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First Post
19-07-2025
- Politics
- First Post
History Today: When the US women's suffrage movement began 1848
On July 19, 1848, reformers convened in Seneca Falls to demand women's rights, launching the US women's suffrage movement. Their Declaration of Sentiments, boldly modelled on the Declaration of Independence, called for equal rights — including the ballot. What began there would change American democracy over the next seven decades read more Upstream view along the Seneca River in Seneca Falls, New York, c. 1850. Wesleyan Chapel, the site of the first women's rights convention in US history, is located just north of the river and is now part of the Women's Rights National Historical Park. Image/Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC As part of Firstpost's History Today series, July 19 is a landmark in global history. In 1848, the US women's suffrage movement was launched at the historic Seneca Falls Convention — a momentous step toward gender equality. Nearly 150 years later, on July 19, 1993, the US Department of Defense announced its 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy affecting LGBT military service. And in 1980, the Summer Olympics opened in Moscow, boycotted by around 60 countries in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The birth of the US women's suffrage movement In the heat of mid‑July 1848, around 300 reform-minded Americans converged at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. Over two transformative days (July 19-20), they launched the country's first women's rights convention — a defining moment that set the stage for over seven decades of struggle until women won the vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920. More from Explainers History Today: When the #BlackLivesMatter sparked a movement to change the world The catalyst for this gathering was a rejection that resonated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott: when Stanton, Mott, and other women were barred from speaking roles at the 1840 World Anti‑Slavery Convention in London simply due to their gender. This exclusion led to a promise to fight for women's rights — resulting in a meeting arranged in Waterloo at Jane Hunt's home on July 9, which set Seneca Falls into motion. Stanton, Mott, Martha Wright, Mary Ann M'Clintock, and Jane Hunt, influenced by Quaker ideals and abolitionist fervour, used Stanton's kitchen table as their planning ground. A notice placed in the Seneca County Courier on July 14 announced 'a convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of woman' — resulting in an overwhelmingly local but symbolically bold event in just days. The first day was women-only, empowering them to speak freely about their frustrations under a patriarchal legal system. On July 20, men — including the pivotal abolitionist Frederick Douglass — joined the discussion. Stanton's keynote speech set the tone: 'We are assembled to protest against a form of government…without the consent of the governed,' confronting the systemic disenfranchisement of women's voices in public and legal spheres. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Drafted almost overnight, the Declaration of Sentiments was a rhetorical masterpiece — mirroring the Declaration of Independence, yet boldly asserting gender equality: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.' This document catalogued 16 legal, educational and civil grievances — from wage injustice to constrained marital rights — highlighting women's subordinate standing. Among 12 resolutions, the ninth — calling for the elective franchise for women — stirred heated debate. Initially narrow in acceptance, the suffrage resolution passed only after Douglass spoke in its favour — tilting the vote meter. Ultimately, 68 women and 32 men affixed their names — all 100 signatories daring to envision radical equality. National newspapers covered the event. Some repelled it as 'insane,' while others praised the call for equality. The St Louis Republic ridiculed the idea of men washing dishes; The North Star, by contrast, lauded it as a 'foundation of a grand movement.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Though suffrage advocates like Susan B Anthony were not present, they leveraged the event as a rallying point for impassioned advocacy. Within two weeks, supporters held a second convention in Rochester. Regular conventions formed a sustained campaign strategy: Worcester in 1850, followed by gatherings nationwide and the creation of local suffrage societies. Seneca Falls did not initiate public conversations about women's rights — it propelled them. Legal reforms enabling married women to own property, educated women, took legislative action, and pushed for marital autonomy over decades. Icons such as Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul and Sojourner Truth will later carry forth the torch, hosting parades, hunger strikes and civil disobedience . Seneca Falls could not perhaps foresee its own fragmented legacy. While Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others prioritised white women's suffrage, Black activists like Truth, Wells, and Mary Church Terrell continued the fight — often independently and into the Jim Crow era. The Birth of the Movement at Seneca Falls was formal, symbolic, and foundational — but not comprehensive. The gender and race dynamics that started there retained tension through Jim Crow and beyond. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Charlotte Woodward Pierce, the only surviving signer to live to see the 19th Amendment ratified in 1920, was a living link between origin and outcome. Seneca Falls inspired waves of activism globally — Britain, Canada, across Europe — showed that what began as a local answer to gender bias would echo across borders . Modern scholarship complicates the Seneca Falls narrative. Historians like Lisa Tetrault argue that its prominence was constructed only decades later to establish origins for fractured factions of the suffrage movement. Meanwhile, Black suffragist history predates 1848. These activists are finally being recognised through initiatives honouring Black women voters under Jim Crow and the long tail of disenfranchisement culminating in the VRA (1965) and ongoing battles on voter suppression. Efforts following Seneca Falls included state suffrage victories — Wyoming in 1869, Colorado in 1893 — culminating in the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington, DC. These campaigns led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920 . STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Yet, hope proved partial. Native Americans and Black women continued struggling — barriers persisted well into and beyond the Civil Rights era . The site is today part of the Women's Rights National Historical Park, anchored by landmarks like the Wesleyan Chapel and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House. Schools, museums, and essays mark the passing of Seneca Falls as both inauguration and testament. Seneca Falls' legacy resonates today amid fights for transgender rights, reproductive justice, equal pay and civil rights. Its shining principle — 'all women are created equal' — still demands constant loud reiteration amid modern pressures. 