Women’s Suffrage in America Since the beginning of time women have had a different, sometimes unequal role than men. All over the world women have struggled and still struggle for equality. More specifically, in the United States of America women have really made efforts to justify their human rights. Since the first colonies women have expressed the right to vote and been denied or ignored by men. The Declaration of Independence’s wording specifies “All men are created equal.” Ever since then women have been determined to rewrite those words.
Interview Women’s Voting in: America Thesis: Today in society women play a large role in not only the economy, but also have created a large impact on the decisions to better the United States as a whole. The fight for women’s suffrage resulted in a very positive and life changing outcome for many Americans. However, the journey leading to this change in our society was brutally challenging. It took many years of determined activists and reformers to fight for this equality. There was no proven fact women were incapable of completing tasks that men could, women have always had the same ability as men.
It was under the leadership of Alice Paul. In order to convince President Wilson and Congress to pass a woman suffrage movement, they had to undertake radical actions. In 1920, due to the combine efforts of the NAWSA and the NWP the 19th Amendment was ratified. It gave women the right to vote. This victory was considered the greatest achievement by women in the Progressive Era.
The other group shown in the film was the NWP, the National Women’s Party. This group was led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and decided to use a radical path and strategies to try and achieve their goal of obtaining women’s suffrage. Both groups used many different and creative strategies in their paths towards women’s suffrage. NAWSA tended to use more conservative and relaxed strategies compared to the NWP. The conservative path they used could be defined by trying to win state by state in order to obtain women’s suffrage.
Women were able, furthermore, to stand as candidates in local elections by 1888, enabling women to challenge opposition views that had always denied them their rights, and the increasing roles of women in society indicated greater social acceptance. However, limitations persisted in that these responsibilities were seen as ‘domestic’ and women were still openly denied the parliamentary franchise. In addition, these crucial changes remained restricted to only middle class women, thus losing crucial support from working class women who had already established highly developed unions. Hence, the Radical Suffragist Party focused on working class women thus ‘radical’ for these views. These contributed to social reform through peaceful means and set up successful women’s trade unions which created equal rights for women in payment and working hours.
3. Explain the concept of Republican Motherhood. Republican Motherhood was a way for women to be involved in politics by teaching their children to be good republicans, “rationally and carefully”. It was a woman’s duty in the new world. This led to a desire for education because women said it would help them teach their kids to be better republicans.
However it is important to make clear that the women’s suffrage was not unique to Britain, similar movements had emerged in other countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. In some countries progress had been more rapid for example New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1893. The first sign of the suffragettes making progress in Britain was in 1866-7. The suffragettes began using tactics of peaceful persuasion and were never physically forceful. These methods proved effective as in 1867, the liberal MP John
Also I thought that the Suffragists played a vital role in getting the rights for women to vote because they proved to the men that they could protest and campaign without using violence or breaking the law, unlike the Suffragettes, who resorted to violence when they wanted their way or when they wanted to be heard. Before World War 1 there, were two groups of women that campaigned for votes for women and they were known as the Suffragists and the suffragettes. They called themselves the Suffragists because they were trying to mock the word Suffrage which means the right to vote. Then there were the Suffragists they were so different from the Suffragists yet they were so similar. Both groups of women were campaigning and fighting for the same thing, but the way they achieved the vote was very different.
“The United States, the largest and most influential Western nation, has never had a female president as head of the government” (Mazrui 97). Is this true women’s suffrage, when women are not allowed to be a president? Most people believe that the United States led in the right for women to vote, however, this is not true. Do other countries lead in different ways in women’s suffrage? These questions should be addressed when it comes to true women’s suffrage, because women’s suffrage is more than the right to vote.
The Women’s Right Movement changed the lives of the American Women for the better, due to gaining the right to vote, access to higher education, and the opportunity to enter the workforce. Before the reform movements of Women’s right, the American women were discriminated in society, home life, education, and the workforce. Women in the 1800s could not only vote, but they also were forbidden to speak in public. They were voiceless and had no self-confidence, they dependent men, since they had little to no rights (Bonnie and Ruthsdotter). Before the reform movement, the American Women were voiceless, they had no say in society, however the reform movement will soon change that.