Dalia Saj
HIST 2112 – Section W2A
June 16, 2018
Essay 4
The Journey of Women and their Rights through History
Women have directly and indirectly played various roles in shaping the world to become how it has become by the end of the 20th century. Before the era of the suffragist and temperance movements, the liberties of women were restricted to their homes and to their families. Their roles were limited to sexual and household duties; otherwise, they were a distraction and seduction to men. Slowly, women began to realize their own potential and started to fight for the equality that they deserved in society. Throughout time, women gained more and more rights, and even though their journey is incomplete, the improvements in the status and roles of women in the 20th century society show their progress in becoming liberated and becoming equal in power, status, and wealth in comparison to men.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, women served one primary purpose – to become wives to husbands and their desires. “As long as they were subordinate to their husbands, sexually and otherwise,” women contributed to the peace and the prosperity of men while they worked hard to provide for the country. Women were just meant to be married, and they were meant to stay married. For women to even receive any sort of pension, she was to be married to her husband for at least five years, whereas the husband only needed to be married for three years (five years meant even more pension for him). Young women were expected to get a proposal by her mid-twenties, and if she did not get a proposal, she was supposed to “take steps to make herself more interesting and attractive.” The average age in which women were meant to be married dropped into the early and late teens. Women served as sexual mates to men, and to steer them clear of becoming homosexual.
After World War II, women began to have a slightly new role. People realized that “women [were able to] stand the shock and strain of an atomic explosion just as well as men.” Women began to have roles in the Cold War, including home nursing and nursing for the war, urging officials’ interests in civil defense, and train children in civil defense. This also brought along one more important purpose to a woman—to procreate. She was now not only a sexual pleasure and loyal wife for men, but was also meant to be a mother to as many children as was possible. She was to raise them to be useful to the future America. Not having a child was an insult to her marriage; children were known to represent a fruitful marriage and family life. Essentially, however, the woman’s role was still to make her home a protected and safe place to reside. Her primary interest was supposed to be “her husband, her home, and her children;” she still was not much more than a housewife.
The first time in which women finally received any sort of rights was also in the early 1900s. The world, and other women, were quick to see the oppression of women, and history allowed for a series of movements to ensure women’s freedom. For a long time, men were adamant that the “moral purity of women could be corrupted” by politics, and thus, insisted that they stay out of it. However, by 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed, and Wyoming became the first state that had allowed voting rights for women. Eventually, more and more states joined in on the suffrage movement, even though, along the way, many presidents and officials tried to fight or ignore the movement. Finally, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was passed, with Tennessee being the last of the states to approve the amendment. Women were now able to vote and be a part of politics, but they still had a long way to go.
Women also joined together for another cause – temperance, or reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption. By 1900, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union become the largest women’s group in nation. This group of women prayed and gathered in churches and later went to alcohol vendors in attempt to urge them to shut down their businesses. The organization was also focused on convincing others to remain abstinent in alcohol use, and later pushed the movement to completely ban alcohol. By 1913, they were able to get Congress’ approval on the amendment to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. Women had once again proved their ability to fight for and win what they fought for.
With the arrival of the 1920s era also came the arrival of the “new woman.” Recently having obtained the ability to vote, women also took the opportunity to become their own and establish their own identities. They started to wear shorter skirts, bobbed their hair, and wore plenty of makeup and jewelry. Called the “flappers,” these women looked for something beyond the roles of traditional marriage and motherhood, and allowed themselves to let loose of their restraints in the 1920s.
Although women were slowly starting to enjoy more freedoms and more rights, they were still faced with much discrimination and harassment in the workplace. To alleviate this, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which ensured that women and men received the same pay for doing the same job, was enforced. However, this did not changed much; women were still paid 42 percent less than men. However, Betty Friedan, a journalist responsible for starting the women’s movement, helped found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966, which brought attention to ending discrimination in the workplace and in obtaining more education opportunities for women. Their efforts were slowly but surely heeded, to by the 1970s, women started to gain positions in office at the local, state, and national levels, and more women were enrolled in graduate and professional programs than ever recorded.
Another purpose of NOW was to allow women to let go of was the “bondage of enforced maternity.” They were not to have any sort of birth control, regardless of her mental or physical health, her husband’s finances, or her family’s living conditions. They were to continue giving birth to kids for as long as possible, and as long as they were not dead, health was not an issue. From the continued efforts of NOW, this took a turn in 1960, with the FDA’s approval of the birth-control pill. Women got the opportunity finally revel in her own sexuality and her own family life, and had more control to her own body than ever before. In addition, the rebellious nature of the 1960s and 1970s time period also allowed for the improvement and development of the gay rights movements. More than 800 gay organizations were found throughout the country by 1973, homosexuality was stripped of its “mental illness” title, and colleges began to offer courses in “Gay/Queer Studies.” In both the male and female fight for freedom in sexuality, same-sex marriage was next in the fight. By the 21st century, this dream will also be made true, and men and women of same genders will be allowed to legally marry as per the Constitution.
Overall, as history shows, women have come a long way and have put in much effort to get to where they were in the 20th century. Although they have achieved the freedom to vote, to work in high positions, to get equal pay, and to choose roles outside of motherhood and marriage, they still have quite some way to go to defeat a few of the remaining racial inequalities and hidden injustices that they have to face in the 20th century and future societies. Nevertheless, the effort and progress of women till date show a promising and uphill future of improvements; it suggests that all freedoms, including social, political, working, personal, and racial freedoms, not just for women, but for mankind, are within reach in the future.