The Evolution of Women’s Rights Through American History Essay

As with any other society in history, women constituted a vital part of the population in British colonies in North America and, later, of the independent United States. Yet the recognition of their crucial role manifesting in the same social, economic, and political rights that men enjoyed was not quick to come. Throughout American history, women had to proclaim, assert, fight for, and defend their rights, using a broad array of methods available to them.

Finding and supporting intellectual foundations for their claims was always important in this struggle, which is why feminist goals and arguments always evolved with time. From the property-owning women of the late 18^th century to the proponents of the women’s liberation in the 1960s, women always succeeded in using the influential political theories of their time to eventually make feminist agenda a part of everyday American reality.

Women’s striving for social and political rights became clearly manifest in the young republic since the first years of its existence. As early as 1778, Hanna Lee Corbin asked her brother, a prominent Virginian revolutionary, why taxpaying women did not enjoy the same political rights as men.¹ The fact that Corbin expressed her goals in a private letter rather than a public petition indicates how unsure the early American feminists felt about asserting their rights.

Still, it made a valid argument in favor of women’s suffrage, since: according to the republican political theory of the time, voting rights belonged to economically independent taxpayers. The new United States Constitution did not recognize this argument – although the Declaration of Independence began with the premise of universal equality, the world “equal” did not appear in the Constitution before the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.²

Some of the early state constitutions, on the other hand, were more open-minded. In New Jersey, unmarried women meeting property qualifications could vote from 1776 to 1807.³ Thus, the early American feminists already successfully used political theory to advance their cause.

While the early successes of American feminism were local, a national movement for women’s rights soon emerged as well. In 1848, prominent feminists organized the first national convention for women’s rights in Seneca Falls, NY, to discuss “the rights, roles, and relations of women and men.”⁴ While there were organizations and events dedicated to the women’s rights both before and after Seneca Falls, the convention signaled the beginning of a formal women’s rights movement on a national stage.

It adopted a Declaration of Sentiments to assert women’s dedication to achieving equality with men and modeled it after the Declaration of Independence – yet another example of well-crafted political rhetoric designed with references to the values shared by most of the nation.

As time marched on, the methods employed by women in the struggle for their rights became more decisive. The earliest proponents of female suffrage, such as Corbin, expressed their wishes in private, and while Seneca Falls Convention was undoubtedly a public event, it was still overshadowed by the national debate on slavery.

The feminists of the early 20^th century, on the other hand, adopted a more energetic and militant approach to the pursuit of their goals. Whether participating in the temperance movement, establishing and maintaining settlement houses, or marching on the cities’ streets, the women struggling for their rights often occupied the forefront of the nation’s attention.

It is no coincidence that “saloon-smashing temperance crusaders [and] marching suffragettes” of the early 20^th century are among the first images that come to mind when discussing the history of women’s rights in the USA.⁵ The 19^th century laid down the groundwork for the future advances, but it was the more militant first wave of feminism that eventually won female suffrage in the Nineteenth Amendment.

Several decades after achieving the long-sought voting rights, women’s movement emerged with renewed vigor and energy in the 1960s and 1970s. If the first wave of feminism managed to make suffrage a prominent political concern, the second wave was even more far-reaching and left an impact on every aspect of private and public life.⁶

It also continued the tradition of using advances in political theory to support women’s cause. On the one hand, the National Organization for Women (NOW) adhered to liberal feminism and sought to improve women’s status within the existing social, legal, and political framework. On the other hand, the more radical movement for women’s liberation aimed for structural changes and was skeptical about conventional politics as the means of achieving them.⁷

Just as NOW was based on the centuries-old tradition of American liberalism, women’s liberation, with its focus on raising gender consciousness, came from the New Left and bore some similarities to Marxist political theory – at least in language and concepts, if not always goals. To summarize, while liberal feminism continued the old tradition of seeking legal equality, the notions of women’s liberation sought to challenge the cultural foundations of this inequality as well.

With the passing of time and thanks to the women’s restless effort in promoting their cause, many considerable accomplishments of the second-wave feminism have already become a part of everyday American life. The struggle for legalized abortions was one of the central elements of the second wave’s agenda, and now their legality throughout the USA is a matter of fact and a part of the normal legal landscape.⁸

Institutionalized discrimination is far from being done with, but there is a general belief that it constitutes a problem to be addressed rather than a norm.⁹ Just as the voting rights were normalcy rather than a privilege for the women of the 1960s, the reproductive and social rights won by the second-wave feminism have already become a part of the everyday American life rather than the groundbreaking advances they were several decades ago.

As one can see, the US movement for women’s rights spans through the entire history of this nation and has always spearheaded its cause with skillful use of influential political theories of the time. As early as the 1770s, female Americans aspired for suffrage and pointed out that property-owning taxpaying women had as much right to vote as their male counterparts.

The Seneca Falls Convention, with its Declaration of Sentiments, signaled the beginning of the formal and organized struggle and provided a rallying cry for women on the national level. The first wave of feminism, with its more public and militant approach, eventually succeeded in winning female suffrage by 1920.

The second wave followed it several decades after, this time focusing on socio-economic and reproductive rather than political rights and contrasting the traditional liberal feminism with the leftist movement for women’s liberation. By the end of the 20^th century, many achievements of second-wave feminism, such as the right to abortion or affirmative action, are already firmly integrated into mainstream American life, and what was a groundbreaking achievement earlier now constitutes a part of everyday life.

Bibliography

Baxandall, Rosalyn, and Linda Gordon. “Second-Wave feminism.” In A Companion to American Women’s History, edited by Nancy E. Hewitt, 414-432. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

Delegard, Kirsten. “Women’s Movements, 1880s-1920s.” In A Companion to American Women’s History, edited by Nancy E. Hewitt, 328-347. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

Hewitt, Nancy A. “Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in the Antebellum Era.” In A Companion to American Women’s History, edited by Nancy E. Hewitt, 117-131. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

Lewis, Jan E. “A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution.” In A Companion to American Women’s History, edited by Nancy E. Hewitt, 83-99. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

McBride, Dorothy E., and Janine A. Perry. Women’s Rights in the USA: Policy Debates and Gender Roles. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Reger, Jo. “Contemporary Feminism and Beyond.” In The Oxford Handbook of US Women’s Social Movement Activism, ed. Holly J. McCammon, V. Taylor, J. Reger, and R. L. Einwohner, 109-119. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2017.

Footnotes

1. Jan E. Lewis, “A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution,” in A Companion to American Women’s History, ed. Nancy E. Hewitt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 88.
2. Dorothy E. McBride, and Janine A. Perry, Women’s Rights in the USA: Policy Debates and Gender Roles (New York: Routledge, 2016), 22.
3. Lewis, “Revolution,” 88.
4. Nancy A. Hewitt, “Religion, Reform, and Radicalism in the Antebellum Era,” in A Companion to American Women’s History, ed. Nancy E. Hewitt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 124.
5. Kirsten Delegard, “Women’s Movements, 1880s-1920s,” in A Companion to American Women’s History, ed. Nancy E. Hewitt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 328.
6. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, “Second-Wave feminism,” in A Companion to American Women’s History, ed. Nancy E. Hewitt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 414.
7. Baxandall and Gordon, “Second-Wave,” 417.
8. Jo Reger, “Contemporary Feminism and Beyond,” in The Oxford Handbook of US Women’s Social Movement Activism, ed. Holly J. McCammon, V. Taylor, J. Reger, and R. L. Einwohner (New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2017), 109.
9. Reger, “Contemporary,” 109.