“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”
— Sheryl Sandberg
Around the same time my great great great grandmother was forced into marriage at 13 years old in the mid 19th century, a group of courageous women in the USA and the UK decided they had enough and started to organize in order to demand rights for women. Up to that time women were not allowed to vote nor to own property in most places. Many jobs were not available to women and many schools were not open to girls. Women were expected to stay at home, raise children, take care of the household and obey their husbands and fathers. There were a few women here and there who dared to defy the consensus, but their life wasn't easy. It took this group of women about 100 years of fight to get the voting rights for women in the USA and other developed countries. It took two world wars when women were needed to substitute men in the workforce and a few more decades of fights for women to be able to work in jobs reserved to men till then. Women have gone a long way in the past 170 years and there is still a long way to go till every woman and girl in the world are liberated.
in this page i wish to honor some of the Sheroes who fought and are still fighting for women rights all over the world.
In September 2020 a very special woman died. She was one of the greatest leaders of the women's rights movement. RIP and thank you for everything you've done for women in this world.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933, women already had the right to vote for 12 years. Still women who entered the work force during the 30's held jobs relegated as "women's work" and were poorly paid. When she started her studies at Harvard's Law school, she was one of only 9 women in a class of about 500 men. When she started law school, she was asked: "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?". Nowadays 50% of the 50% of the students in Harvard'sLaw school are women. Thanks to the centuries long fight of women such as RBG.
WOMEN RIGHTS ACTIVIST
Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women's rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. She served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. She was the only female justice on the Supreme Court. During that time, Ginsburg became more forceful with her dissents. Ginsburg's dissenting opinion inspired many acts and regulations benefiting women and minorities including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims. Ginsburg's dissenting opinion inspired many acts and regulations benefiting women and minorities, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims.
pioneers & leaders women's rights movement
The first attempt to organize a national movement for women’s rights occurred in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a young mother from upstate New York, and the Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott, about 300 people—most of whom were women—attended the Seneca Falls Convention to outline a direction for the women’s rights movement. Stanton’s call to arms, her “Declaration of Sentiments,” echoed the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”
Margaret Sanger
Planned Parenthood
an American birth control activist, sex educator, popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the planned parenthood federation of America
Mary Mcleod Bethune
adviser to F.D.Roosevelt
An American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist. Founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935. Was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Eleanor Roosevelt
"First Lady of the World"
An American political figure, diplomat and activist. Was called the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace. She served at the UN commission on human rights. She chaired JFK presidential commission on the status of women.
Alice Paul
THE RIGHT TO VOTE
An American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, one of the main leaders of the campaign for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Paul initiated, and along with Lucy Burns and others, strategized events which resulted in the amendment's passage in 1920.
Lucretia Mott
reforming the position of women in society
An American abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society . In 1848 she was involved in the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which Mott co-wrote the Declaration of Sentiments.
Susan B. Anthony
women's voting rights
A suffragist, abolitionist, author and speaker. Was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. A leading figure in the women's voting rights movement. Anthony was denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman, and later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote.
MILESTONES IN WOMEN'S RIGHTS FIGHT
1848
In the first women’s rights convention organized by women, the Seneca Falls Convention is held in New York, with 300 attendees
1869
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found the National Woman Suffrage Association, which coordinated the national suffrage movement
1916
Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic in the United States.
1917
Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a longtime activist with the National Woman Suffrage Association, is sworn in as the first woman elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives.
1920
Ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is completed, declaring “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
1955
Black seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. The move helps launch the civil rights movement.
1960
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the first commercially produced birth control pill in the world
1963
President John F. Kennedy signs into law the Equal Pay Act, prohibiting sex-based wage discrimination between men and women performing the same job in the same workplace.
1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson, signs the Civil Rights Act into law; Title VII bans employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin or sex.
1973
In its landmark 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Constitution protects a woman’s legal right to an abortion.
1994
Clinton signs the Violence Against Women Act as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, providing funding for programs that help victims of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, stalking and other gender-related violence.
2013
The U.S. military removes a ban against women serving in combat positions.
