Feminism Throughout the 19th Century: You've Come a Long Way, Baby
In the beginning, the American feminist movement helped women make strides toward equality with men. However, issues such as worker’s rights, property rights, marital rights, and abolition were given more attention than reproductive rights.
Though the first wave of feminism did not focus only women’s reproductive rights, great strides were made in getting women into colleges, courts, and the voting booth. Changing societal attitudes toward women in medicine, law, and public life set the groundwork for what was to come, as women began to demand more autonomy over their own bodies, a struggle which continues to this day.
Education was one of the first areas that opened up to women. By the beginning of the 19th century, girls were being educated alongside boys for the first time in the U.S. In 1831, Oberlin College became the first to accept female students, although the curriculum for women included classes on housework. It wasn’t until 1841 that women graduated in the same program as men.
During the 19th century, further strides were made by many courageous women.
Two Pioneers: Elizabeth Blackwell and Belva Lockwood
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated as an M.D. from Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York. Though her application had been approved on the assumption that it was a practical joke, Blackwell wasn’t joking and, though initially treated poorly, eventually gained the respect of her classmates and graduated first in her class. After having trouble finding landlords who would lease to a woman, she purchased a house and opened her own clinic in 1851. She was successful enough that she added more female doctors (one of them her sister Emily) and found male doctors to agree to work for her as consultants. She expanded her home clinic into The New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857.
Belva Lockwood was a college-educated woman who decided, when she was nearing forty, that she wanted to become a lawyer. She was admitted into what is now The George Washington University Law School, where she graduated in 1872. Though admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C., she was not allowed to practice law before the Supreme Court, being told by one judge that, “Women are not needed in court. Their place is in the home to wait upon their husbands.” Undaunted, Lockwood argued before Congress that she should be allowed to practice law just the same as any male lawyer, and eventually won the day. In 1879, she became the first female attorney to argue a case before the Supreme Court.
Seneca Falls
Many obstacles caused problems to the women’s movement during this time, including the conflict of interests between abolitionists and women’s rights. Many were concerned that having women speak out would hurt the abolitionists’ cause. Many abolitionist women, after being rejected from that movement due to their sex, moved to create conventions about women’s rights—one of the most famous being the one held at Seneca Falls in 1848.
The Seneca Falls Convention was created by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. During this convention, the Declaration of Sentiments was created and in the declaration it was stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” Some of the signatories to this document were Mott and Stanton, as well as Amy Post and Frederick Douglass.
One of the complaints listed in the Declaration of Sentiments against the government was that it did not permit a woman “her inalienable right to the elective franchise.” Some thought that concentrating on suffrage would detract from the movement, but others found their calling with this issue. Susan B. Anthony was inspired by a meeting with Stanton to attend a women’s rights convention in 1852, and she quickly became active in the suffrage movement. In 1872, Anthony was arrested for casting a vote. She was found guilty and was fined, though she never paid. This experience was the basis for her speech, On Women’s Right to Vote.
Anthony and others continued to push for women’s suffrage, which was finally granted in 1920 with the 19th amendment. Unfortunately, Anthony did not live to see it.
A Time for Reproductive Rights
By the dawn of the twentieth century, more women were speaking out on reproductive rights. Most notable was Margaret Sanger. Sanger opened the first birth control clinic, called Planned Parenthood, in 1916. Also, that same year, she published What Every Girl Should Know, which gave information about topics such as birth control.
Sanger’s first-hand experience with women’s ignorance impassioned her to become an advocate for birth control and safe abortions. In her essay, Awakening and Revolt, she wrote about her encounter with a woman who had died of a botched abortion. Sanger recounted how the woman had already approached her doctor on how to avoid another pregnancy, only to have her concerns dismissed in a cavalier fashion:
“Yes, yes—I know Doctor, but,” and she hesitated as if it took all of her courage to say it, “what can I do to prevent getting that way again?”
“Oh ho!” laughed the doctor good naturedly, “You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well, it can’t be done. I’ll tell you the only sure thing to do. Tell Jake to sleep on the roof!”
Ultimately, Sanger’s work in helping women to control their bodies paved the way for those who wished to choose the size of their families, or even to have no children at all. She sought to make birth control and abortion safe and legal.
Reproductive rights were one of the last issues to be addressed by the women’s movement, but by the time Sanger opened her clinic in 1916, attitudes about women were changing due to nearly a century of work by others like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott. Sanger, and those who came after, stood on the soldiers of giants.
Copyright . Published 1 April 2007 in Features.
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