Timeline on Gendered Movements Dating From 1700\'s to Current Century

Women's Timeline

Women's Movement Timeline

The following paragraphs describe eight incredible women who lived from the 1700's through the present. This paper also includes a timeline to better place into perspective these women's incredible effort and their success at initiating change and giving women first, a voice, then, rights equal to those of men.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

In 1792, Wollstonecraft published the most important piece relating to women's rights, a pamphlet entitled Vindication on the Rights of Women. This work advocated equality of the sexes, and elaborated upon what was later to become the central idea of the Women's Movement across Europe and America. According to scholars, Wollstonecraft "ridiculed prevailing notions about women as helpless, charming adornments in the household" and instead suggested the women should be educated and not be slavish dependents of their husbands. In fact, Wollstonecraft was one of the first women to advocate women's education above everything as a means and a path towards establishing a balanced society.

Source: "Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797." Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797. Web. 29 May 2012. .

2. Martha Moore Ballard (1735-1812)

Martha Ballard, the first American to be written about here, lived predominantly in the 18th century in what is now the state of Maine. Ballard's most important contribution to the life of women and the generations that would follow and that would start the women's movement, was her diary, through which she described and categorized daily events not only in her life, but also in the field of medicine. As Ballard was a midwife, she knew this field well, and it is due to her foresight and her discipline as a writer that we can today learn about her life as a women in this field in the earliest days of America.

Source: "Who Was Martha Ballard?" Who Was Martha Ballard? Web. 29 May 2012. .

3. Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814)

Mercy Otis Warren was one of the women who, during the American revolution and thereafter, utilized her position in society in order to advocate for women's education. She was encouraged by her own father to learn more than what was prescribed for her 'sex' at the time. Warren became an advisor to John Adams, and influenced many other early American politicians with her writing and conversations. Researchers state that Warren "continued to write and publish [throughout her life], and in 1790, her collection of Poems: Dramatic and Miscellaneous was published in Boston. In 1805, her History of the... American Revolution was published in Boston." Warren is yet another woman in early American history whose valuable input helps us understand this time so well today.

Source: "American Revolution: Mercy Otis Warren." ThinkQuest. Oracle Foundation. Web. 29 May 2012. .

4. Angelina Grimke (1805-1879)

Grimke was an abolitionist and a very early Southern feminist activist. She was "famous for her path-breaking speaking tour of 1837-1838," according to research, in which she truly believed as an abolitionist and as a Southerner who was among the few privileged and the even fewer women who spoke against slavery. The story of Grimke's participation in this movement starts with her enlistment in the abolitionist movement in 1835 "by writing a letter to William Lloyd Garrison, which he printed in the Liberator. As a southern woman and the daughter of a slave-owning judge, Grimke provided the recently formed American Anti-Slavery Society with a headline-grabbing new member."

Source: "Angelina Grimke in Women's Movements." Women's Movements. Web. 29 May 2012. .

5. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

This fantastic woman is without a doubt the true founder of the women's movement in the 19th century, in America. Her ideas, however, just as Wollstonecraft's a century before, spread to many countries and the movement became truly global in the 20th century. Stanton worked primarily with Lucretia Mott, another early suffragette, to attain equal rights for women, and the two partners went on to organize the Seneca Falls Convention, which was the first women's rights convention ever organized, and which was attended by a numerous number of women.

Source: "Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Women's Movements." Women's Movements. Web. 29 May 2012. .

6. Simone de Beauvoir

A French philosopher and commentator on the rights of women, de Beauvoir's work is truly priceless in helping society understand the struggles of life for her gender during the years preceding the American Women's Revolution and the Swiss agreement to give the women the right to vote, both towards the mid 20th century. The citation, given below, exemplifies the above:

"There are some thinkers who are, from the very beginning, unambiguously identified as philosophers (e.g., Plato). There are others whose philosophical place is forever contested (e.g., Nietzsche); and there are those who have gradually won the right to be admitted into the philosophical fold. Simone de Beauvoir is one of these belatedly acknowledged philosophers."

Source: Simone De Beauvoir." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Web. 29 May 2012. .

7. Betty Friedan