For What Major Issues Did the Women's Rights Movement Fight?

The Supreme Court guarantees equality for women.

The women's rights movement in the United States began with a convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, calling for legal equality for women.

The Right to Vote

The fight for a woman's right to vote was one of the first issues of the women's rights movement. Beginning in 1878 and continuing every year for the next 41 years, a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote was proposed to Congress. Women gained the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Equal Rights at Work

Before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, women had no legal recourse for workplace discrimination. It is now against federal law for an employer to deny anyone employment, equal pay, promotions or access to benefits due simply to gender.

Reproductive Rights

Margaret Sanger led the fight for women's reproductive rights in the first half of the 20th century. She believed that women could not lead healthy and productive lives without the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but the Comstock Laws made it a federal and state crime to distribute information about contraception. Birth control was legalized for married couples in 1966 and for single women in 1972.

References

• University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law: Women's Fight for the Vote,The Nineteenth Amendment
• Equal Rights Advocates: Sex Discrimination
• Mount Holyoke College: Margaret Sanger
• Planned Parenthood: Our History
• America.gov: Seneca Falls Convention Began Women's Rights Movement

Resources

• Change.org: Women's Rights