Essay on Role Of Women And The
American Government
This piece describes
the role women played in the development history of American Government. Role of
women has changed over the time in many areas including the American Government.
The major reason for the change in the various roles women played in American
society is the continuing need for efficiency enhancement based on social
awareness. Women are demanding rights their predecessors couldn’t even think of.
The changing roles and the increasing rights have made American women very
powerful in the modern times. There are more representations in the Government
as well as the private sector by the women. Women are not only more active in
government but in almost every phase of life ranging from justice to military or
even in the combat battles. One can understand the nature of shift in women’s
role by comparing the sound of a non-electric without amplifier guitar with the
electric guitar with hi-fi modern sound enhancing devices. Women are exactly the
electric guitars of today’s society. They are the music of the universe.
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I shall dwell briefly upon the history of women in American society. Women were
first granted the vote in state constitution by New Jersey from 1776-1807. After
that the role of women is highlighted when on July 13, 1848, Lucretia Mott,
Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Ann McClintock are invited to
tea at the home of Jane Hunt in Waterloo, NY. They decide to call a two-day
meeting at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Seneca Falls for the purpose of
discussing women's rights. This was the beginning of awareness by the American
women and from then onwards there is no looking back. This was the time when 68
women and 32 men signed the "Declaration of Sentiments," including the first
formal demand made in the United States for women's right to vote:
"...It is the duty of the women of this country to secure for themselves their
sacred right to the elective franchise." (Editorial, 1926)
It was Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth C. Stanton 1 who organized the first Equal
Rights Convention, which was held in New York in 1848; and it was Lucretia Mott
who laid down the definite proposition which American women are still struggling
to implement today: 'Men and Women shall have Equal Rights throughout the United
States.' American women then started on their role gaining movement from men. In
1850 they gathered in Salem, Ohio, to take complete control of their women's
rights convention. They decided men were not to be given any privilege of
participation other than making their attendance in such conventions. To further
their role in the American society and ultimately in the American Government,
The American Equal Rights Association was formed in 1866, with Lucretia Mott as
president. Victoria Woodhull (1872) asserted that the framers of the
Constitution who had Woman's Rights clearly in their minds. Nowhere was used the
word ‘man’ in contradistinction to woman. Instead they used the word "persons".
(Victoria Woodhull, 1872)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Parker Pillsbury published the
first edition of THE REVOLUTION in January 1868, one of the most important
radical periodicals of the women movements in American history. The motto of the
movement was: "Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and
nothing less!" And it was their efforts that 172 women actually cast ballots in
a separate box during the presidential elections on November 19, 1868. Women
then onwards started moving ahead in the government functions. It was for this
enhanced role as well as the rights that in 1876 Susan B. Anthony and Matilda
Joslyn Gage disrupt the official Centennial program at Independence Hall in
Philadelphia by presenting a "Declaration of Rights for Women" to the Vice
President.
Who else but First Lady can portray the true role of women in the development of
American government and a very good example in this respect is Mrs. Laura Bush.
She urges more American women to come upfront for their rights. Mrs. Bush joined
the worldwide effort to stop the Taliban's oppression of women and children in
Afghanistan. She urged other women also to come up and have their say in the
roles of the government being a strong proponent of women’s rights. Women have
played important roles starting from the liberation to today and the continuing
stability of the government all the more solidifying the strong footholds of
America.
NOTES
Editorial, Time and Tide (9th July, 1926)
Victoria Woodhull, Lecture on Constitutional Equality (20th February, 1872)
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