19th Century: Response

Humor was used as a tactic by women and for instance in 1915 Alice Duer Miller wrote that the reason women did not want men to vote included the following: Because man's place is in the army. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms, and drums. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government. (Women's History, 2014, p.

1) True balance was struck on the women's suffrage issue in the United States when during World War I women entered into jobs in the nation's factories to support the war effort and additionally held roles that were more active than in the wars previously fought by the United States.

Following the ending of World War I, the National American Women Suffrage Association reminded the Congress and President that the efforts of women in the form of their work during the war should be on the receiving end acknowledgement of their political equality. The response of President Wilson was to show his support for women's right to vote. In President Wilson's speech of September 18, 1918 he stated: "We have made partners of the women in this war.

Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of right?" (Women's History, 2014, p. 1) Less than a year passed when the House of Representatives passed a proposed Constitutional Amendment that stated: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on Account of sex. The Congress shall have the power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article." (Women's History, 2014, p.

1) Response 2 Women were placed in mental institutions in the last half of the 19th century merely for behaving outside of societal norms. Women could be declared insane for the smallest avarices such as a disagreement with their husband over child-rearing methods. There are famous cases of such treatment of women and some of these were reported by Dorothea Dix in 1841 when she volunteered to teach prison Sunday school and was appalled by the conditions she saw. Dix advocated for the mentally ill.

In a famous case of wrongful commitment of a woman whose husband Reverend Theophilus Packard claimed to be mentally ill. Elizabeth Parson and Revered Packard had six children. Elizabeth did not hold the Old School Calvinist beliefs of her husband and when she spoke out he had her committed for many years. Elizabeth was a moving force in bringing about changes to the treatment of women branded as mentally ill.

Response 3 Britain's first divorce law in its modern form granted women the right to separate from their husband and the right to keep the money they earned. British women won the right to vote in elections on the school board in 1870 and the first British woman to receive a bachelor's degree was in 1871 at the Sorbonne. Cambridge, the first women's college in Britain opened in 1873 and women gained the right in Italy to be witnesses in cases in court in 1877.

Frenchwomen were given the right to withdraw and deposit money without her husband present in 1881. British law granted women the right to be legal guardians for her children in 1886. However, the 'London Times' regularly "lumped together criminals, idiots, women and minors." (WW Norton & Company, nd, p.364) There is a difference in Marxism and socialism in that Marxism is defined as the theories of Karl Marx while socialism.