Womens Political Influence

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Brianna Saccurato Professor Dittmar 790:335:01 March 5, 2014 Paper 1: Women’s Political Influence In the past 200 years Women have become a force to be reckoned with within the political arena. In the past decade alone women have turned out more votes, made advancements in leadership positions, increased involvement in political debates and also society as a whole. Without the help of our ancestors through their protest and fight for the women’s right to vote women of our generation would not have the voice to choose who represents them on a local, state, and federal level. Although women’s influence in politics is not as strong as the men of our nation, the United States has shown over time how the political role and influence of women has evolved and is becoming more powerful. At the start of the twentieth century women were subjected to widespread discrimination that ousted them from all aspects of political life and treated them as if they were second class citizens. At this time women did not always identify with one another, their collective identity and solidarity relied solely on their personal divides of class, ethnicity, race and religion which made change hard to evoke especially in 1900 when women had very few rights and their legal standing was govern by their marital status. Sadly, a married woman’s legal identity relied solely on that of her husband. A woman of this time could not: control her biological reproduction, own property, have a career, serve on juries (because they had no standing in court), vote, or hold any form of public office. In the eyes of the Supreme Court of this time women were not considered to be “persons” under the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. Unfortunately these now unlawful treatments were reflections of subconscious ideology of men and women, which defined women’s place in society as
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