Woman Suffrage and Woman\'s Rights

Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Amelia Bloomer were all instrumental in shifting the status of women in American society. Their writings reveal the personalities, assumptions, and values of the authors. Each of these women took incredible personal risks by challenging the underlying assumptions in the society that women were not valid, valuable members of society. The place of women in American society prior to suffrage was no better than domestic servitude. Anthony forever aligns herself with the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., by using the technique civil disobedience to achieve social justice. Each of these women recognized the connection between slavery of African-Americans and slavery of women. They each fought for abolition as well as suffrage, and therefore understood that women's rights were human rights.

When Anthony, Stanton, and Bloomer fought for equality, they did so in a time when more than fifty percent of the population was denied civil rights. They each saw clearly the problem with not upholding the values of the Constitution, as each of these activists draw from American history to prove their point. Anthony, for example, spoke on behalf of freedom and liberty when she stated, "I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny," ("On Women's Right to Vote," 1872). Bloomer (1895) expressed similar sentiments. As with Anthony, Bloomer stated that it is impossible to be an American while denying females the right to participate in the political process. "No one who claims to be a republican or lover of freedom at heart can dispute these positions. They are in substance the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and they form the common basis upon which our national and state governments rest," (Bloomer, 1895). Likewise, Stanton pointed out that the core values of American politics and society were being thwarted by sexism. When Stanton (1898) called for " Liberty to all; national protection for every citizen under our flag; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty," she spoke on behalf of all the oppressed citizens of the United States -- as she was also an abolitionist. Anthony, Stanton, and Bloomer understood that civil disobedience was necessary in order to create a more perfect union.

Based on their ability to organize and coordinate meaningful political action, Anthony, Stanton, and Bloomer understood the American political process even while they were systematically and formally excluded from it. It was not enough for Anthony to disobey the law by voting, for example. If she only did that, she might not make a strong enough statement that would lead to massive and meaningful social and political change. Anthony understood that she had to garner support for her position by organizing large groups of people, both men and women. She needed to transform the values and norms of society. Likewise, Bloomer's work shows a desire to transform social norms as well as the political process. Bloomer's writing shows that she understood how women have been systematically oppressed. The inability to vote was just a symptom of that oppression. In any endeavor, women were belittled and treated like children. "It is not a great many years since women sculptors were unknown, because woman's talent was not encouraged," (Bloomer, 1895). Their views on marriage show that these three women sought genuine equality in all spheres of life. For example, Stanton (1898) states that marriage means "mutual help and happiness and for the development of all that is noblest in each other." She advocates the ability for a woman to extricate herself from a marriage that does not accomplish noble goals.

Anthony, Bloomer, and Stanton understood the power of linking their cause with that of abolitionism, too. Their belief system was simple: the American constitution guarantees liberty and justice for all people. The constitution bars the creation of elite classes or groups of people. Using the constitution as a foundation for their argument, Stanton, Anthony, and Bloomer show that it is not possible to simultaneously believe in the validity of the Constitution and also believe that women and people of color are exempt from rule of law.