Here is an excerpt from a site regarding the Equal Rights Movement:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." That was Margaret Mead's conclusion after a lifetime of observing very diverse cultures around the world. Her insight has been borne out time and again throughout the development of this country of ours. Being allowed to live life in an atmosphere of religious freedom, having a voice in the government you support with your taxes, living free of lifelong enslavement by another person. These beliefs about how life should and must be lived were once considered outlandish by many. But these beliefs were fervently held by visionaries whose steadfast work brought about changed minds and attitudes. Now these beliefs are commonly shared across U.S. society.
Another initially outlandish idea that has come to pass: United States citizenship for women. 1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over the past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been accomplished that are now so accepted that they go unnoticed by people whose lives they have utterly changed. Many people who have lived through the recent decades of this process have come to accept blithely what has transpired. And younger people, for the most part, can hardly believe life was ever otherwise. They take the changes completely in stride, as how life has always been.
The staggering changes for women that have come about over those seven generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education - these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of women have come together to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have succeeded hugely.
Throughout 1998, the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement is being celebrated across the nation with programs and events taking every form imaginable. Like many amazing stories, the history of the Women's Rights Movement began with a small group of people questioning why human lives were being unfairly constricted.
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A Tea Launches a Revolution
The Women's Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. On that sweltering summer day in upstate New York, a young housewife and mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation of women, Stanton poured out her discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America's new democracy. Hadn't the American Revolution had been fought just 70 years earlier to win the patriots freedom from tyranny? But women had not gained freedom even though they'd taken equally tremendous risks through those dangerous years. Surely the new republic would benefit from having its women play more active roles throughout society. Stanton's friends agreed with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and carry out a specific, large-scale program.
Today we are living the legacy of this afternoon conversation among women friends. Throughout 1998, events celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement are looking at the massive changes these women set in motion when they daringly agreed to convene the world's first Women's Rights Convention.
Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called "A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.
In the history of western civilization, no similar public meeting had ever been called.
A "Declaration of Sentiments" is Drafted
These were patriotic women, sharing the ideal of improving the new republic. They saw their mission as helping the republic keep its promise of better, more egalitarian lives for its citizens. As the women set about preparing for the event, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of Independence as the framework for writing what she titled a "Declaration of Sentiments." In what proved to be a brilliant move, Stanton connected the nascent campaign for women's rights directly to that powerful American symbol of liberty. The same familiar words framed their arguments: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
In this Declaration of Sentiments, Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the number of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had listed in their Declaration of Independence from England.
...continued ....
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| The Redundant Nature of the Equal Rights Amendment: |
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blue130160
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May 13 @ 4:28PM
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Bojangles102
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May 13 @ 8:14PM
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Year by year our country is becoming more feminized. We are to the point now where we can'tt stand straight anymore to have the spine that it takes for us to defend the American way of life.
If we want to get something done, we find a way to get in front of the media and gather a few followers...This works because the rest of the populus are busy with life and earning money to pay taxes.
I was around before the Women's Rights Movement was focused on so greatly by the media...There were stronger families, less gangs, less crime and less drug problems in this country.
No successful nation is run by a Matriarchy.
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HopelesslyHopeful
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May 13 @ 11:59PM
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Year by year our country is becoming more feminized. We are to the point now where we can'tt stand straight anymore to have the spine that it takes for us to defend the American way of life.
If we want to get something done, we find a way to get in front of the media and gather a few followers...This works because the rest of the populus are busy with life and earning money to pay taxes.
I was around before the Women's Rights Movement was focused on so greatly by the media...There were stronger families, less gangs, less crime and less drug problems in this country.
No successful nation is run by a Matriarchy.
Yes ... hmm .. hmpph .. . ho hum .. .fiddledy dee .. tell me .. what does any of that, as interesting as it is, have to do with the blog? And did you read the continuation of it?
Since when is visual stimulation substituting for real intimacy in decision making a feminine trait?
And when did the female President and primarily female Congress, Mayors, and Military Commanders cover up huge political crimes and scandals, tax the pants off the populace, and pass a lot of unwholesome laws based on the kickbacks they were getting from Max Factor, for instance.
To blame all the shite in the world on women wanting equal rights is absolutely ludicrous .. unless they actually had them and then they threw the shite that hit the fan.
It would be nice if you actually read the full thing, all three blogs, so as to get the gist of the point! But, even if you don't, it would be nice if you kept your comments somewhere within the realm of the topic.
The Heading is a clue as to the topic, by the way. It is not about pro or con for feminism.. nor is feminism, as it stands today, the same thing as Equal Rights.
Nor do you happen to know my feelings on the subject at all, since you obviously saw certain key words and assumed the sentiments and ran with it. lol
Thank you for your contribution, but I really expected better from you as I know you to be an intelligent man. However, since you think women are not equal to men then you're going to need to learn to be even more intelligent than I gave you credit for.
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