Women’s rights, is this still a concern? Many do believe that the issue of women’s rights is only in the countries where religion is law like in many of the Muslim countries. Even worse, some even think that it’s not an issue any longer. It is actually still a quite big issue and no, it’s not only in the Muslim countries it happens all over the world but maybe not in the quite same way or in that degree. In this article I’m going to talk about women’s condition in the history, important figures and the struggle for our civil rights.

For years, women have had much fewer legal rights than men. Our expected professions were nothing more than to care for the children, and keep the household in order. Nevertheless, women in most of the nations won the right to vote in the 20th century which amplified our job and education opportunities. In the past, women have been seen, from a man perspective, as unintelligent beings even as evil and simply just a temptation for mankind. Women were described as children who were to be forever inferior to men, this from an early roman law.

In ancient India, to take another example, women had to walk behind the men. They were also denied property rights by marriage and widows could not get married again. There are tons of these kinds of examples.

"I will not begin at this late day by doing what my soul abhors; sugaring men, weak deceitful creatures, with flattery to retain them as escorts or to gratify a revenge." said one of the women’s rights advocates, Ida B. Wells (July. 13, 1862 – March 25, 1931). Wells was very active in both African American civil rights and Women’s rights. Her strong political views and her views upon women’s rights shocked many people. She was especially active in the movement Women Suffrage. Another important advocate was Carrie Chapman Catt (January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947) who was selected to be president of the “National American Woman Suffrage Association” twice. She Lead the association the next twenty years! In spite of being very active in the women’s struggle for rights she was also very active in the anti-war causes. Along with Chapman we have Alice Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) who saved the Women’s Suffrage Movement in 1910 by making sure the women got the vote. Like the others she also joined many different women’s rights organisations and did a huge effort. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 28, 1909) was one of the earliest feminist philosophers and the leading theoretician of the women’s rights movement. She published a book called “Woman’s Bible” in 1895 and the book focused on what she called the “male bias of the Bible”. She wrote this book because she thought that an organized religion had to be established before they could get fully equality.

Long it’s been hard for women trough the years not only to get suffrage but also to be taken seriously and get the education they want. “The weaker sex” is something we all have heard a dozen times before. For long, women have been seen as incapable of doing work that requires muscularity or intellectuality. Tasks as caring for children all day and doing hard household chores were just being ignored though they also requires heavy lifting and a lot of mentally as well as physical stress. As a matter in fact are women, after physiological tests, more tolerable for pain, live longer and are more resistant to many diseases than men.

Traditionally women were bounded to their social role. The typical stereotype “a women’s place is in the home” have affected women and determined how they have expressed themselves. Today, they have got the right for abortion which had given women more control over how many children they want. Other than that the pressure of becoming a wife and mothers still stops many young and talented women from finishing their education.

There was a lot of struggling for the women’s right to vote. The first convention was in Seneca Falls, N. Y in 1848 and the declaration was being written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton She wrote that all men and women were created equal and that "the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman."  Still they didn’t get suffrage even though the blacks did. By 1920 every woman in America had the right to vote.

Over the years there has been an awful lot struggle for women’s rights, like I’ve said. We stood up to discrimination that has been seen upon as a huge matter of course for ages. And with a lot of courage, great effort and with the help of many brave women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul, we have made a huge difference. We made a huge revolution by turning the sex discrimination around.

Resources:

http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/WomensRights.asp

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Chapman_Catt

http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/figures.htm

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/suffrage.htm

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrageoverview/a/timeline.htm