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' announced On July 19, 1993, US Secretary of Defense Les Aspin unveiled the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) policy. Sponsored by the Clinton administration, it allowed LGBTQ‑identified individuals to serve only if they remained discreet about their identity, and prohibited discrimination — but enforced dismissal if they disclosed it. A compromise to balance demands for inclusion with military resistance, DADT sparked mixed reactions. LGBTQ groups criticised its forced secrecy as psychologically damaging, while opponents insisted it threatened unit cohesion. Over its 17‑year lifecycle, 13,500 service members were discharged under DADT . STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD DADT was ultimately repealed on September 20, 2011, enabling open LGBTQ service, a landmark victory in civil‑military equality. 1980 Summer Olympics open in Moscow amid boycott On July 19, 1980, the Summer Olympics began in Moscow — the first Games hosted by a communist nation. However, nearly 60 countries, led by the USA, boycotted the event in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Still, 5,179 athletes from 80 countries competed, including Bulgaria and East Germany. The Soviet Union topped medal tallies. Controversial performances — like US gymnast Cathy Rigby's absence and New Zealand's tainted gold — defined the competition. The boycott marked a high-water point in Cold War sports diplomacy, raising questions about politicising athletic events. With inputs from agencies
Indian Express
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
What early feminist movement tells us about today's gender inequality
— Mohammad Asim Siddiqui Recently, the Supreme Court set aside the judgment declining maternity leave to a school teacher, and said she was entitled to receive maternity benefits despite having two children. But other structural inequalities faced by women remain very much in place. According to The Time Use Survey 2024 (January-December), while men spend 132 minutes more than women on employment and related activities, women spend much more time on unpaid domestic services – 289 minutes daily compared to 88 minutes by men. In this context, how far have we come in addressing the structural inequalities? Can legal interventions correct such entrenched disparities, or a deeper shift in societal attitude is required? These questions, which constitute the core of feminist thought, may be better understood by revisiting the emergence of the feminist movement. The term feminism existed as early as the mid-nineteenth century, though at the time it simply meant 'having the qualities of a female'. The term became widely known in the 1890s when anti-suffragists began using it negatively to refer to women's rights activists. Political parties and other organisations soon adopted the term Feminism's history has been marked by many ruptures. It was only during the second wave of feminism beginning in the 1960s in the US when feminism began to take shape as a concerted and continuous movement. It advanced on various fronts simultaneously, with activists working at the grassroots level while legal and political scholars were sharpening their theoretical tools. Cut to the present, often referred to as the fourth wave of feminism, the movement has branched into diverse approaches, frameworks and methodologies, and has continued the work of what feminist scholar bell hooks described as 'a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression'. The concrete beginning of the First Wave of Feminism, dating from 1830 to 1920 and generally identified with the suffragette movement, can be traced to the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Attended by more than 300 men and women, the Convention passed many resolutions stressing the equality of the sexes and issued the Declaration of Sentiments – the movement's manifesto. One of the main organisers of the event was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a pioneering figure in the first wave who continued to champion women's causes all through the 19th century. The Declaration of Sentiments marked the formal beginning of the suffrage movement. In the same year, women groups across England, France, Germany and Italy joined workers and other marginalised groups to demand equality, giving the movement an international character. Around this time, many feminist journals also started publishing news and commentaries on women's activities. Women attacked many oppressive laws that denied them the right to make contracts, bequeath property, have rights over their children or write wills. Common demands during this phase included opportunities in education, property rights and suffrage. The rise of capitalism and democracy in the late 18th and 19th centuries awakened a new consciousness about individual rights. Yet the change in the nature of the economy, work and wages brought about by capitalism largely benefited men, leaving women disadvantaged and increasingly dependent on men. Similarly, early theories of individual rights also placed men at the centre. The feminist movement addressed such issues, asserting the value of women's economic labour and their rights. Estelle B. Freedman in her book No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (2002) argues that 'feminist politics originated where capitalism, industrial growth, democratic theory, and socialist critiques converged, as they did in Europe and North America after 1800. Women and their male allies began to agitate for equal educational, economic, and political opportunities, a struggle that continues to the present.' During the first wave of feminism, Marxism and liberalism were the two important intellectual frameworks that were deployed to talk about women's exploitation and to address the issue of inequality. While Marxism envisioned women's emancipation through the overthrow of capitalism, liberalism, rooted in the principle of rationalism and belief in just governance, emphasised equality before the law. The liberal position on women's equality was articulated forcefully by thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. In her most famous work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), Wollstonecraft, drawing on insights from enlightenment ideals of liberty, equal opportunity and rationalism, questioned the divine rights of husbands and challenged the notion of women's inferiority. Sharply disagreeing with Rousseau, who held a contemptuous view of women's education in Emile, Wollstonecraft advocated education for both men and women. She urged women to focus on cultivating their minds rather than prioritising beauty and fashion. Wollstonecraft wrote: 'Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built upon this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. 