Womens Rights Movement in the US Essay -- Womens Liberation Movemen

Womens Liberation MovementBetty Friedan wrote that the only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. The message here is that women remove more than just a husband, children, and a home to feel fulfil take women need independence and creative outlets, unrestrained by the pressures of society. Throughout much of history, women have struggled with the limited roles society imposed on them. The belief that women were intellectually inferior, physically weaker, and haphazard has reinforced stereotypes throughout history. In the 1960s, however, women challenged their roles as the happy little homemakers. Their story is the story of the Womens Liberation Movement.The struggle for womens rights did not begin in the 1960s. What has come to be called Womens Lib was, in fact, the second wave of a civil rights movement that began in the early 19th century. This first wave rotated around gaining suffrage (the right to vote). Earlier womens movements to improve the lives of prostitutes, increase wages and employment opportunities for working women, ban alcohol, and abolish slavery inspired and led directly to the organized campaign for womens suffrage. The movement towards womens suffrage began in 1840 when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton went to London to attend a World Anti-Slavery Society Convention. The were barred from be and told to sit in a curtained enclosure with other women attendees if they wished to meet. This incident inspired Mott and Stanton to organize the First Womens Rights Convention which was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Three hundred women and some men came. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, which stressed equality among men and women and also listed grievances, like womens lack of voting, property, marriage, and education rights, was written at the convention and signed afterwards. This event inspired other conventions, like the first National Wom ens Rights Convention in 1850, and the formation of organizations, like the National American Womens Suffrage Association in 1890, both of which aided the fight for womens suffrage. After women got the right to vote in 1920, the around devoted members of the womens movement focused on gaining other rights for women. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, w... ...elped them to acquire more positive self-images and more desirable roles in society. This consciousness was a significant shot and legacy of the Womens Liberation Movement.The impact of the Womens Liberation Movement is still with women today, as is the movement itself. Women have the right to vote in most nations and are being elected to public office at all levels of government. Women defy current stereotypes, and those of past generations, by becoming educated and self-aware. Women raise families by themselves and hold positions in all ranks of the workforce. Despite the many disparities that still exist among women and men in Ame rica and the rest of the world, women have come a keen-sighted way. The Womens Liberation Movement was, and continues to be, a fight for womens equality in a world run predominately by men. WORKS CITEDEisenberg, Bonnie and bloody shame Ruthsdotter. The National Womens History Project. 23 May 2004.Schultheiss, Katrin. Womens Rights. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 23 May 2004. Zinn, Howard. A Peoples History of the United States 1492-Present. New York HarperCollins, 1995.