Women's Suffrage - Case Study Example

While researching tests that had been written previously, about women suffrage, it come to my realization that, a few who published texts or books about the literature of women suffrage, particularly newspapers, bronchus, gender journals. These authors only based their discussion on the impacts of women suffrage, its social impacts. However I while these authors majored their discussions on the above topics, I could not find much about the history of women suffrage neither could I find any information or rather their arguments against women suffrage. It is against these back drops that I want to bring to your attention the historical background of women suffrage, and finally deal with the missing link, argument against women suffrage. To achieve this objective, I have arranged my paper, into two main parts, in the first part, I have discussed broadly about the history of human suffrage, and then on the last part, I have considered the arguments against, women suffrage. To begin with I need to provide, the historical background of women suffrage, and it is to this that I now start with Historical Background In 1776 Abigail Adams had written to her husband John Adams to ask him to remember ladies when they wrote the new laws. But the next year women lost the right to vote in New York. Three years later women lost their rights of vote in Massachusetts. And In 1784 women also lost their rights voting in New Hampshire. “Three years later voting qualifications were placed in the hands of the states by the U.S. Constitutional Convention, and women lost the right to vote in all states but New Jersey. Women lost their rights of voting in New Jersey in the year 1807” (Timeline of Womens Suffrage in the United States 2012). Anti-slavery associations were formed in the early 1830’s. In 1836 Angelina Grimke appealed to southern women by speaking out against slavery. And the Pastoral Letter of General Association of Massachusetts to Congressional Churches Under Their Care were put into operation against women speaking about slavery in a negative way in a public place (Liddington 1978). In 1840 a World Anti-Slavery Convention was held in London but women were prohibited from being a part due to their sex. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the Equal Voting Rights at the first Women’s Rights Convention held in the Seneca Fall, in New York in 1848. Another Women’s Rights Convention was held two years later in Salem, Ohio. That same year the first National Women’s Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1861 in Albany, New York the Women Rights Convention campaign for a liberalized divorce bill that gets shut down. During the Civil War women stop their suffrage duties to help with the war. In 1867 Susan B. Anthony forms an Equal Rights Association that will work for universal suffrage after Kansas campaigned for black and women suffrage but got shot down. “The fourteenth amendment was passed that same year defining U.S. citizens as being a male” (Liddington 1978). The fifteenth amendment was passed in the year 1868, giving voting rights to black males. Women try to be included but again are turned down for the right to vote. In New England Women’s Suffrage Association was formed that same year and 172 women tried to vote in New Jersey but every single ballot was ignored. The National Women’s Suffrage Association was formed in May of 1869 with Elizabeth Cady Santon as the president (DuBois 1978). In November the American Woman Suffrage Association was formed and Henry Ward Beecher was the president. The first woman since 1807 was granted suffrage in Wyoming territory. In Massachusetts in 1870 the Grimke sisters and forty two other women tried to vote and their ballots were accepted but their votes were ignored. That same year woman suffrage was granted in Utah territory, but was later revoked in 1887. An Anti-Suffrage Society was formed in 1871, a year later Susan B. Anthony and her supporters were arrested for trying to vote. Susan B. Anthony’s bail was set at one thousand dollars. In 1773 she was denied a trial by jury and fined one hundred dollars plus the costs of everything. A Suffrage demonstration was held that same year at the Centennial of the Boston Tea Party. In 1874 there was a protest at the commemoration of the battle of Lexington, and Women’s Christian Temperance Union was formed. In Philadelphia on July 4, 1876 Susan B. Anthony read the Declaration for the Rights of Women in front of the Liberty Bell, and later on the suffragists met in the First Unitarian Church. Two years later the amendments for Women’s Suffrage was introduced to the U.S. Congress. “In 1886 women fight to be included in the dedication ceremonies for the Statue of Liberty” (DuBois, 1978). That same year the amendment for Women’s Suffrage reached the U.S. Senate floor but lost two to one. In 1890 the National Women’s Suffrage Association joined with the American Women’s Suffrage Association to create the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. Colorado men vote for women suffrage in 1893 after an amazing campaign was led by Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1894 in New York women obtain 600,000 signatures of people for women’s suffrage but the petition was still ignored. Utah grants women’s suffrage once again in 1895, and the next year Idaho gains women suffrage. In 1900 Carrie Chapman Catt is put in full leadership of National American Women Suffrage Association. