Final Exam Terms #12: The Women's Rights Movement

Seneca Falls Convention: 1st women’s rights convention, July 19-20, 1848.

Elizabeth Cady Staunton and Lucrecia Mott: creators of the Seneca Falls convention, decided to create the convention after not being allowed to enter the first Anti-Slavery convention.

National Women’s Rights Convention: organized annually in the 1850s, where Sojourner Truth gave her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech

First Wave of American Feminism: starts with Seneca Falls, goes until the 20th Amendment

14th and 15th Amendments: first amendments to mention gender, specifically excluding women

National Women’s Suffrage Association: led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Staunton, wanted to reject and redo the 14th and 15th Amendments. Focused all energies on lobbying Congress for a new amendment. 

American Women’s Suffrage Association: focused on lobbying one state legislature at a time, trying to change the states’ minds and eventually the whole country

Federalism: idea that while we do have a separate federal and state governments, on many levels they are the same

National American Women’s Suffrage Association: What was formed when the National Women’s Suffrage Association and American Women’s Suffrage Association merged. 

Women’s Christian Temperance Union: 1874, a group of women who wanted to ban alcohol. Women were more likely to want to ban alcohol than men, and the alcohol business was against women’s suffrage

Seneca Falls Declaration: modeled after the Declaration of Independence, gave a list of grievances and said all the rights that women were being denied can be derived from natural law. Also said that “all men and women” were created equal. Makes reference to no taxation without representation and women having to follow laws they have no say in creating.

Second Wave of American Feminism: starts with the 19th Amendment (1920) and continues through the 19th century, ending sometime after the 1970s.

1950s Suburbia: America’s standard of living was unparalleled, economy was booming, and things that used to be considered luxurious were becoming more commonplace.

The Feminine Mystique: 1963 book by Betty Friedan, helped galvanize American feminism. The central question that it asks is: is there more to life than being a suburban housewife?

Feminist Organizing in the 1960s-70s: coincides with the Civil Rights Movement and protesting the Vietnam war. 

First Women at UVA: September 1970, UVA admits 4 women. The following year, they installed a quota system, where 10% of each class would be women. This system would eventually be overturned in court when women sued

National Organization for Women (NOW): Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm are the two most prominent founders, the organization’s most important priorities are the Equal Rights Amendment and Reproductive Rights

Equal Rights Amendment 1923: Proposed by Alice Paul in 1923, as a one-sentence amendment that would guarantee men and women equal rights under the law. It took 50 years to get sufficient support in Congress.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) 1972: Proposed by Martha Griffiths, passed in Congress and only ratified by 35 states, so it did not get added to the Constitution. Had a deadline of 5 years that eventually got extended into the 1980s.

American Birth Control League: formed in 1921 by Margaret Sanger to inform American women about opportunities for birth control and contraception. Wanted to bring this information to poorer or immigrant women. Eventually became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Developed the first birth control pill in the 1960s.

Griswold v. Connecticut 1965: Congress had banned birth control for everyone except married couples, so the Griswolds sued and the Supreme Court agreed that they had a “right to privacy” and they shouldn’t need a prescription for birth control. 

Roe v. Wade 1973: Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion everywhere under the “right to privacy”

Pro-life Demonstration in Phoenix 1973: started the pro-life movement after Roe v. Wade. For decades after, each Congressional session a “right-to-life” movement was proposed.