Summary: Shortfalls Of Women's Suffrage
Shortfalls of the Women's Suffrage Movement
Allie Castino
Simmons College
One of the most important results of social policy movements in the United States was the ratification of the 19th Amendment securing a woman's right to vote in 1920. This law was hard-won and was instituted during a period (1905-1920), as Jansson notes (2011), when significant reforms for women, children, and workers were enacted in a relatively short amount of time. These reforms included guaranteeing better working environments for women, the implementation of child labor laws, and the institution of workmen's compensation (Jansson, 2011). Before these policy changes took place, labor conditions for workers during this period of rapid industrialization …show more content…
98), the concept of social problems was defined by a strict moral code. One important element of this code was the idea of a "Cult of Domesticity", in which men and women belong to and operate within different social spheres. Even though women were thought to be morally superior (Jansson, 2011), they were also thought to be prone to hysteria and unfit to make decisions in the public realm. Therefore, they were relegated to the private sphere of the home to focus on homemaking and child rearing. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 documents early feminist resistance to the exclusionary designations of the Culture of Domesticity. This convention was not only organized to discuss women's rights, but to also forge an alliance with the abolitionist movement. In fact, when in 1868 the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution outlawing slavery and making former slaves U.S. citizens were ratified, respectively, early feminists hoped that ratification of the vote for women would follow in short order (Jansson, 2011). However, the nineteenth amendment was not ratified for another 52 years, and, as former slaves struggled to gain their rights, voting and otherwise, in the Reconstruction Era and beyond, the alliance …show more content…
(Jansson, 2011, p.176)
The solution for women's rights activists, therefore, who were, for the most part, white and well-educated, was to identify with the improvement of the issues of the so-called private sphere, rather than their own "radical" interests, in order to have the right to vote. This position, in turn, most likely alienated other groups (people of color and immigrants, for example), who were also seeking access to civil
Allie Castino
Simmons College
One of the most important results of social policy movements in the United States was the ratification of the 19th Amendment securing a woman's right to vote in 1920. This law was hard-won and was instituted during a period (1905-1920), as Jansson notes (2011), when significant reforms for women, children, and workers were enacted in a relatively short amount of time. These reforms included guaranteeing better working environments for women, the implementation of child labor laws, and the institution of workmen's compensation (Jansson, 2011). Before these policy changes took place, labor conditions for workers during this period of rapid industrialization …show more content…
98), the concept of social problems was defined by a strict moral code. One important element of this code was the idea of a "Cult of Domesticity", in which men and women belong to and operate within different social spheres. Even though women were thought to be morally superior (Jansson, 2011), they were also thought to be prone to hysteria and unfit to make decisions in the public realm. Therefore, they were relegated to the private sphere of the home to focus on homemaking and child rearing. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 documents early feminist resistance to the exclusionary designations of the Culture of Domesticity. This convention was not only organized to discuss women's rights, but to also forge an alliance with the abolitionist movement. In fact, when in 1868 the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution outlawing slavery and making former slaves U.S. citizens were ratified, respectively, early feminists hoped that ratification of the vote for women would follow in short order (Jansson, 2011). However, the nineteenth amendment was not ratified for another 52 years, and, as former slaves struggled to gain their rights, voting and otherwise, in the Reconstruction Era and beyond, the alliance …show more content…
(Jansson, 2011, p.176)
The solution for women's rights activists, therefore, who were, for the most part, white and well-educated, was to identify with the improvement of the issues of the so-called private sphere, rather than their own "radical" interests, in order to have the right to vote. This position, in turn, most likely alienated other groups (people of color and immigrants, for example), who were also seeking access to civil