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s daughter Harriet Stanton Blatch formed Equality League of the Self Supporting Women in 1907, and became the Women’s Political Union three years later. That same year Washington gives suffrage to women., and the next year women gain suffrage in California. In 1912 women gain suffrage in Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas. The next year a Women’s Suffrage parade was mobbed leaving hundreds of women hurt but no arrests were made. Alaska grants women’s suffrage and Illinois grants municipal and presidential suffrage that same year (DuBois 1978). The National Women’s Party was formed in 1916 by a woman named Alice Paul and a few others that had broken away from the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. In January of 1917 the National Women’s Party posted silent Sentinels of Liberty at the White House. In June of that same year around five hundred women were arrested and one hundred sixty-eight women were made to serve time in jail. Women’s suffrage was granted that year to New York, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. Presidential suffrage was granted to North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, and Michigan. In 1918 the women that were put in jail the previous year were released, with the arrests having been deemed illegal and President Woodrow Wilson made it public knowledge that he was totally for women’s suffrage. The Watchfire for Freedom was lit and guarded by the National Women’s Party in 1919 and is kept going until June 4 when the Suffrage Amendment passed the U.S. Senate. The battle for ratification by around thirty-six states began that same year. Finally in 1920 the nineteenth amendment, also called Susan B. Anthony Amendment, ratified by the Tennessee on August 18 and then became a law eight days later. Some critics argued that because women already had municipal vote, and were eligible for membership of many local authorities. Dealing with questions of care of children, workhouses , housing, education, and many others, all of which were uniquely within the sphere of woman. Parliament, however, had to deal chiefly with the running of a vast Empire, such as maintenance of Navy and Army, and other questions of war and peace, lying considered to be lying outside legitimate sphere of the influence of woman. To some extent some do concur with this argument however according to me, women would be included in such legitimate, as you never know, women are there who have shown much power in legitimate tasks than their male counterparts Some anti-gender equity personnel went ahead to claim that since the attainment of Parliamentary vote would rationally involve admission to the Parliament itself, and all Government offices. It is against this that they claimed that it was not quite possible to “imagine” just a woman being Minister for masculine things like War, and hitherto the principles of these Suffragettes take in that and many analogous absurdities. Women themselves had no intentions of voting or attaining the legitimate post in the Government. Although previous research has shown that some women wanted to at least have a say in their ruler, I do not think that it even crossed most women’s minds until it was brought by one woman, believed to be Abigail Adams. Women would have done just fine with how things were without having the right to vote. They just had to stay at the house and cook , clean,, and then take care of children. And a lot of women thought that was just fine with the men being in charge of doing the work; bring the money home and many other responsibilities. But that did not seem to be adequate for some women; it is against these that anti-suffrage women, such as Abigail Adams come up. Although many men at that time claimed that women could not vote since they considered themselves fit and capable of making a sound decision for their women, they failed to realize that women can some-times make decisions more sound than them, Women must have thought that they needed to make their own decisions but I believe that the men were better of doing that themselves (Knappman 1992). Women had it so easy because all they had to do was take care of things inside the house. Like chores I guess you could call them. Many people would disagree with that but there are many people who feel men should still have all the say, to add salt to injury this heinous believes still remains dominant in some key countries . “Some people might be acquainted with a false believe that women feel that there is need for competition against their male counterparts, call it battle of the sexes, this is mainly because they need to feel the sense of equity” (Knappman 1992. Unfortunately with most women that is usually not the case. Yes they want to be looked at as equals but really what is equal about the two sexes? Well, some would claim from the biblical point of view that God created all human being equal, but the reality of the matter is that we are unique and are so different in very many ways that there exists really no point in having the argument of needing to be treated as equals, although due to economic, social developments, there is a need to emulate the Idea of gender Equity. So to conclude with, most conclusive ones at that time, concluded that women bodies were very delicate and thus required a lot of care and respect, therefore, “since the government rests solely on force, something which they had concluded that women are not able to put into effect” (Hill 2006), although most people would find this fact rather appealing more so the women, well, to some extent. But women we agree that women are much more than this delicate thing that needs to be handled with care. Women are something that most males are not able to even begin to understand, they are so complex with the way they act and think and are made its unreal. Works Cited "Timeline of Womens Suffrage in the United States." Timeline of the Womens Suffrage in United States. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. . “Arguments Against A Women’s Suffrage.” Arguments against Women’s Suffrage. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. DuBois, E. C. (1978). the Feminism and suffrage: emergence of the independent womens movement in America, 1848-1869. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hill, J. (2006). Womens suffrage. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, Inc.. Liddington, J., & Norris, J. (1978). One hand tied behind us: e rise of the womens suffrage movement. London: Virago. Knappman, E., & DuPont, K. (1992). Womens suffrage in America: an eyewitness history. New York: Facts on File. Read More