Changing Attitudes in British society towards women was the main reason why women achieved the vote in 1918. How accurate is this view? Why Women achieved the vote in 1918 essay The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave women over 30 and who were University graduates and householders owners the vote. Prior to 1918, women were treated as second class citizens; they were regarded as ‘stupid’ and incapable of making intelligent decisions. Women had few rights and were controlled by their husbands.
Women were expected to marry, have children and financially they were expected to be fully dependent on their husbands. Women rarely had careers and most professions refused entry to women. However, between the years 1850 and 1901 women’s role in society began to be challenged. There were a number of reasons for this,
Black women weren’t even allowed to keep their child even if they birthed them! White women and Black women were both struggling at gaining rights. During the early 19th Century women didn’t have the right to vote which created much frustration among women, they even weren’t allowed to run for the presidency just because they are a different gender. In the 19th Century men believed that women’s only job was to clean and cook for the family. Women in general back in the 19th Century didn’t have many rights, but Black women were definitely on the short end of the stick if you compared the rights between Black and White women.
Margaret Sanger on “Free Motherhood” from women and the New Race (1920) Almost, if not every American is aware of The Bill of Rights, the laws that our country is run by. The first and foremost amendment grants American the freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, and Petition. The question is, were these amendments not to be followed in the early1900’s? Margaret Sanger: an activist reformer in the 1900’s, a teacher, and a nurse. She tried to petition with her birth given rights of freedom of speech along with her knowledge to petition for women’s rights but was imprisoned for some doing so.
The peaceful campaigning of the suffragists’ was a key factor in women receiving the vote. The suffragists’ started the whole route of women gaining the vote; they were the ever moving force behind the movement. However historian Martin Pugh suggests that “Suffragists would probably have done better to have made common cause with all unenfranchised men and women from the start and thereby they might have extended their appeal” because all men had not yet received the vote it was argued that women should not receive the franchise when it was not fully given to all men. However there were other contributing factors leading up to 1918 and women gaining the vote. They include the work of the suffragettes’ who caused chaos and grabbed the spotlight away from the suffragists’ after a group of women decided it was time to make a militant stand.
In the mid-nineteenth century, prior to the Women’s movement, women could not vote, and they did not have the same opportunities for education or employment as men, to name a few inequalities. These are but a few examples of the “long train of abuses” (“Declaration of Sentiments”) that women and African American women in particular refused to endure by the mid 1800s. These are the social and cultural contexts in which Sojourner Truth’s powerful “Ain’t I a Woman” speech was born. Truth was not speaking as the commonplace intellectualist guest lecturer at a women’s college, she was an illiterate ex-slave rallying for a cause, questioning the logic of men, making demands of the male audience and even cleverly arguing that if anything, men are actually less deserving and important than women
U.S. History Professor Belanger Analysis on Reconstruction Ends Dec 14th 2011 Elizabeth cady Stanton wrote a paper entitled “Home Life” which talks about women feminism and how women wanted to be equal just like men in marriages. In the early 1800s women had no rights in terms of voting for high ranking officials and they weren’t allowed in court rooms to voice their displeasure on how the government views them as just being care takers. Elizabeth Stanton worked extensively with Susan b Anthony on establishing an association that would fight for women rights and women suffrage. In 1875 Susan b Anthony who was suffragists voted in the presidential election hoping the fourteenth and 15th amendment would get reconstructed giving women
Education, employment, and politics are all barriers where women were held back from the full development of their faculties. In the 19th century women were denied political equality, robbed of their natural rights, and handicapped by laws and customs at every turn. Trained to dependence with no assets of their own women were left to bear the attitude of being less intelligent and able to make political decisions than men. While they have freely accepted a deferential position to men they have also refused to look toward a future of tradition and domesticity. The campaign for women’s suffrage had a sincere beginning
Truth talks about how men assist other women but she is treated differently, Truth frequently resonates “Ain’t I a Woman?” ensuing she is a women, so why is she not treated equally? Truth proceeds... 306 Words | 1 Pages * Aint I a Woman 2 Ain’t I a Woman? Minletrice L. Tarver October 24 2010 Molly Goodson Ain't I a Woman? The speech I chose to do a review on is, Sojourner Truth’s speech: Ain’t I a Woman? This speech was made in 1851 for a women’s convention... 407 Words | 1 Pages * Aint I a Woman, Black Art Responses The poem, “AIN’T I A WOMAN” by Sojourner Truth is a simple worded poem with a strong message in it.
And one of these “essential rights” was an education. Women and African Americans had little to no schooling. Although this country was founded on the belief that “every man is considered equal,” there were a lot of unequal citizens in the U.S. In 1848, women started a revolution known as the Women’s Rights Movement. To let their voices be heard the women held conventions despite the arising opposition.