One thing that has not change for women since the 1870’s is their desperation to be heard and they will not stop until they find their voice and make all the changes that need to be made.
During the 1870’s women activists began their attempt to vote at polling places. When they weren’t allowed to vote they began to file lawsuits. These acts began to give attention to their organizations. Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for voting on a presidential election. These are similar actions to what a strike is in California. Being arrested is a major way of being heard and people do anything to attract attention to their cause. The National American Woman Suffrage Association initiated a campaign that they hoped would achieve state level victory.
They hoped that many states would follow their fight on allowing women the right to vote. If enough states followed maybe federal legislation would follow. “These efforts were so successful that by the time of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, over half of all states had already granted limited voting rights to women” (Khan Academy). Their attempts for this to happen succeeded and when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, states had already granted women voting rights. Between 1878 and 1887 the constitutional Amendment to grant women the right to vote was introduced and rejected a few times by the senate.
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In the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President of the women’s national council of the United States in 1891, ‘A difference of opinion on one question must not prevent us from working unitedly in those on which we can agree’, these words will live forever to remind women the reason they fought and will fight for many years to come until the struggle of sexism turns into humanism and everyone fights for the same reason, to make our nation a better place. This compared to California resembles the same issue that gay marriage was not allowed.
Organizations were made to fight for people’s rights to marry whomever they chose and strikes were made against the government to let this happen. Allowing women to vote started with a few countries and eventually it happened nationally in 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to all United States citizens regardless of sex. This was the greatest success for women in the journey of the women’s rights movement.
Women were finally going to be able to vote after all the struggles they went through. As the U.S. House of Representatives states, “The suffrage movement provided political training for some of the early women pioneers in Congress”. Women were getting their experience on politics trying to make a change. This was later going to benefit their cause by giving women knowledge about how the government works.
Reminiscing to gay rights, when same sex marriage was legal nationwide, human kind had a turning point that would be written in history forever.
After the Nineteenth Amendment was passed women had the right to influence decisions the government made by voting. What they had been fighting for had become a reality and now their voices would be heard. The change that had been made by the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment and the efforts of the women’s rights leaders was a massive one. As Kate Tuohy states in the Scholastic news, “The efforts of the women’s rights leaders impacted the way women were treated in all areas of American society”. Women were starting to be treated with respect in the workplace and in society. From this day on women began to be admitted to universities and had more opportunity to grow in their workplace. In 2016 Michelle Obama said in a speech, “So much could be corrected in the world if girls were educated and had power over their lives”. Even twenty years later women are oppressed and not encouraged to study and better themselves.
In 1960, women realized that even though they were given the privilege to vote, they still weren’t being treated or getting paid the same as men. More things needed to change and more protests were made. The main purpose for these protests was for woman to have equality in the workplace. This issue was a major one for women to battle. Men were paid far more than women for doing the same job. After a few years of struggle, the women who fought for the Equal Pay Act were successful at their battle against inequality. The Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy. Now men and women would get equal pay for doing the same job. In the present years in California women have been more active than ever. Women want to keep moving forward with their rights. Even after having the Nineteenth Amendment, the mentalities of citizens of the United States, to be more specific, men’s mentality still is that women cannot do the same things that men do.
The Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”. From the day this amendment was passed a new era began for women. From that day on women were given a voice that will only get louder as time went by. After the long struggle women faced against congress to be equal to men, they finally made congress see the reasons why women should be able to vote just as men did. The men they were fighting against to make their voices be heard, finally heard them and changed their minds, or at least enough of them did to make a change.
According to a letter sent from the National American Women Suffrage Association to the House of Representatives in 1917, women were demanding to be represented in the House of Representatives. They were making threatening accusations to show the House of Representatives that it had been long enough and that they needed an answer, “You have had a long and successful political career and that means that you know men and women.
You know that both work better when their hearts bear no sense…It needs its women; and they are ready–as fearless, as willing, as able as loyal as any women of the world”. This letter is proof of how The House of Representatives was not willing to let women be involved in the decisions made. The House of Representatives, had prejudice against women’s way of thinking and ideas. The men in the House of Representatives were not interested in letting women intervene in the way they were accustomed to made decisions.
As John R. Lott, Jr., writes for the Journal of Political Economics, “It is not difficult to see that giving women the right to vote is likely to have played some role in determining the path of government spending over time”. If it weren’t for the Women’s Suffrage Movement women today wouldn’t be making the differences they are making in the world. Based on the ability of women’s “house hold skills”, as Lott states, women have the experience when it comes to dealing with budgets and things that have to do with managing the house hold income. Due to this, women think ahead on the future and vote for those who will bring better income for their nation. Lott also mentions that, “For decades we have known that women vote differently than men”. Women don’t base their votes on the candidates in an election as persons. Women think of the benefits the candidate will bring for the nation.
Women’s Health Matters says that in Canada women suffer because of their gender. “The process of ‘othering’ occurs when society sorts people into two categories: the reference group and the ‘other.’ Women who bear their ‘otherness’ in more than one way suffer from multiple oppressions, leaving them more vulnerable to assaults on their well-being than if they suffered from one form of – oppression”. This article is saying that because women are female, men in Canada believe that women are more likely to suffer from oppression. These accusations against women are prejudice because the fact that this happens to women is not because they are female, but because of other factors.
