WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT AND THE 19TH AMENDMENT

Influence Of Women's Suffrage Movement and the 19th Amendment on American Legal System

Influence Of Women's Suffrage Movement and the 19th Amendment on American Legal System

Introduction

Women had battled the battle for suffrage since the founding of the United States. The sheer extent of this fight for the right to vote displays its importance. For three generations, the suffrage movement gave American women a separate sphere of political life, one with purpose, spirit, and continuit y. It politicized networks of women, created new ones, and spurred their efforts in a sense of common cause (Randall, 2007).

Throughout the 19th Amendment, American society believed that social roles were divided by gender. The ideology of distinct spheres argued that men were better suited for life in the public domain and that women should stay in the dwelling to care for the family and children. Men were examined rational, independent, competitive, and aggressive, where women were supposed as emotional, maternal, domestic, and dependen t. This partition of society was considered natural and ordained by proceedd. It was obvious to society at the time that men and women's biological differences should rightly translate into differences in their lives (Randall, 2007).

Discussion

Women argued that since they were consigned to the home because of the separate spheres ideology, they should have some form of participation in the political, social, and economic decisions that affected the home and family life. The best way for that to happen, according to suffragists, was for women to gain the vote. The push for the vote for women was not universally applauded. Woman suffrage was very much a middle-class woman's movement. Working-class women were less interested in a vote, which they saw as largely symbolic. In their lives, economic oppression was central, and most did not believe ...