Fight for Freedom, Part 2: The Impact of Women’s Movements in the United States

This is the second part of a three-part series examining the history of women’s movements in the United States and their impact on American society. In the first part, we examined the conditions that led to the various women’s movements. This story continues to evolve in the 19th century where the first part ended. Until the 19th century, the institution of marriage largely defined women’s lives. It was her identity, providing women with their place in society. Marriage and motherhood signified a woman’s maturity and respectability, though marriage itself was more of a business than a romantic commitment. In the world of society back then, women were treated as family possessions, to be married for respectability or even fortune.

Aside from those who got married, let’s not forget the Spinsters, also offensively known as “Spinsters.” These were single women who were past childbearing age or just plain unlucky in love. In today’s 21st century, a single woman can still be stereotyped as a “spinster”, in which society cruelly judges a woman for alleged “lesbian” tendencies, often because she is just mature, lonely and doesn’t seem interact with men. How hurtful this can be and often untrue! Many women simply choose to be alone, enjoying their freedom. As far as we’ve come since the 17th century, society still assumes the existential position of wife and motherhood that if you’re single you don’t like the opposite sex. However, if a woman chooses to be a lesbian, that is also her choice. Regardless, this point of view still dates back to the earliest roles women played in society. If you weren’t married, something was “wrong” with you.

Many of the 19th century young women known as spinsters were likely under the control of their loving elderly parents, who needed someone to look after them and do their bidding into their old age. As a dutiful daughter, she would give up her fantasies and illusions regarding love and marriage, accepting the guilt trip that her parents had always burdened her with.

If a single woman of 25 or older still had fantasies of being able to enter the idyllic state of marriage, she would be ridiculed and scorned as a spinster. The mere idea of ​​any man marrying an “old” spinster back then was utterly ridiculous. Only if she was a rich person would she be worth having after the age of 25. Therefore, a woman who did not marry was considered a failure and was looked upon with pity by society. Although her main goal was to be a wife and mother, the only forms of decent work she could have as a single woman were as a teacher, governess or companion, although she was uneducated in the sophisticated ways of society ladies.

Throughout the centuries, women have been perceived as inferior to men. This has frustrated and angered them at the lack of control they have had over their own destinies.

As a result of women expressing their discontent with the way they were being treated and their overwhelming lack of rights, the first Women’s Rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. This took place on July 19 and 20, 1848, for the sole purpose of addressing women’s rights and issues. It was organized by Quaker leader and abolitionist Lucretia Mott and abolitionist professor Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There were at least 260 women who attended the meeting demanding political, social and economic justice for women, which was quite revolutionary for the 19th century. Elizabeth Cady Stanton prepared a Statement of Rights and Sentiments inspired by the Declaration of Independence. She mentioned all the injustices that women had suffered for years.

Some of the highlights of that statement included:

That both women and men are created equal and that women have the right to own property in their names.

The right to work in any trade or profession of your choice.

The right to education and the right to vote.

The Seneca Falls Convention marked the inauguration of the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States. Women were no longer to be suppressed or kept silent, to be treated like a commodity or a slave. The money stopped there. It was enough.

Prior to 1848 and other “Married Women’s Property Laws” that were passed, when a woman married, she lost the right to control property that was hers before the marriage. She, too, was unable to acquire property during the marriage. Married women during that time could not make any contracts, transfer assets or even sell property, bring lawsuits, maintain or control their own wages, or collect rent. Although Mississippi passed the first married women’s property law in 1839, New York state passed a much better-known law in 1848.

With the passage of the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1893, this slow course of action was finally carried out. As a result, married women now had fully legalized control over possessions of all kinds. Possessions that they had when they were married or that they received after the marriage, either by inheritance or by winning.

After the Civil War, the industry began to grow as new cities were built. This in turn provided better paying jobs for men. For women, jobs as telephone operators, stenographers, clerks, teachers, and nurses were becoming more available.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was the largest women’s association in the 19th century, was founded in 1874. It addressed the problems of men’s alcoholism and its detrimental effect on the family. His main concern centered on the saloons because that was where the men spent most of their time, where they spent their wages on alcohol, gambled their livelihood, and where prostitution flourished. It was a man’s world. In the living room, the man always found a warm welcome, it was his hiding place away from the complaints of his wives and where they could avoid endless domestic problems. These dedicated WCTU women would harass the halls, urging the hall managers to lock their doors. The more they were pushed aside, the more they would fight back. They were relentless in their efforts, which ultimately resulted in the closure of 3,000 salons.

The National Woman Suffrage Association, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president, was formed in 1869. The American Woman Suffrage Association, with Henry Ward Beecher as president, was also established the same year. His goal was to secure women’s suffrage. In 1890, the two groups merged into the “National American Women’s Suffrage Association” with Susan B. Anthony as president. She was assisted by Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1920, the National League of Women Voters was established. This replaced the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Women’s Rights Movement continued to gain momentum as the “newly liberated woman” began to emerge around the 1890s. They proudly wore full-cut men’s pants, openly discussed women’s rights in venues audiences and competed in grueling sporting events. So what do you think of that? These women were true athletes involved in all sports and could also smoke.

A leading women’s revolution took place in 1916, when women were liberated from simply acting as reproductive machines. At the time, many women were experiencing unwanted pregnancies, and many others had died as a result of self-abortion. Margaret Sanger, a trauma-conscious maternity nurse in lower Manhattan, New York, decided to open the first birth control clinic. Margaret Sanger also formed the National Birth Control League in 1917, which became the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942. At the end of the war, a Federal Court ruling allowed condoms to be legally advertised and sold. for disease prevention, although there were still some state laws that were against condoms as a birth control device. In the third part of this three-part series, I will conclude with the recent history and impact of the women’s movement in America, and how birth control and organizing helped advance women with the equality they always deserved.