In an article by Michelle Gordon for The Sydney Morning Herald, where she interviewed Julia Gillard, Gordon asked her about bias against female leaders and she responded, “One thing that is very commonly believed is that once one woman gets through, that that woman tends not to help the women behind her come up through to the same level she is. I believe this perception stems from an unconscious bias that women who get to the top aren’t very likeable”. These thoughts comes that are not educated enough to understand the fact that women should push women to reach the top even if it means staying on the bottom. Being a woman means being on a team and that means that it doesn’t matter who does it as long as it gets done. Women having bias against other women, means they are not on the same team, but the purpose of a team is to fight as one.
As a women in the 2000’s I consider myself lucky to have the rights I do. I know that women were not as fortunate as I am today. Still being a Mexican woman, living as a resident in the United States, I feel as powerless as the women fighting in the Suffrage Movement. As a resident and not an American Citizen, I cannot vote. For me voting is very important and the fact that I myself cannot vote bothers me to highest degree. I think of myself as an educated woman whose voice is muted. I am a woman seeking university education that is placed in the same category as a felon is, when it comes to voting in the United States.
Punished by not being able to vote and make a difference. Reading The Washington Post I came across an article that said, “There has actually been some positive news for some legal noncitizens: They are gaining the right to vote in some places”. The sad side to this interesting quote is that this is not happening in California. To me it is disappointing to see a moving forward state be stuck in the past by some of its cities. California prides itself for being a diverse and innovating, yet is still stuck in the past with racist ideas, that non-citizens of the United States cannot vote.
I know that being a resident is my choice, but I honors me be a resident. It gives me great satisfaction and pride that in reality some of us non-citizens do more for this country than many citizens. I am a resident that is trying to make a change in education and I believe I make this country proud. I believe I deserve the right to vote. I believe the Women’s Suffrage Movement happened for all women who are residents in the Unites States to have a vote and be given the chance to make a difference.
These sources are an example of bias against women. From this era or from a past one, biases are always present and carry from year to year. In the era of the Women’s Suffrage Movement women experiences bias more often than women in the present era. The bias women in the 1900’s suffered is like none other than has been seen before. The reason being is that before this time women were not heard because they were not saying anything. After the movement women started to express their thought and men started to express their thoughts on women and the fact that they weren’t good enough for anything as men were.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement is the reason why women in this era have more freedom. Even when women still experience sexism and discrimination in society as well as in the workplace, they have the right to fight against it with the certainty that they have rights that no one can take away from them. I myself have bias. As a woman I believe I deserve the right to vote. I believe that being a woman makes me part of the Nineteenth amendment. In the end, whether you are a man, a woman, whatever your believes are or your reasons for them, we should all remember that above all we are human and as humans we are all fighting for one thing, a better life.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement had many effects on the era it happened as well as to the present era. No matter what the era it is, in the future, this movement will always be one that will be seen as having changed the course of women in the United States. It not only affected women and the way their lives changed from that day on. It also affected the lives of men living in these times. Men that were against it, had to learn how to live with it. Men that were for it, had to adapt to the changes that were about to come. Women that had nothing to do with the movement and that never thought that their lives could change the way they did, were given rights without even lifting a finger.
Those women that fought until the end started with a dream they turned into reality, but even they had to adjust to the changes they created. Some women in the eras to come would benefit from something that happened long before they were even born and that is the beauty of the movement. That no matter where you were or what era you live in this movement changed your life. Women being able to vote meant that they would have a say in what men did. Maybe not directly, but as a whole and that was something that would require great strength from both sides.
Women had to be strong for their purpose, to keep it alive and moving forward. Men had to fight against it when they did not approve, but eventually when the amendment was passed implicated that men had to stand behind the decision made by the government. When the strikes were happening before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, it was not beneficial to women. They were being threatened by men in power to stand down, as well as by men in society. After the amendment was passed it was instantly beneficial to women because now they had the right to vote, which would give them a say in the decisions the government made about things that affected them directly.
On the other hand most men did not believe the passing of the amendment was beneficial to the nation. Being part of a country where men were used to being in power and the superior sex, after the passing of the amendment they had to live with the fact that women had the same right to make decisions as them. The Women’s Suffrage Movement was made to make a difference no matter how much time it took. Women saw this as the opportunity to make a change and it wasn’t a superficial change; it was a change that would make a difference from then on. It was expected for the movement to have long-term, positive implications. This movement was believed to be something that would be carried on to future generations until women were given what they deserved as rightful citizens of the United States. This movement brought into focus how women were mistreated in society.
How they were not given what was rightfully theirs by the government. In politics it brought into focus that women had a lot to say and that the things they were saying were important. People realized that their movements were not just to create riots, they were to create unity. From the perspective of a woman in the present era, we are thankful for all the sacrifices women in the Suffrage Movement made. “There will always be a few women who will look back through the years with interest and gratitude to the struggles of the early workers”(Elizabeth Crawford).
Women should know the reason why this movement started. Women should know the history of where this fight began and who started it. There is no greater way to make the women of the Women’s Suffrage Movement more proud than to be recognized by women on their efforts to make a better world for women. From a perspective of a man from this era there could be various thoughts. Some men might believe this movement made this country what it is today and believe that women should have all the rights and benefits a man does or they believe it was all a waste of time because women should be house wives and take care of children without getting an education and without a voice. Either way women are making a difference and will keep making a difference and escalating the ladder of men to reach the top.
