Supporting Question 1 - Mr. Leisten's Homepagekleisten.wikispaces.com/file/view/Women's Rights...  · Web viewPhiladelphia, Jan. 22.--"Revolting" is the word Miss Alice Paul, ...

8th Grade Women’s Rights Inquiry

What Does It Mean to Be Equal?

Seneca County Courier announcement of the First Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, July 14, 1848. Public domain.

Supporting Questions

1. What legal limitations did women face in the 19th century? 2. What actions did women take in the 19th century to obtain rights?3. What were the results of women’s actions?4. What gender-inequality issues do women face today? How might we address gender

equality today?

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Supporting Question 1Featured Source Source A: Sir William Blackstone, description of common law marriage rights in England, Commentaries

on the Laws of England (excerpt), 1765

NOTE: In the 19th century, American and British women's rights—or lack of them—depended heavily on the commentaries of William Blackstone, who defined a married woman and man as one person under common law.

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert, foemina viro co-operta; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant (agreement/promise) with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage….

From Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 1, William Blackstone. 1765. pp. 442–445. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30802/30802-h/30802-h.htm#Page_434.

1) Although Blackstone was an Englishman, his view of marriage represents what was true in the Thirteen Colonies, as well. When a woman marries, what rights is she forced to give up under the law?

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Supporting Question 1Featured Source Source B: Lydia Becker, Suffragette

In 1867 Lydia Becker made a speech at a meeting of the Manchester Suffrage Society on the subject of marriage.

“I think that the notion that the husband ought to have the headship or authority over his wife, is the root of all social evils… Husband and wife should be co-equal. In a happy marriage there is no question of 'obedience'.

Lydia Becker in Free Trade Hall on 14 April 1868“…that the exclusion of women from the exercise of the franchise in the election of Members of Parliament being unjust in principle and inexpedient in practice, this meeting is of the opinion that the right of voting should be granted to them on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men.”

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Supporting Question 1Featured Source Source C: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments outlined in the Report of the Women’s

Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York July 19 and 20, 1848 (excerpt)

The Convention assembled at the hour appointed, James Mott, of Philadelphia, in the Chair. The minutes of the previous day having been read, E. C. Stanton again read the Declaration of Sentiments, which was freely discussed …and was unanimously adopted, as follows:

Declaration of Sentiments.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

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He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

Public domain. Available from the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers Project, Rutgers University: http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html.

1) Highlight the phrases in the “Declaration of Sentiments” that indicate the writers were inspired by the Declaration of Independence for their list of grievances.

2) According to the authors, what legal limitations did women face in the 19th century?

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Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source A: Newspaper announcement of the First Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New

York, Seneca County Courier, July 14, 1848

Public domain. Available from the National Park Service, Women’s Rights National Historical Park. http://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/participants-of-the-first-womens-rights-convention.htm.

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Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source B: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments outlined in the Report of the Women’s

Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York July 19 and 20, 1848 (excerpt, continuation from supporting question #1)

Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same tranegressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.3

Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.

1) List four demands made for women’s rights in the “Declaration of Sentiments.”

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Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source C: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 20 June 1873.

Remarks by Susan B. Anthony in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York19 June 1873Editorial Note:On 19 June 1873, a day after Justice Ward Hunt found Susan B. Anthony guilty of the federal crime of voting without the right to vote, the judge denied her lawyer's motion for a new trial. Then before pronouncing sentence, Hunt asked Anthony a routine legal question. Her reply has become one of the best-known texts in the history of woman suffrage. Three different reports of her remarks survive, and in the absence of a transcript of the trial, their authenticity cannot be determined. The first one, embedded in the Associated Press's dispatch of 19 June from Canandaigua, appeared in scores of newspapers across the country.

Account No.1The court made the usual inquiry of Miss Anthony if she had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced. Miss Anthony answered she had a great many things to say, and declared that in her trial every principle of justice had been violated; that every right had been denied; that she had had no trial by her peers; that the court and jurors were her political superiors and not her peers, and announced her determination to continue her labors until equality was obtained and was proceeding to discuss the questions involved in the case when she was interrupted by the court with the remark that these questions could not be reviewed. Miss Anthony replied she wished it fully understood that she asked no clemency from the court, that she desired and demanded the full rigor of the law. Judge Hunt then said: "The judgment of the court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution," and immediately added, "there is no order that you stand committed until the fine is paid."

