Expectations vs. Reality

Lately in class we have been learning about the Women’s Rights Movement. We have learned by doing hands on experiences and diving right into the lives of the women who were treated so poorly in the 1800's.

Women in the 1800's were considered weaker and overall less than men. In the Lavender article, it discusses the four characteristics of an ideal woman. The four characteristics of an ideal woman are 1. Piety; purifying society through suffering 2. Purity; purity especially sexual 3. Submissiveness 4. Domesticity. Society believed that women should not enter the public sphere but stay safe in the private sphere. The public sphere was the world outside the home. Men worked in jobs full of temptation, violence, etc.  in the public sphere. The private sphere was the home and this is where the women stayed. Middle class women were to stay in the home and take care of the house and children, providing comfort and companionship to men, and remain out of the public eye.

The Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention was a convention in 1848 in which women from all over America went to in Seneca Falls, New York. They discussed the plight of women and proposed a number of reforms that could have made life better for women. Men's voices were left out of the conversation. They finally had had enough of society's view on them and they decided to take action against what they were supposed to be for what they were. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was a declaration formed in July of 1848 that resolved the issues of women's rights. Like the Declaration of Independence, it was formed in July and it has almost the same exact words and structure. Women's suffrage was the idea that women should have the right to vote. It was controversial because African American men obtained the right to vote while women of all races still had not yet had the right to vote.

We, as a class, took on the roles of women from the 1800's. We were supposed to step into the shoes of a group of 1800's women and act as if we were in the Seneca Falls Convention. My group was the Middle- and Upper-Class White Reformers. We were given the goal to make a list of five problems that should be resolved by this convention, based on the needs and beliefs of your social group. We had to number them in order of importance from greatest to least. As I looked at all of the groups ideas and resolutions, I noticed that there were many similarities. Comparing the resolutions that we formed and the The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, both had almost exact similarities in which that both covered and resolved the same topics. I feel that the only contrast between the two was that the The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was a little more vague and open-ended, where as ours was very specific.

I feel as though the most important resolution was women's suffrage. Although things such as abuse are much more severe, they cannot be legally enforced and will not be able to catch every time, whereas women's suffrage sparks the beginning of women's rights actually transforming. Women will be able to have a say in what happens and will be able to shape the future with the right to vote. Women have the right to argue that some things are not equal between genders, but there's one thing that they cannot argue about, and that's suffrage. Women now have the right to vote. They cannot say that voting fluctuates like salaries or job opportunities, no vote is more important than another, they are all equal. A man's vote is equal to a woman's vote. This was a huge achievement by women because they sparked a movement that snowballed off of each achievement before it, all starting with women's suffrage. Many of the resolutions from The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions have been resolved since.

Women were considered inferior to men for many years. They then stood up for what they believed in and made a change. This change happened so rapidly, that it out paced the preceding actions before it. It all starts with one spark. I learned to stand up for what you believe in and to never back down.