Women's Suffrage DBQ Essay

The campaign for women’s suffrage began in the earnest in the decades before the civil war. During 1820 through 1830 most states had extended the franchise to all white men, regardless of how much money or property they had. During this time period there were many reform groups for example, temperance club, religious movements and moral reform societies, anti slavery organizations and in many of this women played a prominent role.Women started to fight against the idea of “Cult of true Womanhood,” this idea was that only true woman was a pious submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. All this controversies leaded to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen in United states. The nineteenth

amendment was one of the most important turning points in history for the millions of women who fought for their rights to move. Before they had no self representation, unequal rights, and had no voice in politics. Which led to women fighting for equality and their right for their voices to be heard and their opinions to be expressed and heard just like men.
Women in the mid eighteenth hundreds had no self representation.

For example, women could not vote, they did not have the opportunity to go and elect a new president or agree or give their opinions about war or new laws being passed their husband were the one who had the right to go and vote. Women disagreed because they were able to work, but not make their voices count when it came to electing a president or other important activities. Many young women would leave home to work, yet the money they would earn was sent to their families. In many cases they sent the money because they were asked to. Migrant women in many cases were the ones who would most likely leave to the rural side of the city for better job opportunities. Migrants would work harder than the white women and earned the same or less salary and faced racism. Women were disqualified because of their subordinate traditional roles were incompatible with superordinate representative

roles.
Furthermore, The Industrial Revolution was marked by a transformation from the cottage industry, which kept men and women working within the home to an industry which necessitated their working in factories.

While women were traditionally relegated to the domestic sphere, suddenly they were introduced to the world of owning wages outside of their home and family. However, these women did not earn anywhere near the amount that their male counterparts did. family was altered completely because suddenly all members including children are working long days in the factory. Traditionally the factory owner/boss was a male, and the long days, harsh six day a week schedule, difficult physical demands, and system of bells that constantly dictated their actions, caused many husbands to feel as though their authority was being undermined. Particularly in England, this led to domestic violence and the devaluation of women at home, as their husbands fought to regain some semblance of power in their own lives. Additionally, as never before, alcoholism became a real problem for many men. The impact of course on women and children can be seen in those who could barely afford shelter and food after the household wages had been squandered on alcohol. Home life of course suffered as women were faced with the double burden of raising a family and working a full day at the factory. Besides having unfair wages females of different ethnicities faced severe working conditions. For example, African

Americans and Mexican immigrants worked in the most extreme factories, for instance they would work on the tabacco factories which were the hardest. Therefore female faced unequal pay and unfair hours of work as well as for children who would work many times to help out their family.
Political positions were rarely occupied by women. Women in general have been described as occupying minority group status and as lacking the bargaining resources on which power relationships are based on. According to the University of Delaware, “ Yet prior to 1920 there had been no constitutional bars to women’s participation as either elected representatives or appointed officials. Potentially women could occupy the role of representatives, but they seldom did. It was as if women were spontaneously disqualified because their subordinate traditional roles. Even after suffrage, women’s representative roles differed from men.” Some studies have shown that women lack the ambition to seek political office. The designation of women as a status-deprived class has been challenged by those who point out that women are also demographically diverse as not to share the characteristics binding minority groups such as blacks. Political voluntaryism and service and service are typical of women occupying traditional family-work roles and responding to traditional gender ideology.
Women fought for politics to a certain extent because, not all women believed in equality for the sexes. For example, women who upheld traditional gender roles argued that politics were improper for women. Some even insisted that voting might make women un lady like. The challenge to traditional roles represented by the struggle for political, economic, and social equality was as threatening to some women as it was for men.