History of Women's Rights
By Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com Guide
- Woman Suffrage
- Women Who Worked for Suffrage
- Second Wave Feminism: 1960s and 1970s
- Reproductive Rights
- Equality Beyond Voting
Woman Suffrage
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the battle for women's vote has followed the development of democracies in which public power depended on the outcome of voting. The struggle in the United States was not the only suffrage campaign, but the American and British woman suffrage campaigns are the best-known and were influential in winning the vote elsewhere.
- Long Road to Woman Suffrage: 1848-1920
- Timeline of Woman Suffrage in America
- Winning the Vote: State by State
- International Woman Suffrage Timeline
- Who Was the First Woman to Vote Under the 19th Amendment?
- Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
- Images: 1913-1917 Woman Suffrage Protests
- Brutal Treatment of Women Suffragists at Occoquan Workhouse
- August 26, 1920: The Day the Suffrage Battle Was Won
- "Suffragette"
- Pictures of the Women's Suffrage Movement
- Woman Suffrage or Women's Suffrage? Clarifying Terms
- All About Women's Suffrage
- What Are Women's Rights?
Women Who Worked for Suffrage
Women who worked for the right of women to vote came from different backgrounds, had very different lives, and often disagreed among themselves over the best tactics for winning the vote. Here are a few of the key characters in the women's suffrage movements in America and England.
- Susan B. Anthony
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- Lucretia Mott
- Sojourner Truth
- Lucy Stone
- Julia Ward Howe
- Alice Paul
- Carrie Chapman Catt
- Jeannette Rankin
- Alice Duer Miller
- Maud Younger
- Caroline Severence
- Helen Kendrick Johnson (anti-suffrage)
- Emmeline Pankhurst
- Millicent Garrett Fawcett
- Emily Davies
- Barbara Bodichon
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Second Wave Feminism: 1960s and 1970s
In the 1960s and 1970s, a new wave of feminism arrived. With ties to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the new women's movement took on a wider agenda than the women's suffrage movement had focused on. From mainstream to radicals, this feminism movement fought for equal rights and a new way of looking at gender rules.
- What 1960s Feminists Did During the Women’s Movement
- What 1970s Feminists Did During the Women’s Movement
- Significant Feminist Protests
- 1960s/1970s Women's Liberation Groups
- Feminist Art Movement
- Feminist Literary Criticism
- Feminist Classics 1950s-1970s
- Bra-burning Feminists?
- The Personal Is Political
- National Organization for Women
- Ms. Magazine
- Bella Abzug
- Shirley Chisholm
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Shulamith Firestone
- Betty Friedan
- Patricia Ireland
- Gloria Steinem
Reproductive Rights
Reproductive rights address women's ability and right to control when and whether to be pregnant. Without the ability to control pregnancy, women's rights in other areas may be less meaningful, as women will not be able to fully make choices about education, work, and marriage. In the 19th century in America, the birth rate fell precipitously from the beginning of the century to the end, and around the world, the birth rate falls as women become better educated or have economic opportunities. Here are some resources about women's rights to reproductive choices, including some of the women key to the controversies.
- History of the Comstock Law
- Margaret Sanger
- Margaret Sanger's "The Case for Birth Control" (1924)
- Emma Goldman
- Faye Wattleton
- Baby M - Surrogate Mother Decision
- Abortion History - The Abortion Controversy in the United States
- Roe v. Wade - Summary of the Supreme Court Decision
- Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion
Equality Beyond Voting
Mary Wollstonecraft, Judith Sargent Murray, and Margaret Fuller were early writers who maintained that women should have rights, and be considered the equals of men. The Seneca Falls Declaration (1848) was concerned with many rights, not just voting rights. Whether it's the right to own property in her own name, or the right to equal pay, women's economic rights have been slowly changing over the last few centuries. The Equal Rights Amendment has been a source of considerable controversy.