Activism and the “Upward Arc of History”
Change only occurs through activism, the result of which is progress In honor of Women's History Month
By: Olivia Hines
The "Upward Arc of History" remains an elaborate term for "things will get better in the future," the idea of which has instilled laziness. People want to believe things will get better later, so why fight for it now? However, the evolution of society hasn't occurred through natural selection. It's happened through activism. America's history has proven such through countless social justice movements that have completely changed the world we live in. One such example: The Women's Rights movement.
Over the past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been accomplished for women's independence, and what was once considered outlandish is now normal. Staggering changes in family life, religion, government, employment, and education have happened through the deliberate efforts of women who have banded together. Through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance, they've fought for their most basic and unalienable rights.
The history of America's women's rights movement began July 13, 1848, over tea, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her friends lamented about the unfair constrictions of 19th-century womanhood. Seventy years prior, American patriots had usurped British colonial rule during the American Revolution. Though the patriots won their freedom, women were not granted the same, and Stanton argued the republic would benefit greatly if women played an active role. So Stanton, with the assistance of other brave feminists, developed and carried out a specific, large-scale plan; the world's first Women's Rights Convention, which occurred at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848. A few days before the event, a small announcement in Seneca County Courier called "A convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of women." Women heard the call and listened.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other suffragettes were patriotic women and fought to improve the new republic. Before the Seneca Women's Rights Convention, Stanton drafted a speech that mimicked the Declaration of Independence and directly connected the budding women's rights movement to a powerful American symbol of liberty. The opening lines of the "Declaration of Sentiments" read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that their Creator endows them with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The introduction was followed by a list of grievances, in which Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women were treated unfairly:
Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law
Women were not allowed to vote
Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation
Married women had no property rights
Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity
Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women
Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes
Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned
Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law
Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students
With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church
Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect and were made totally dependent on men
Over two-day’s worth of discussions, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received unanimous approval, with a few amendments. Only the resolutions for women’s enfranchisement weren't unanimously supported. It was inconceivable to many that women should be allowed to vote in elections. Heated uproar unfolded over the women’s vote until Fredrick Douglas, a black abolitionist, spoke. He argued, “women, like the slave, had the right to liberty”. His words persuaded many, and, in the end, enough votes were garnered to carry out the resolution, but barely.
After the convention, newspapers were scandalized by the “shameless audacity” of the Declaration of Sentiments and its resolutions, particularly the women’s right to vote. Suffragettes faced no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule. Due to the publicity, many women who attended the convention removed their signatures from the Declaration, but many others stood firm.
Ironically, the widespread circulation of newspapers and critiques on the newfound women’s liberation movement informed and rallied every type of woman from cities to small towns. Seneca Falls women had optimistically hoped for “a series of conventions embracing every part of the country” in response to this initial convention, and that’s exactly what happened. Women’s Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850 to the start of the Civil War, with many suffragettes traveling the country lecturing and organizing for the next forty years. The right to vote became the central issue of the suffrage movement since winning the right to vote would allow many other reforms to be accomplished. Due to staunch opposition, it took 72 years for women to successfully earn the right to vote. A 72-year campaign with cleverly ingenious strategies, outrageous tactics, and limited resources that outwitted heavy opposition. The Suffrage Movement showed diligent activism of women to earn the most basic civil right—the vote.
Among these women are:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucy Stone, pioneering theoreticians of the 19th-century women’s rights movement.
Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage in Wyoming in 1869.
Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight for the Women’s Rights Movement in Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women.
Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone’s daughter, who carried on their mothers’ legacy through the next generation.
Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the 20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.
Alice Paul, founder, and leader of the National Woman’s Party, is considered the radical wing of the movement.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former Supreme Court Justice, learned the story of the Women’s Rights Movement and carried the baton for women’s liberation and gender equality.
Even after the women’s vote was won in 1920, the Women’s Rights Movement continued. It divided in several different directions, but women of the movement remained as diligent and ingenious as their founding mothers. Understanding that winning the right to vote didn’t immediately equate to equal protection under the law or deserved respect from their male counterparts, several women’s organizations were developed. In 1919, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of Women Voters to ensure women would use their hard-earned right to vote. Many suffragists had become involved with lobbying for legislation that protected women workers from abusive and unsafe conditions. So in 1920, the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor was established to gather information about women’s working conditions and to advocate for necessary changes. And in 1923, Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The constitutional amendment would apply uniformly across state boundaries and ensure equal rights for all genders. It marked a new beginning of equality which would eradicate roadblocks for women in academic and professional fields. In other words, it would dismantle the patriarchy. As a result, the ERA became an important symbol and legislative goal throughout the women’s rights movement.
Another aspect of the post-suffrage movement would become the birth control movement. Initiated by Margaret Sanger in the 1920s, the birth control movement added new dimensions to women's emancipation. Women now fought for control over their own reproduction and sexuality. The movement endorsed education of birth control methods and a new conviction of freedom for modern women. For decades, Margaret Sanger and her supporters fought zealously enforced laws that denied women sexual and physical autonomy. Sanger's activism proved fruitful In 1936, The Supreme Court declassified birth control information as obscene, and, in 1965, married couples in all states could legally obtain contraceptives.
The 1960s introduced a second wave of activism for women’s liberation fueled by several seemingly independent events. Each of these events brought a different segment of the population into the movement, and further broadened the reach of the Women's Rights Movement.
Ester Peterson, Director of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, in 1961, considered it the government’s responsibility to take an active role in addressing discrimination against women. A Commission on the Status of Women was convened, which documented discrimination against women nationwide. State and local governments begrudgingly followed suit, and issued commissions for women to research and recommend changes.
