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Essay on Feminist Movement
Women’s Rights, rights that establish the same social, economic, and political status for women as for men. Women’s rights guarantee that women will not face discrimination on the basis of their sex. Until the second half of the 20th century, women in most societies were denied some of the legal and political rights accorded to men. Although women in much of the world have gained significant legal rights, many people believe that women still do not have complete political, economic, and social equality with men. Until the 19th century, the denial of equal rights to women met with only occasional protest and drew little attention from most people.
Because most women lacked the educational and economic resources that would enable them to challenge the prevailing social order, women generally accepted their inferior status as their only option. At this time, women shared these disadvantages with the majority of working class men, as many social, economic, and political rights were restricted to the wealthy elite. In the late 18th century, in an attempt to remedy these inequalities among men, political theorists and philosophers asserted that all men were created equal and therefore were entitled to equal treatment under the law. In the 19th century, as governments in Europe and North America began to draft new laws guaranteeing equality among men, significant numbers of women and some men began to demand that women be accorded equal rights as well. (Alper, 2002)
In the United States, widespread religious revivalism at the beginning of the 19th century inspired the early women’s rights movement. Large numbers of middle-class women joined evangelical societies whose efforts centered on religious conversion and on moral and social reform. These women campaigned to improve the lives and save the souls of prostitutes, increase the wages of workingwomen, and expand employment opportunities for women......
