Women's Rights Movement in the US

After the presentation and reading on the history of the women’s rights movement, I was shocked by how much women have shaped American history, yet their contributions are so often discredited or overlooked. It made me think about if women truly "have it better" and live easier lives than men.

The fight for women's rights in the U.S. has been a story of resilience. Abigail Adams urged her husband to "remember the ladies," but women were still confined to domestic roles under "Republican Motherhood" and the "Cult of Domesticity." After a few decades, the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention takes place, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two women who had very different views on the women's suffrage movement. Another woman present at the convention, Sojourner Truth, gave a speech titled "Ain’t I a Woman?" pushing for inclusion of the movement across race and class.

After the Civil War, the suffrage movement was divided over the 15th Amendment, which granted Black men the right to vote but excluded women. The fight for the 19th Amendment (1920) was a hard-won battle, but it didn’t end gender discrimination nor did it provide equal opportunities for men and women.

During WWI and WWII, women proved their capabilities in the workforce, only to be pushed back into traditional roles in the 1950s. The 1960s reignited activism with Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, the fight for birth control rights in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. But even today, challenges persist, regarding issues such as wage gaps, reproductive rights, and workplace discrimination.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade and movements like #MeToo are just two of many examples that highlight the ongoing inequalities we still face today. It is ironic that while advancements in technology and medicine continue to push society forward, issues of gender and race are regressing, leaving us to wonder where priorities lie for our voters and lawmakers.