Women's history: key events and perspectives

Women's History

Throughout the history of Western civilization, cultural beliefs allowed women only limited roles in society, such as mothers and wives, and it was believed that women were intellectually inferior to men (Women's pp). Women shared the same disadvantages with the majority of working class men, since many social, economic, and political rights were restricted to the wealthy elite (Women's pp). During the late eighteenth century, political theorists and philosophers asserted that all men were created equal and thus entitled to equal treatment under the law, and when in the nineteenth century, governments in Europe and North America began drafting new laws guaranteeing equality among men, large numbers of women began demanding equal rights as well (Women's pp). However, this was also during the Industrial Revolution which tended to further divide the roles of men and women, since more men worked outside the home in factories, the rightful place for women was in the home (Women's pp).

Organized efforts by women to achieve greater rights came in two major waves (Women's pp). The first began around the mid-nineteenth century when women in the United States and elsewhere campaigned to gain suffrage, the right to vote, and lasted until the 1920's when several countries granted women suffrage (Women's pp). The second wave gained momentum during the civil rights movement of the 1960's, when the struggle by African-Americans to achieve racial equality inspired women to renew their own struggle for equality (Women's pp).

During the nineteenth century, most married women in Europe and America still had no legal identity apart from their husbands (Women's pp). Known as coverture, this legal status barred a married woman from "being a party in a lawsuit, sitting on a jury, holding property in her own name, or writing a will," and courts routinely granted permanent custody of children to the father during custody disputes (Women's pp). Moreover, women were denied access to a decent education, and public speaking was condemned as an "unnatural character" for a woman (Women's pp).

At the first women's rights convention, held in 1948, the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was written declaring that men and women were created equal and that like men, women were born with certain natural rights, and criticized men denying women the right to vote, hold property, have custody of children, have access to higher education, the professions, and "nearly all the profitable employments," and it criticized the church for excluding women from the ministry (Women's pp).

State and federal laws that discriminated against women posed some of the most challenging obstacles to securing rights, thus the focus of the early campaigns concerned gaining property rights for women (Women's pp). In the mid-nineteenth century, states began to gradually grant married women greater control over property, and in 1948, New York passed the Married Women's Property Act, allowing women to acquire and retain assets independently of their husbands, and eventually other states followed (Women's pp).

Women led legislative efforts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to ensure their rights (Women's pp). The 14th Amendment in 1866 provided all citizens equal protection under the law and no citizen could be denied due process of law (Women's pp). The 15th Amendment, passed in 1870 declared that citizens could not be denied the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous status as a slave (Women's pp). Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and other activists "argued that the 14th Amendment conferred on women constitutional equality and the right of full citizenship ... And insisted that it be expanded to guarantee suffrage to women" (Women's pp). In 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed an focused almost exclusively on gaining women's voting rights (Women's pp).

In 1920, the 19th Amendment finally granted women the right to vote (Women's pp).

By the late nineteenth century, the number of women working in the professions and participating in an active role in social life was increasing (Liberation pp). Large numbers of women began working outside the home in textile mills and garment shops, where they working in poorly ventilated, crowded rooms, for twelve hours a day (History pp). In 1899, the National Consumer's League was formed and in 1903, the Women's Trade Union League was founded, which spearheaded efforts to limit the work hours of women and the types of work they could perform (Women's pp). By 1908, states had passed some nineteen laws limiting work hours and abolishing night work for women (Women's pp).