In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. The novel documented the emotional and intellectual oppression that middle-class women experienced because of limited life options. An immediate bestseller, the book encouraged hundreds of women to discover fulfillment beyond the role of homemaker.
In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting discrimination based on sex. With its passage, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to investigate discrimination complaints. The commission received 50,000 sex discrimination complaints within the first five years, but the commission wasn’t interested in pursuing these complaints. In response, Betty Friedan and other feminists decided to form a civil rights organization for women similar to the NAACP, leading to the National Organization for Women in 1966, followed by other mass-membership organizations, that addressed sex discrimination complaints and other needs of all women.
During the 1960s, thousands of women played an active role within civil rights and anti-war movements. However, many men blocked women activists, believing women’s roles shouldn’t infringe on "male roles". As a result, women formed organizations to address their position and status within these progressive movements and within society at large.
Members of a re-emerging Women’s Rights Movement worked together and separately on a wide range of issues. Small groups of women worked on grassroots projects to establish women’s businesses, while others created women’s shelters and rape crisis hotlines to care for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. Others provided childcare centers for working women. Clinics were opened by women’s health care professionals to provide better access to birth control, family planning counseling, and abortions.
Another result of the women’s rights movement has been financial liberation. 50 years ago, women weren’t allowed to issue credit cards in their own name, nor could they get a bank loan without a male co-signer. Women weren’t allowed to have occupations designated for men, and for every one dollar a man earned, women earned, on average, 59 cents. But through hard work and dedication, women earned financial autonomy and equal employment opportunities.
Title IX, in the Education Codes of 1972, helped promote women's equality. By allowing equal access to higher education and to professional schools, women's attendance doubled and tripled. A rise in participation in women’s sports resulted from Title IX, as well. Today, roughly 1 in 3 women play a sport compared to 1 in 27 women almost 50 years ago!
Another important piece of legislation took center stage in 1972; the Equal Rights Amendment. It had languished in Congress for almost fifty years, passed, and was sent for state ratification. The ratification required 38 states to approve the amendment. In response to this stalled ratification, women activists campaigned for state ratification of the ERA, and many communities became actively involved in the Women’s Rights Movement. Women organizations across the nation organized members to help raise money and generate public support for the ERA; marches, house meetings, walk-a-thons, and door-to-door canvassing polluted the streets. Events of every kind imaginable were held by ordinary women. The ranks of women’s organizations swelled, and generous amounts of money flowed to campaign headquarters. Every women’s magazine had stories on the implications of the ERA, and the progress of the ratification campaign.
Of course, opponents of the ERA, organized by Phyllis Schlafly, feared the ERA and condemned the ratification process. They stated the implication of the ERA would allow “too much government control over personal lives, would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets, gay marriages, and women being drafted.” The media gave equal weight to these arguments and actively thwarted the ratification campaign. In 1982, the deadline for the ratification process, 35 out of 38 states had ratified the ERA. 75% of women legislators in those three pivotal states supported the ERA, and only 46% of men did. Many, predominantly male, politicians believed the ERA to be too controversial, reiterating the same, ancient narrative throughout women’s history. Equality between the sexes shouldn’t exist.
Within the last few decades, three states have ratified the ERA. The 38th state to ratify the ERA was Virginia on January 27, 2020. Since then debates have arisen over the validity of these ratifications, and whether the ERA is in full effect.
Despite the failed ratification of the ERA, a third wave of feminism has occurred in the last three decades. At the beginning of the 1990s, women began addressing issues beyond equal rights and entered more controversial territory. These issues were and continue to be:
Women’s reproductive rights. Whether or not women can terminate pregnancies continues to be controversial after the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade affirmed women’s choice during the first two trimesters.
Women’s enrollment in military academies and service in active combat.
Women in leadership roles in religious worship.
The mommy track. Should businesses accommodate women’s family responsibilities, or should women compete evenly for advancement with men, most of whom still assume fewer family obligations?
Pornography. Is it degrading, even dangerous, to women, or is it simply a free speech issue?
Sexual harassment.
Surrogate motherhood.
Should Social Security benefits be allocated equally for homemakers and their working spouses, to keep surviving wives from poverty as widows?
Even today women struggle to interpret and address these issues. Women are still scared to call themselves “feminists” because of the backlash. Women who hold men and the patriarchy accountable are called “Nazi-feminists” and “man haters.'' Even women today who don’t appear to fit the male gaze are called slurs, and body-shamed. Even women who fit the male gaze are sexualized to an uncomfortable, predatory degree, and slut-shamed. As women, we continue to face discrimination despite the radical changes that have occurred over the last century and a half. Though the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg ring true, “I think about how much we owe to the women who went before us – legions of women, some known but many more unknown. I applaud the bravery and resilience of those who helped all of us – you and me – to be here today”, women still continue to be subjected to the oppression of the patriarchy. Our fight hasn’t ended.
We, as citizens, cannot sit by idly and wait. Changes for women’s rights over the past seven generations haven’t happened on a sofa, but has occurred through legislation and court cases pushed by women organizations and activism. Thus, proving societal change happens through activism. As history has shown, conversations are only the beginning. It takes courage and determination to use democratic forms of resistance to actively fight for our constitutional and unalienable rights. Emphasizing rights for minority groups have been fought for, not given. The systematic oppression of women installed by the patriarchy continues to build barriers on our paths to success, fulfillment, and peace. With a plethora of social justice issues transpiring currently, it’s important to remember the fight for our equality happens with active engagement in our community. Even today, women still continue to fight for sexual and physical autonomy, and the fight for women’s liberty will continue until our independence, equality and safety are secured.