The Suffrage Movement - Essay Example

The Suffrage Movement 2008 The Suffrage Movement "If we win it, this hardest of all fights, then, to be sure, in the future it is goingto be made easier for women all over the world to win in their fight when their time comes" - this famous statement made by Emmeline Pankhurst in one of the greatest speeches of the last century delivered in Hartford, Connecticut on November 13, 1913 reflected the spirit of those days when for the first time in history European and American women made an attempt to eliminate gender discrimination. As Pankhurst smartly observed in her statement, the importance of that first attempt was impossible to overestimate: this was the beginning of the irreversible transformation of relations between genders. No single explanation can be found for the origins of gender discrimination, but throughout history they have been considered physically, morally, and intellectually inferior to men. Early Greek and Roman laws treated women as children, forever inferior to men, unable to take care of themselves without men's control. The Christian tradition perpetuated Greek and Roman views on the natural inferiority of women. Thus St. Jerome, a 4th-century Latin father of the Christian church, said "Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object" while Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Christian theologian, reduced the role of women to reproduction only claiming woman was "created to be man's helpmeet, but her unique role is in conception . . . since for other purposes men would be better assisted by other men" (Frost et al, 1992, p.22). Given the influence of Christian tradition in both Europe and Americas, the inferior status of women became the unquestionable norm in social, political and economic life. Evidently, any attempt to change this norm would inevitable become an immensely difficult task, 'the hardest of all fights' as reasonably observed Emmeline Pankhurst. Throughout most of the modern history women always have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men, and were much more vulnerable to legal injustice. Wifehood and motherhood remained the only priorities for women who had practically no opportunity to take some other profession. Only in the last century women in most countries won the right to vote and partially changed traditional views concerning their role in society. This largely was the result of long and difficult struggle of feminist movements for the natural rights of women. The movement for women's rights was given the name of suffrage movement or suffragette. Originally this word was coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory term toward women's movement in the United Kingdom. Although this term was originally used in relation to the radical wing of the suffrage movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst (the Women's Social and Political Union) eventually its meaning became broader to include all members of the movement for women's rights. Members of the movement organized various actions such as chaining themselves to railings, hunger strikes, putting mailbox contents on fire, smashing windows and on occasions setting off bombs (Rover, 1967, p.5). Eventually, a substantial shortage of men during the First World War forced women to take tasks and roles that had been traditionally considered as men's, which led to further positive transformations of attitude toward women. As a result, in the aftermath of the war the Parliament of passed the Representation of the People Act 1918 that granted voting rights to women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of 5, and graduates of British universities. And it took only a decade for the UK women to obtain the same right as men (Rover, 1967). In the United Stated, women also initiated an organized campaign for equal status with men with Elizabeth Cady Stanton being the leading theoretician of the women's rights movement. Her famous book 'Woman's Bible', published in 1895 - 1898, criticized what Stanton called the male bias of the Bible: evidently, she understood the location of the origin of women's legal and social inferiority. In distinction from majority of her religious female colleagues, Stanton claimed that the sources of gender inequality lied in the organized religion, which should be abolished: otherwise women would fail to achieve real emancipation (Stanton, 1993). To achieve her goal Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her like-minded fellow Susan B. Anthony, a temperance and antislavery advocate, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in New York. Lucy Stone, another devoted fighter for rights of women organized the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Boston. Stanton's NWSA agitated for a woman-suffrage amendment to the Federal Constitution, while the AWSA supported the idea of separate suffrage amendments to each state constitution. After several years of separate work these two groups united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Lucy Stone was elected a chairman of the executive committee and Elizabeth Cady Stanton became the first president of the new organization (Frost, 1992). The NAWSA organized a campaign to popularize the idea of the vote for women. Women's dissatisfaction with the current situation could easily be understood: 14th and 15th Amendments finally granted citizenship and suffrage to another legally oppressed social group - Afro-Americans - while women denied it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, born in 1815, died in 1902, but her devoted followers continued their struggle. At the beginning of the 20th century, poor working conditions and long hours for female workers led to the wave of indignation. Male