Years ago, before you and before me, 5,000 to 8,000 suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in their Victorian dresses, past the White House — and hundreds of thousands of onlookers. The cause of that was women's suffrage. Woman's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. U.S democracies began by permitting voting rights only to restricted, prerogative classes in the community. Over the course of a few years, suffrage was moderately widened, so that most present-day democracies allowed all adult citizens to vote. However, women were not allowed voting rights throughout the majority of history. Beginning in the 19th century, women sought to change voting laws to allow them to vote and organized a movement to fight for it. ("National Woman's Party, NWP.")
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How the fight for women's suffrage started.
This is not the first example of women acting to gain suffrage, however, it is the most well known. In 1839, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott joined the antislavery forces, she and Mott sympathized that the rights of women, as well as slaves, needed to be conveyed. In Stanton's hometown, Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19-20, 1848, they held a convention to discuss the issue of woman's rights where Stanton read a Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence. Reports state that Elizabeth Stanton then circulated a petition that led to a decree acknowledging the property rights of married women in New York. ("Woman suffrage.")
The National women's suffrage party is born.
In January 1869, Susan Anthony and Stanton created the National Woman's Suffrage Association. (National Women's Party, or NWP) The NWP often found itself at odds with other suffragists. Adhering to a policy that held the party in power responsible, Britannica states that the NWP denounced President Woodrow Wilson and all Democrats, regardless of the party's official position or any individual's personal stance on suffrage matters. The NWP also opposed WW1, though many women viewed the conflict as an opportunity to show their patriotism. According to the U.S national park service, when Wyoming was still a territory, legislators passed the Wyoming Suffrage Act of 1869. This act gave women in the territory the right to vote. Some wanted to bring more women to the sparsely populated territory. Others understood that women played an integral role in life on the frontier. As a result, some Wyoming legislators felt women should have a say in how the territory was run. As a result, when the territory became a state in 1890, women retained the right to vote. With the passage of the 19th Amendment to the constitution of the United States, women gained the right to vote in all U.S elections. ("National Woman's Party, NWP, May, Sue.")
The importance of women's suffrage
The woman's suffrage movement is important because it resulted in the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which finally allowed women the right to vote. In the aftermath of the Women's Suffrage Movement, women's economic roles increased in society. Since there were more educational opportunities for women, it led more and more women to sense their potential for meaningful and purposeful professional careers. Also, women's salaries increased but not to the amount that men received.
Works Cited
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 19 Feb. 2021. school.eb.com/levels/middle/article/Elizabeth-Cady-Stanton/277209. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
May, Sue. Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). Washington, National Geographic Partners, 2017.
"National Woman's Party (NWP)." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 Apr. 2009. school.eb.com/levels/middle/article/National-Womans-Party/125027. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
"Woman suffrage." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 19 Feb. 2021. school.eb.com/levels/middle/article/woman-suffrage/601308.
Notes: Although women have a lot more freedom than before, there are still inequalities that are not dissolved yet. For example, men have higher pay than women even though they have the same job. Women are yet still treated like pets to many men around the world today as well, often having to convince men they are not desirable in order to escape being raped. Here is an article that talks about those, and how to narrow the gender inequality: https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a15652/gender-inequality-stats/