'And how can women be expected to cooperate unless she knows why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthens her reason till she comprehends her duty, and sees in what manner is connected with her real good.' Exhorting women to develop their own potential, she said that 'I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves.' It was partly due to her influence that education was the earliest demand of women in the first wave. John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869), an important liberal-feminist text that influenced the future development of feminism, makes a strong case for the emancipation of women and for female suffrage in Britain. Stressing the principle of equality, Mill categorically stated: 'The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination of one sex by the other – is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.' The women's movement in the US was linked with the abolition and temperance (abstinence from alcohol) movements. However, many women found themselves excluded from the rank of the men-led abolitionist groups, forcing them to form women's rights groups. One reason behind the organisation of the Seneca Fall Convention was the exclusion of five US female delegates from the World Slavery Convention in London in 1840. With alcohol consumption reaching unprecedented levels in the nineteenth century, women were the main victims of men's alcohol abuse. The formation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874, and later the emergence of its many branches, accelerated women's efforts to protest alcohol abuse and its association with immorality. In a pioneering study of women's speeches and writings, Man Cannot Speak for Her: A Critical Study of Early Feminist Rhetoric, Vol. 1(1989), Karlyn Kohrs Campbell notes that 'temperance was an acceptable outlet for the reformist energies of women during the last decades of the nineteenth century'. Traditionally, 'good' women could participate in the temperance movement without facing any disapproval. 'Although the WCTU accepted traditional concepts of womanhood', Campbell continues, 'it came to argue that woman's distinctive influence should be extended outside the home via the vote. Consequently, woman suffrage became acceptable to more conservative women (and men), who had rejected it before, when presented as a means for woman to protect her domestic sphere from abuses related to alcohol.' The civil war in the US adversely affected the women's movement as the focus of the nation gradually turned to patriotism and national interests, with women's demands becoming secondary. Women's groups had fully supported the cause of the Union and the abolition of slavery, expecting in return support for their rights. However, their hopes were dashed when Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which dealt with voting rights and was ratified in 1868, introduced the word male into the US Constitution for the first time. This provision granted voting rights to all American males above 21 years. Women challenged their exclusion in the Supreme Court, which rejected their demand for suffrage in 1875. An important development in the suffrage movement was the merger of two rival women organisations – the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The merger led to the formation of a more influential organisation – the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) on February 18, 1890. Though its leaders often differed sharply over methods and policies, the new organisation made serious efforts for woman's right to vote. The entry of fiery activist Alice Paul into the NAWSA in 1910 took the concerns of the organisation from state suffrage to national Constitutional amendment. Her conflict with the policies of NAWSA led her to form the National Woman's Party. These efforts culminated in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, granting women the right to vote. What were the key demands of the First Wave of Feminism? How did early feminist movements navigate societal expectations of womanhood and morality? What role did Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill play in shaping early feminist thought? Do you think the Supreme Court's ruling on maternity leave signal a genuine shift in the broader approach to gender justice? In a country where women spend over three times as much time as men on unpaid domestic work, what policy interventions can ensure equitable sharing of household responsibilities? (Mohammad Asim Siddiqui is a Professor in the Department of English at Aligarh Muslim University.) Share your thoughts and ideas on UPSC Special articles with Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ashland Business and Professional Women host inspiring history presentations
National Women's History Month took center stage at this month's meeting of Ashland Business and Professional Women. Guests included teacher Amy Nelson, four eighth grade students and two mothers. To honor National Women's History Month, the students portrayed significant women in history. Avery Bauer and Kyla Obrien presented on Susan B. Anthony, while Victoria Deaton and Jordyn Thomas focused on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, , according to an announcement. Both pairs used technology to share facts, and Bauer dressed as Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, born Nov. 12, 1815, was a key figure in the women's rights movement. She attended the first Women's Rights Convention in 1848 and wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. Susan B. Anthony, born in 1820, also was a prominent advocate for women's rights. She collected 400,000 signatures to abolish slavery and was later arrested for voting illegally. During the business portion of the March 3 meeting, Kathy Norris and Beth Wood were elected to the nominating committee. They will present a slate of officers at the April meeting. Additionally, the first of two garage sales is scheduled for June 13-14 at Karen McCready's home. This story was created by Jane Imbody, jimbody@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland Business and Professional Women celebrates women's history