unions and employers kept female workers protected neither by law nor by strong unions out of better-paying jobs. Majority of working women were forced into low-paid industries such as garment-making, where sweatshop conditions prevailed (Baker, 2005). The famous Triangle Shirtwaist fire case convincingly demonstrated that American laws gave women absolutely no chance for justice. On March 25, 1911, the nine-stored factory that had no sprinklers, poor ventilation, and almost no usable emergency exits, except one that was closed to prevent female workers from going outside their working place, flamed out. The closed emergence exit caused death of 146 women. However, it took the male jury three weeks to acquit Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners of the company who were obviously responsible for conditions that caused death of more than hundred women, of the charge (The Triangle Shirtwaist, 1911). The case spurred the efforts of women organizations not only in New York but also throughout the country. Female labor leaders such as Leonora O'Reilly demanded " the vote for women so they could protect themselves by electing politicians who would pass laws to change the sweatshop conditions under which they worked" (The Triangle Shirtwaist, 1911). Politicians made an attempt to tame the outburst of anger by passing legislation that improved sweatshop conditions in the garment industry, but the public outrage was too strong. Working women continued their struggle until on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed in Congress granting "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex" (19th Amendment, 1920). Significance of the Amendment for American women could hardly be exaggerated, first of all in terms of psychology. Women realized that they represented a social force when the right to vote allowed them to administer the affairs of the state equally with men and promote their representatives to state and federal legislatures. Being the major landmark in the history of the US feminist movement, the 19th Amendment did not, however, end up women's oppression by law. Female politicians had no experience of lawmaking and were inconsiderable in number to pass laws that would protect women from discrimination. Male politicians dominated in all legislatures, and possessed too strong gender prejudices to support women efforts. Perhaps, it was the female suffrage that prevented women from understanding that their status improved insignificantly. The flare of enthusiasm made them forget, at least for a time, about many other gender disparities, and during the next four decades the movement for women's rights was frozen. Although the NAWSA and agencies that were supposed to protect rights of women remained, legal discrimination against women continued in many ways such as employment, women's status in the family, sexual and domestic violence, etc. In addition inferiority was so engrained in women's psychology that despite numerous gender inequities majority of American women lived their lives and accepted them happily. Welfare legislation and criminal laws demonstrated strong bias against women. Legal practice of many states envisaged different definitions of the same crime. Thus, a man who killed his wife was charged of the so-called 'passion shooting', but when a woman killed her spouse she was accused of manslaughter. Criminal law of Pennsylvania included a clause requiring maximum punishment for a woman accused of felony while punishment for men for the same crime might be less severe. Most states allowed abortion only upon the condition that there was a serious threat to mother's health, and only in 1973 the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade case that "the Texas abortion law violated the constitutional rights [of] women", which meant other states also could not deny women their right to choose whether abort pregnancy or not (Roe v. Wade: 1973, 2000). On the other hand, the suffrage movement was a genuine breakthrough that opened the door for further changes in the status of women. Although these changes occurred slowly, their importance could hardly be overestimated. Only during the period of 1960's, when the Human Rights movement opened up worldwide, women launched the second major crusade for total elimination of gender inequities. This time women required the law to state in writing that they did not have to endure these things all the things they had used to endure, and that they had the same rights as men in everything from working in big business to making decisions about marital status (Goldstein, 1989). The content of major acts granting women legal protection and numerous discrimination cases that were brought to British and American courts within the following three decades reflected the wide range of ways in which women were discriminated by law. References Baker, J. H., Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists, Hill and Wang, New York, 2005. Frost, Elizabeth, and Kathryn Cullen-DuPont. Women's Suffrage in America: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1992 Goldstein, L. F., The Constitutional Rights of Women, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, rev. ed., 1989 "Key Trials: Roe v. Wade", Thomson - Gale official web site retrieved November 9, 2003, from http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/whm/trials/roe.htm "The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial, 1911", retrieved August 16, 2008 from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/triangle/trianglefire.html Rover, C., Women's Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain, University of Toronto Press, 1967. Stanton, E. C., The Woman's Bible, Northeastern University Press; Boston, 1993 Read More