Suffrage
In the United States, women's first struggle for equality was fought for suffrage in 1848. In Seneca Falls, New York, over two hundred people gathered for the first conference concerning women's rights. Many who attended have had the experience with the antislavery movement. One conference member read and outline of women's injustice called the Declaration of Sentiments. Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, one of it's demands was suffrage, or voting rights, for women. Then in 1869, the issue of the women's movement was divided when Congress sent the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution because the amendment only gave voting rights to African American men, but not women. Some feminists withdrew their support from the amendment because they didn't approve of the amendment not supporting women's rights. Two companies, the American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) and the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), worked to change both local laws and create national amendments to grant women the right to vote. Both the AWSA and the NWSA combined together in 1890 to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) that eventually achieved success. In 1919, Congressed passed the Nineteenth Amendment that guaranteed voting rights to all Americans regardless of gender and became a law in 1920. After fighting for 72 years, women finally achieved equality when it comes to voting.
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International Perspective
In addition to the United States, Europe also shared a concern for women's rights. Feminist groups were organized in France, England, Germany, and Russia during the 1800s. One of the biggest feminism movements was greatly influenced and inspired by a book called The Second Sex published by French author Simone de Beauvoir in 1949 that was read all over the world because of its controversial topic of women's second class status. Although women's rights is a relevant issue around the world, feminist movements in different places focus on varying things. In Western industrialized nations where women lawfully achieved relative equality with men, the emphasis of the fight for women's equality tends to be directed toward economic and social issues like equal pay, equal funding for medical research, mover government and employer sponsored child care, and an end to imaged in the media that belittle women. In other parts of the world, supporters of feminism focus on changing cultural, religious, and legal traditions for the benefit of women as people and not property. In some African nations, for example, a man pays a "bride price" to the family of a woman he wishes to marry. Despite the cultural value of this tradition, critics say that this practice amounts to selling women. In 1946, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women was established with the goal of working toward equal education, political, and economic rights for women worldwide. Forty years later in Beijing, China, at the United Nation's Fourth World Conference, women's rights were declared to be a fundamental and universal human right.
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The Modern Feminist Movement
A new wave of feminism began in the 1960s, being linked to broader civil issues like he drive for racial equality. Several landmarks in the movement motivated women to reject male dominance and redefine their own roles. However, these movements eventually shifted to women's role in society and issues at all levels of society and among all races. Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique, and two other feminists founded the most popular and largest feminist organization in the United States called the National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW emerged in he 1960s, when most members and other feminists called for the passage of Paul's proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that stated that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex." Several people joined NOW in support of this amendment. Congress passed this amendment in 1972, but it wasn't approved by enough states to become official. People who opposed the ERA claimed that it would strengthen abortion rights, allow homosexual marriages, eliminate child support, and force the government to send women into combat. These viewpoints displayed how both men and women had a wide variety of differing opinions when it comes to women's rights and feminism.
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