Feminism: The Women's Suffrage Movement

Feminism is a political movement that seeks equality between the sexes. Motivated by the search for social justice, feminist analysis provides a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, economic, and political ideologies. Important topics for feminist politics and theory include: the body, class and work, family life, globalization, human rights, popular culture, race and racism, reproduction, sex work, human trafficking, and sexuality. From early beginnings, to its current state, feminism has been a pervasive movement that has incited social, political and economic change and advancements. Generationally speaking, over the decades feminism has taken on many different meanings. Feminism has become a spectrum; each generation, or wave,

This movement was the flagship of progressivism in future feminist waves. This time in history was known as the Progressive Era. Women in this time-period began to demand to be recognized as people rather than property or secondary citizens. During the 1820’s and 1830’s, average married females gave birth to multiple children. Higher education was off-limits. Wealthier women could exercise limited authority on the home front, but possessed no property rights or economic autonomy. Lower-class women labored alongside men, but the same social and legal restrictions applied to this division of society as well. The suffrage movement gained prominence with the first women’s rights convention in the world: the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. This convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After Two Days of discussion, sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlined the grievances and set the agenda for the women’s rights movement. A set of twelve solutions was adapted, calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law. It also prompted for women to have voting rights. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1851, Stanton was introduced to Susan B. Anthony, who was active in the Temperance Movement at the time. The collaboration between these two was quintessential in the fight for obtaining suffrage. They formed the Women’s National Loyal League in 1863 to support the 13th Amendment in the United States Constitution. This Amendment was to abolish slavery and campaigned for full citizenship for African American’s and