A wake up call for women

Our history

Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution – guaranteeing women the right to vote. Some suffragists used more confrontational tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, and hunger strikes.

In July 1848, 300 people convened in Seneca Falls, New York to fight for the social, civil, and religious rights of women. This women’s rights convention is referred to as the First Wave of Feminism.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the meeting’s organizers, began with a speech on the convention’s goals and purpose:

“We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed—to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love.”

Emily Davison, an English suffragette, “fought for votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant fighter for her cause, she was arrested on nine occasions, went on hunger strike seven times and was force-fed on forty-nine occasions. She died after being hit by King George V‘s horse at the 1913 Derby when she walked onto the track during the race.”

These early feminist movements, though imperfect, did eventually result in landmark political and legal reforms that gave women the right to vote and to own property.

According to women’s rights attorney Dr. Ann Olivarius, the current rollback of women’s rights across multiple fronts from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to the federal government and corporations dismantling DEI policies, is a wake up call for women to continue to fight back.

Read the full article on Substack.com.