Do you believe that women are still not equal to men today? Although the road to women’s suffrage took a long period of time, they still succeed even though they faced challenges along the way. The struggle through the Women’s Suffrage movement was not a failure due to the fact that woman got their right to vote in the Nineteenth Amendment. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Jennifer Baumgardner, and Amy Richards had a large impact on how the future of woman turned out not only them but the work that they did to succeed lead to the creation of the Nineteenth Amendment that gave all women the right to vote.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a large impact on women in her time and the future of women and their rights reason being that she was the founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Elizabeth main goal during her life was to be able to convince people to give women rights to property, suffrage, and self-respect. Elizabeth and another woman named Lucretia Mott wanted to address the rights that women should and would have during a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. For them, this convention was important and successful because they had Lucretia’s husband supporting them which was very significant because it was a man supporting women’s rights.
During this convention, Elizabeth presented a document that she had written titled Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. She had written this document to demand that women should have access to everything men had access to such as education, property, jobs, education, and most importantly politics. After Elizabeth had presented the declaration 68 women and 32 men sign it. When Elizabeth had written this document she showed how “He” meaning all men were objectifying women. In the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions Elizabeth wrote, “He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice… Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation…the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty…” (Freedman, 59).
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When she wrote this she was expressing how she feels that men always have to have power over woman. Specifically focusing on when she says, “…law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty…” (Freedman, 59). She’s explaining that men will always have power over women and there is a so-called “law” in place that protects the men and says they can do whatever to the women and take away rights from them. Like in the Declaration of Independence when it states “…that all men are created equal…” they are only talking specifically about rich white men and not lower class and colored men. She had accomplished something great when she wrote this and got all the support she needed/wanted.
Susan B. Anthony also worked alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. Susan became president of NWSA after Elizabeth had retired. She had been the president for eight years. During her time with NWSA, she was given the title of “The Napoleon of the Women’s Rights Movement”. When she worked with most people
Being an African American back in the 1800’s was hard as it is but being an African American woman wanting to have civil rights and the right to vote was very complicated. Sojourner Truth is someone with ambition drive and a need to succeed. Sojourner was born as a slave in New York. She was a preacher and because part of abolitionist groups and also became part of the Women’s rights movement, she is one of the few African American women who spoke out about her rights and what she wanted.
As she wanted her rights she wanted to have the same opportunity that white women had and she pushed for those rights. Sojourner Truth gave two impactful speeches in her life one in May of 1851 another one a few years later in 1867. During her speech “Ai’n’t I a Woman?” in 1867, she talked a lot more about the rights that women should have and how her living her life should have changed. She says,“Now colored men have the right to vote; and what I want is to have colored women have the right to vote. There ought to be equal rights now more than ever, since colored people have got their freedom.” (Freedman, 66).
All slaves were freed by the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, but only black men could vote because of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Even when black women had natural born rights from the Fourteenth Amendment, they didn’t really fully get them until the 1920’s they had to wait fifty-two years to get their rights although white women also had to wait a long period of time they had civil rights.
Conclusion
Although the women’s suffrage movement took many years and the struggles that they faced along the way were difficult, the impact of all the different women such as Stanton, Anthony, Truth, Baumgardner, Richards led them to the same goal which was the women’s suffrage. Even though they all had different ways to get there they achieved it when they got the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920.