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Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 20 June 1873.

Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source D: Parade in New York City suffragist parade, May 6, 1912

Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source E: Women picket the White House, 1917

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Supporting Question 2Featured Source Source F: Alice Paul’s account of a hunger strike that took place in London, England.

(similar events occurred in the United States after Paul’s arrest for picketing in front of the White House in 1917)

ALICE PAUL TALKS- Hunger Striker Describes Forcible Feeding.

Philadelphia, Jan. 22.--"Revolting" is the word Miss Alice Paul, the American suffragette, who returned on Thursday by the steamer Haverford from exciting adventures in England, applies to the forced feeding which she endured in Holloway jail. Miss Paul, by the way, doesn't look at all like the popular conception of an agitator. She astonishes persons who sees her for the first time, after hearing of her doings, by her exceedingly feminine appearance. She is a delicate slip of a girl, whom no one would suspect of being an interrupter of public meetings and a victim of prison hardships.

"I resorted to the 'hunger strike' method twice," she added to a Tribune reporter. "I was clapped into jail three times while in England, and during my first and second terms I refused to eat. Once I didn't touch food for five days. Then the authorities decided to feed me by force. I refused to wear the prison garb, too, and I would not perform the labor I was sentenced to do; so, of course, I had to spend my days in bed. When the forcible feedings was ordered I was taken from my bed, carried to another room and forced into a chair, bound with sheets and sat upon bodily by a fat murderer, whose duty it was to keep me still. Then the prison doctor, assisted by two woman attendants, placed a rubber tube up my nostrils and pumped liquid food through it into the stomach. Twice a day for a month, from November 1 to December 1, this was done."

"It was a weary vigil," she said, "but it paid. The Prime Minister made a most eloquent speech, and I listened, waiting for a chance to break in. At last there came a pause. Summoning all my strength, I shouted at the top of my voice: "How about votes for women?'

"You would have thought I had thrown a bomb. There was serious disorder, but Mr. Asquith was the most startled of all. You see, the hall was guarded by a cordon of police, and he felt safe from interruption. While the officers searched for me he stood like a statue, after one great start. I was found and arrested, and imprisonment followed."

Miss Paul left Philadelphia for her home in Moorestown, N. J., immediately after landing, and intends to give her attention for the present to the recovery of her health, which suffered somewhat from her stormy experience. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and had gone to England to continue her studies, when she was drawn into the militant suffrage movement.

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Supporting Question 3Featured Source Source A: United States Constitution, 19th Amendment

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1) Highlight what right the 19th Amendment provided for women.

Supporting Question 3Featured Source Source B: NYS DBQ Timeline of Women’s Rights Milestone Events

1) How many years after the Seneca Falls Convention did it take for women to finally gain the right to vote?

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2) From the timeline, identify an event that would not have occurred without the passage of the 19th Amendment.

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Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source A: U.S. Census Bureau via the Wall Street Journal

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Men

Women

Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source B: leftycartoons.com

1) According to the cartoon, what gender inequality issue is being highlighted by the cartoonist?

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2) According to the cartoon, who has access to “really good careers” in the United States today?

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Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source C: The Christian Science Monitor

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Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source D: Title IX Legislation

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1) Did the Title IX Legislation create gender equality in regard to athletics? Explain.

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Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 70s

“Nothing changes the gender equation more significantly than women's economic freedom.”

“The deepest change begins with men raising children as much as women do and women being equal actors in the world outside the home. There are many ways of supporting that, from something as simple as paid sick leave and flexible work hours to attributing an economic value to all caregiving and making that amount tax deductible.”

“A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where everyone can be themselves”

1) According to Steinem, what is the best means toward addressing concerns regarding gender inequality?

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Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source E: Gloria Steinem quotations

Supporting Question 4Featured Source Source F: WomanStats Project, map depicting the levels of women’s participation in government

throughout the United States, “Women in the U.S. Government,” 2015

Courtesy of the WomanStats Project, http://womanstats.org/.

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What Does It Mean To Be Equal?

Directions: Construct an argument that discusses the issues women faced in the 19th century and those they continue to face today using specific claims and relevant evidence from historical sources while acknowledging competing views.

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