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... and court cases pushed by women's organizations. But many of the advances women achieved in the 1960 s and ' 70 s were personal: getting husbands to help with the housework or regularly take responsibility for family meals getting a long-deserved promotion at work gaining the financial and emotional strength to leave an abusive partner. The Equal Rights Amendment Is Re-Introduced Then, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment, which had languished in Congress for almost fifty years, was finally passed and sent to the states for ratification. The wording of the ERA was simple: 'Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. ' To many women's rights activists, its ratification by the required thirty-eight states seemed almost a shoo-in. The campaign for state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment provided the opportunity for millions of women across the nation to become actively involved in the Women's Rights Movement in their own communities.
Unlike so many other issues which were battled-out in Congress or through the courts, this issue came to each state to decide individually. Women's organizations of every stripe organized their members to help raise money and generate public support for the ERA. Marches were staged in key states that brought out hundreds of thousands of supporters. House meetings, walk-a-thon's, door-to-door canvassing, and events of every imaginable kind were held by ordinary women, many of whom had never done anything political in their lives before. Generous checks and single dollar bills poured into the campaign headquarters, and the ranks of NOW and other women's rights organizations swelled to historic sizes. Every women's magazine and most general interest publications had st!
orie's on the implications of the ERA, and the progress of the ratification campaign. But Elizabeth Cady Stanton proved prophetic once again. Remember her prediction that the movement should 'anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule'? Opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, organized by Phyllis Schlafly, feared that a statement like the ERA in the Constitution would give the government too much control over our personal lives. They charged that passage of the ERA would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets, gay marriages, and women being drafted. And the media, purportedly in the interest of balanced reporting, gave equal weight to these deceptive arguments just as they had when the possibility of women winning voting rights was being debated.
And, just like had happened with woman suffrage, there were still very few women in state legislatures to vote their support, so male legislators once again had it in their power to decide if women should have equal rights. When the deadline for ratification came in 198! 2, the ERA was just three states short of the 38 needed to write it into the U. S. constitution. Seventy-five percent of the women legislators in those three pivotal states supported the ERA, but only 46 % of the men voted to ratify. Despite polls consistently showing a large majority of the population supporting the ERA, it was considered by many politicians to be just too controversial.
Historically speaking, most if not all the issues of the women's rights movement have been highly controversial when they were first voiced. Allowing women to go to college? That would shrink their reproductive organs! Employ women in jobs for pay outside their homes? That would destroy families!
Cast votes in national elections? Why should they bother themselves with such matters? Participate in sports? No lady would ever want to perspire! These and other issues that were once considered scandalous and unthinkable are now almost universally accepted in this country.
More Complex Issues Surface Significant progress has been made regarding the topics discussed at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. The people attending that landmark discussion would not even have imagined the issues of the Women's Rights Movement in the 1990 s. Much of the discussion has moved beyond the issue of equal rights and into territory that is controversial, even among feminists. To name a few: Women's reproductive rights. Whether or not women can terminate pregnancies is still controversial twenty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade affirmed women's choice during the first two trimesters.
Women's enrollment in military academies and service in active combat. Are these desirable? Women in leadership roles in religious worship. Controversial for some, natural for others. Affirmative action. Is help in making up for past discrimination appropriate?
Do qualified women now face a level playing field? The mommy track. Should businesses accommodate women's family responsibilities, or should women compete evenly for advancement with men, most of whom still assume fewer family obligations? Pornography. Is it degrading, even dangerous, to women, or is it simply a free speech issue? Sexual harassment.
Just where does flirting leave off and harassment begin? Surrogate motherhood. Is it simply the free right of a woman to hire out her womb for this service? Social Security benefits allocated equally for homemakers and their working spouses, to keep surviving wives from poverty as widows.
Today, young women proudly calling themselves 'the third wave' are confronting these and other thorny issues. While many women may still be hesitant to call themselves 'feminist' because of the ever-present backlash, few would give up the legacy of personal freedoms and expanded opportunities women have won over the last 150 years. Whatever choices we make for our own lives, most of us envision a world for our daughters, nieces and granddaughters where all girls and women will have the opportunity to develop their unique skills and talents and pursue their dreams. 1998: Living the Legacy In the 150 years since that first, landmark Women's Rights Convention, women have made clear progress in the areas addressed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her revolutionary Declaration of Sentiments. Not only have women won the right to vote we are being elected to public office at all levels of government. Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, in 1916.
By 1971, three generations later, women were still less than three percent of our congressional representatives. Today women hold only 11 % of the seats in Congress, and 21 % of the state legislative seats. Yet, in the face of such small numbers, women have successfully changed thousands of local, state, and federal laws that had limited women's legal status and social roles. In the world of work, large numbers of women have entered the professions, the trades, and businesses of every kind. We have opened the ranks of the clergy, the military, the newsroom. More than three million women now work in occupations considered 'nontraditional' until very recently.
We " ve accomplished so much, yet a lot still remains to be done. Substantial barriers to the full equality of America's women still remain before our freedom as a Nation can be called complete.
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Research essay sample on Living The Legacy Womens Rights Movement 1848 1998
