Steinem came along and continued it with

the same force. Together Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Gloria

Steinem would change the way that the United States viewed women. Elizabeth Cady

Stanton started the fight for women?s rights at a convention in Seneca Falls,

New York 1848. She spoke out on the so-called equal rights that women had, ?It

is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred

right to the elective franchise (1: Scott).? With that great statement

Elizabeth Cady Stanton showed that women do have an opinion and they want to

voice it. As her speech progressed she spoke about the ?inalienable rights?

granted to all in the constitution and how these were not given equally to

women. Her radical new ideas sparked a controversial battle that would last well

into the next century. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the first women to wear

bloomers and not a dress around her town and home, causing her husband (a judge)

much ridicule and embarrassment. In 1851 at another convention in Seneca Falls,

she met Susan B. Anthony a woman as passionate about the fight for women to vote

as she was; oddly enough they met while Stanton was wearing bloomers. The women

immediately became friends, and started full force to gain equal rights for

women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote most of the speeches delivered by Susan B.

Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton became the woman behind the scenes, and as the

years progressed so did their fight. Susan B. Anthony helped start the movement

for women?s rights in 1851 when she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Between the

two of them, these women started in New York and slowly worked across the

country educating women on what rights they should have and why they did not

have them. The two were strongly fighting for a woman?s right to vote. At the

time the only people allowed to vote were white males over the age of 21, no

slaves, no colored people, and no women. From 1854 to 1860 Susan B. Anthony and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked in New York to change all laws discriminating

against women. Anthony began organizing women all over the state to help with

this fight. In 1869 Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lucy Stone and

Henry Beecher joined forces to organize the National Woman Suffrage Association.

This group would work to get a constitutional amendment that would grant women

the right to vote (the idea was sparked by the 15th amendment which stated that

the newly freed slaves had the right to vote). To make their statement more

dramatic Susan B. Anthony and 12 other women cast their votes in the 1872

presidential election. These votes were one of many dramatic steps in gaining

voting rights for women. Anthony was arrested, convicted, fined $100, and then

set free for this, she soon became an icon in history. In 1920 the fight for a

women?s right to vote was soon over as the 19th amendment to the constitution

was passed allowing this right. This also allowed women to become more outgoing

and true to there own beliefs. Later in the century women would once again have

to fight for equality but for a very different reason. Gloria Steinem is not

only a successful businesswomen and co-founder of ?Ms.? magazine, she was

also a major figure in the women?s liberation movement of the late 1960s and

early 1970s. It may have been written in her genetic code to be a feminist as

her grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was a suffragist in the 1900?s.

Steinem?s major life change came shortly before she left for a trip to India

in 1956. She discovered that she was pregnant. After overhearing a conversation,

she came to know about a new procedure that could possibly help her, an

abortion. Half of the money she had saved for her trip to India went toward the

operation. Shortly afterward her visa for India came and she was on her way to

start a new life. In India she found her political views, and that marriage, and

romance were not her thing. Of course none of these views could surface just

yet, at the time women did not usually express their views. By the time the

sixties were coming to a close, Steinem?s point of view on a women?s rights

had drastically changed. On March 10, 1969 Steinem and other protestors

disturbed a meeting which was trying to wave the right for a women to have an

abortion. She had become one of the Redstockings, a group that fought for

women?s rights, and she was now a feminist. Over the next ten years Steinem

strongly announced that women everywhere wanted equal pay for equal work. She

became a published freelance writer and created a name for herself with each

protest she organized. Gloria Steinem did not just fight for women?s rights in

America; she also fought for women?s rights in other countries and equal

rights around the world. The fight for women?s rights started in 1848 with one

grand statement and has progressed throughout the years. Today many women around

the world are still oppressed by laws stating that they do not have the same

rights as men. When Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and 12 other women

voted in the 1872 presidential election they had a direct effect on the way

women would be viewed. No longer were women wives, mothers, and cooks, women

were now opinionated, independent, and wanted recognition. It took almost 75

years to get the first equality law past in this country but without that one

law who knows where women would be today. Even though women had the right to

vote, they still did not have the right to be what they wanted. Women went to

college, but afterward most stayed home to continue the cooking and cleaning

routine. It was not until World War 2 that women would go out to earn money.

Even during the time women were earning money a women?s opinion was not wanted

in a conversation and if she gave it, her opinion was not acknowledged. In the

1960s during the time of the equal rights movement of African-Americans, women

were starting to have another movement of their own. Women wanted recognition.

Among their leaders was Gloria Steinem. Most of the women that led those

protests were the daughters of women who worked during the war. Some women just

wanted the same money men were getting for doing the same job. Whatever the

cause, women across the country were joining forces to get these rights. As of

the mid 1980s women were holding executive positions and earning the same pay as

men. In 1984 Geraldine Anne Ferraro ran for vice president and at the same time

went down as a major mark for women?s equality. Sandra Day O?Connor has

become the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, and Janet Reno is

our current Attorney General. These women may not have had the opportunity to

serve in any of these positions had it not been for the women who fought for

equal rights in 1851. The fighting had paid off. Women everywhere are now

getting the recognition they deserved. Without women like Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Gloria Steinem to start voicing their opinions

when they did who knows were women would stand today.