A History of Women's Rights

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Women have always been fighting for their rights for voting, the right to have an abortion, equal pay as men, being able to joined the armed forces just to name a few. The most notable women’s rights movement was headed in Seneca Falls, New York. The movement came to be known as the Seneca Falls convention and it was lead by women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton during July 19th and 20th in 1848. Stanton created this convention in New York because of a visit from Lucretia Mott from Boston. Mott was a Quaker who was an excellent public speaker, abolitionist and social reformer. She was a proponent of women’s rights. The meeting lasted for only two days and was compiled of six sessions, which included lectures on law, humorous presentations and discussions concerning women’s role in society. The convention was organized by a mostly radical group of Quakers while ironically their leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a non-Quaker skeptic. Stanton and her Quaker followers presented a document entitled the Declaration of Sentiments to the convention, which was accompanied by a list of resolutions that were to be debated by the members of the convention before it was signed. One hundred of the three hundred attendees of the Seneca Falls Convention signed the Declaration of Sentiments. The Seneca Falls Convention was merely a single step in the right direction for the women’s rights movement; it was seen as a revolution in which women were fighting desperately for equality to their male counterparts. The Declaration of Sentiments became a staple document in the women’s suffrage, as it was the first time that men and women came together to demand women’s right to vote. Women’s suffrage gained national attention due to the conventio...

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...r corporations. Women have taken governmental offices, senate seats, seats in the house and even the congress. We have even had a woman run for president and two different women have won for Vice President. Women have been secretaries of state; speakers of the house and even gubernatorial seats just to name a few. To quote the famous Bob Dylan song, “The Times They are a Changing.” For the better or for the worse has still yet to be determined but change for the United States of America is most definitely inevitable in today’s day and age.

Bibliography

• Mohr, James C. Abortion in America, The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900. 1978. Print.

• Colman, Penny. Elizabeth Cady Stanton And Susan B. Anthony, A Friendship That Changed The World. Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, 2011. Print.

• Karr, Justin. Women’s Rights. Greenhaven, 2007.

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