Living The Legacy: Women’s Rights Movement Essay, Research Paper

Living the Legacy:

The Women’s Rights Movement 1848 – 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 marks 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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!

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.