WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

As the United States approached the age of industrial expansion in the 1800s, an increased awareness of social problems began to arise. Advocacy groups rallied for the abolition of slavery, reform in mental institutions and prisons, and equal rights for women. While these social issues gained attention, the roles of men and women began to change. The industrial age brought about a shift in family life as more married men worked in factories, which kept them away from home for 10 to 12 hours each day. Because women could not own property and were not allowed equal access to education and employment as were men, a married woman's life was limited to staying home and caring for the children, tending to household chores, and working at menial jobs. Single women were allowed to work in factories, but their wages were only half that of their male counterparts.

The movement toward equal rights was lead by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) who was born in 1815 in Johnstown, New York. Cady Stanton and her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton, a lawyer and abolitionist, attended the World Antislavery Conference in London, England, where they met other reformists such as Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), a Hicksite Quaker. The women, however, were not allowed to participate in the conference because they were female. On July 19–20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, the two women organized the first public political meeting in the United States that focused on women's rights. The meeting was attended by 240 people, 40 of them men. The Seneca Falls Convention focused on the "Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments," which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. The document was written by Cady Stanton, Mott, Martha Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt; it included a detailed list of female oppression by men, specifically citing depriving women of the rights to vote, to own property, and to equal employment and education. The "Resolutions" included in the "Declaration of Sentiments" were approved.

In 1865 the Fourteenth Amendment was introduced to Congress which allowed African American males the right to vote but specifically excluded females. Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony 1820–1906), who began campaigning for women's rights with Cady Stanton in 1951, reviewed an early draft of the proposal and took issue with the term "male citizen" which had never been used before in the U.S. Constitution. While they were sympathetic to the fact that former slaves needed this ballot to protect their rights, Cady Stanton and Anthony did not support it. Despite their opposition, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in July 1868.

Over the next 20 years additional women's rights groups were formed and some success was attained at local levels. In 1870 women were given the right of citizenship in the Wyoming and Utah Territories and in the Washington Territory in 1883. In Michigan and Minnesota, widowed mothers of school children were given the right to vote on school issues in 1875. The same was afforded to widows in Vermont and New York in 1880.

In 1882 the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives appointed Select Committees on Woman Suffrage and, for the first time in 1886, the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment," or the woman's suffrage amendment, was debated on the Senate floor. Gradually women won the right to own property and to have professional careers but it wasn't until 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote.

The women's movement gained momentum and made important strides toward equality during the social unrest of the 1960s when civil rights groups and Vietnam War (1964–1975) protesters were demanding change. In 1963 author Betty Freidan wrote the bestseller "The Feminine Mystique," which described the unhappiness of the majority of middle-class women who wanted more out of life than to be housewives. At the same time, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt) issued a report titled American Women, which documented discrimination against women in education, employment, taxes, and the law. As a result, the Equal Pay Act (1963) was passed that required employers to provide equal wages for equal work for men and women. President John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) further mandated that the federal government hire "solely on the basis of ability to meet the requirements of the position, and without regard to sex." This was the government's first attempt to address women's issues since 1920.

In 1964 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an organization developed to defend employment rights of minorities, also began to work toward securing rights for women. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was broadened to include not only discrimination in jobs based on race, creed and natural origin but also sex.

In 1966 Betty Freidan and others founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW's statement of purpose was "to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American Society NOW, assuming all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men." The group focused on increasing the number of women in government jobs, legalizing abortion and increasing the number of day-care centers, and most of their goals were accomplished. In 1969 Betty Freidan, with author and feminist, Gloria Steinem (1934–), and U.S. representatives from New York Bella Abzug (1971–1976) and Shirley Chisholm (1969–1983) formed the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC). The group worked to increase the number of females holding political office; they were very successful in this mission during President Jimmy Carter's (1977–1981) administration. Smaller radical groups formed over the next 10 years that advocated for various women's rights. These groups encouraged Congress in 1974 to pass the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which made it illegal to deny anyone credit based on gender.

Challenging the barriers to women's rights over the years led to more opportunity and economic power for women during the latter half of the twentieth century. In the early 1990s women received 54 percent of university Bachelor's degrees and 53 percent of all Master's degrees. By the mid-1990s women continued to advance in politics as well as the workforce. In 1997 there was still a difference in pay between men and women in the same positions—women holding mid-level jobs were still paid an average of 26-cents less per hour than their male counterparts.

WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

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