TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THE VOTE FOR WOMEN ACHIEVED AS A RESULT OF FEMINIST CAMPAIGN
Women suffrage was attained slowly through step by step stages that started around 19th century and concluded in the 1920s when the Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was passed. It stated that [i]”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”.
Lydia Taft was the only woman allowed to vote by colonial America in 1756. This is only because, when her prosperous husband and only son died, there was no adult heir left.
When after the revolution, New Jersey first became a state of United States, they allowed women to vote provided they own about fifty pounds or seven thousand eight hundred dollars. Then a law was passed in the 1790s that gave the right for all women to vote. But the law was again amended in 1807 excluding all women.
At that time, only a few suffragettes were carrying the call for equal suffrage. One suffragette even attained a hearing in front of the New York Legislature but she had only five signatures in her petition.
In 1850, the National Women’s Rights Convention was organized. For the first time, it gathered in one wing all those who have been seeking for equal rights of women. Aside from offering a venue where women can find support, the convention also drew attention to the question as to how to unite compellingly opinionated organizers or leaders into a single campaign. However, the convention’s main objective is to attain for women equal status with men legally, socially and politically thereby giving her the right to choose freely her own area of interest.
From then on, conventions were held every year. In one of this convention, an ex-slave gained attention when she rose and dare the idea that only educated men and women and the whites can be equal. Her “Ain’t a Woman” speech brought her audience rapturously beaming.
Susan Anthony, a talented organizer, became the guiding force of the women’s movement. Her image was later used by 1970s feminists as an inspiration to their movement.
The National Women Suffrage Association was formed in May of 1869 whose primary objective was to adjust the current Constitution to include women’s suffrage. Their other main objective was to resist the ratification of the Fifteen Amendment until it has included the women’s right to vote. While lobbying, they continued to challenge the conventional role of women.
It has been said that the major opposition to women’s suffrage originated from the apprehension that women will use their voting rights to actualize banning alcoholic beverages and that those who were among the most aggressive in opposing suffrage for women are those whose livelihood depends on alcohol interests.
Other reasons why there were oppositions to giving women the right to vote were: a woman’s specialty is on housing, children’s care, workhouses, education, and other domestic fields and not on the empire, the army and navy, issues of peace and war; government needs force which women lack; women cannot be considered for national defense; interests of women are safer if handled by men; and majority of women do not want to vote.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was created in 1887. Even prior to the creation of this association, the women’s movement was able to get a hearing in every Congress starting from the year 1869 up to the year 1919, which is equal to fifty years of lobbying.
The National Woman’s Party was created in 1917. The women rallied when President Woodrow Wilson declared that democracy was what World War I was about. The women’s response and their rallying point was that the United States was not a democracy since the women citizens were not accorded their right to vote. Wherever President Wilson will give a speech, women can be found rallying for true democracy.
The time came, on January 1918, that the President agreed with the women and gave a speech on pro-suffrage, also citing that women’s votes as war measure are needed. The following year, the Nineteenth Amendment which gives the women the right to vote, was passed.
[i] En.wikipedia.org
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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