Womens Rights :: Women Empowerment

Today women and men right are equal in the United States of America. Not long ago, there was a great difference in the treatment of men and women. Women provided care for the children and usually remained at home. Their education was limited to learning domestic skills. There were few opportunities for women to obtain an education because only a few colleges or universities would accept a female. Women had no access to positions of power. They were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law. They thought they were totally dependent on men. For the Industrial Revolution women were a really important role. This was the beginning of their independence, although factory conditions were very bad and their pay, were lower than men's, meant that lower-class women could become wage earners in factories. At the same time middle and upper-class women were expected to stay at home as idle, decorative symbols of their husbands' economic success. Such conditions encouraged the feminist movement. With industrialization happening rapidly in Great Britain and U.S feminism was more successful. In 1848 more than 100 persons held the first women's rights convention, at Seneca Falls, New York. Led by the supporter Lucretia Mott and the feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, they demanded equal rights, including the vote and an end to the double standard. The number of working women increased virtually after the two world wars, but had low paid, female- dominated occupations, such as school teachers and clerical work. Women were not even allowed to vote until August 1920. In the 1960's however, changing demographic, economic and social patterns encouraged a resurgence of feminism. As working women encountered discrimination in many forms. The women's movement also questioned social institutions and moral values, basing many of it's arguments on scientific studies suggesting that most supposed differences between men and women result not from biology, but from culture. In the early 70's active feminists organized women's rights groups, ranging from the moderate National Organization for Women, founded in 1966 and claiming about 250,000 members to smaller, more radical groups. Private and governmental efforts covered in November 1977, when the largest convention of women ever held in the U.