Introduction
Since time memorial women’s rights, movements have been concerned with various issues about women. The goals of these movements kept on changing as women learnt more about their rights. The goals women fought for in the early 1920s were different from those fought for in 1970s. This paper shall discuss the various rights fought for and how women rights movement changed over time. The paper shall allude from Gloria Steinem ‘Testimony on Equal rights amendment’, Margret Sanger’s ‘The case of birth control’, and Jane Addams, ‘Utilization of women in city government’.
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The women’s rights movement in the 1970s was a second wave feminism. Most of the organizations championing for women’s rights were more divided on what issues to advocate. One particular organization The Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Council was formed in 1973 under the leadership of Gloria Steinem, who fought for the independence of a woman over a man. Steinem argued that gender should not be a threshold of civil rights (Steinem 142).
Consequently, women’s oppression was an important issue and the US Congress should implement a legislative agenda to eradicate this oppression. Since the civil rights movement was considered a disruption to public order, Steinem argument was that the women’s right movement was targeted at promoting democracy principles. Steinem made it clear to the committee; women did not expect to be treated in a special due to the mythical belief that they were inferior to men. She argued that women were indeed superior to men using biological statistics like life expectancy, and health reports that suggested women were superior to men. Steinem also refuted the claim that women were already equal to men, she argued that women did not receive equal pay as men, as a result had no economic power (Steinem 143).
Margret Sanger was at the forefront of the women’s rights movement in 1917. She advocated for the availability of birth control so that women could limit the size of their families. Sanger came from a very large family and she argued that her mother died at an early age because she had many children, and it is for this reason that she decided that availability of birth control information was important to women. She argued that women could only effectively take part in the society if they had smaller families. Sanger said that most women are trapped at home caring for their families as they languish in poverty and depended on men. She tells of a woman who was happy to have had a stillbirth because the child would have died with the limited resources she had. Sanger advocated for birth control arguing that it is also beneficial to the child since children will not be brought in to poverty-stricken families (Sanger 55).
In the early 1990s, Jane Addams argues that women understand better the leadership duties such as running the department of health. Additionally, she argues that women understand how best to allocate the various resources since they are homemakers. It is for this reason that she advocates for the right of women to vote. However, she does not advocate for the rejection of traditional roles of women and says that these roles are what make women better leaders (Addams 52).
Conclusion
The women’s rights movement evolved as the years went by. The issues advocated for included the right to equality, the rights of women to vote and the availability of birth control. Congress passed an equal rights amendment in 1972 that prohibited discrimination on gender basis, women can now access birth control and women have the right to vote
Works Cited
Addams, Jane. “Utilization of women in city government”. US History Resources, 1907.
Sanger, Margret. “The case of birth control”. Issues and Controversy in American History, 1917.
Steinem, Gloria. “Testimony on equal rights amendment”. Journal of Women’s History, 1970.
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