Feminism

7 Pages 1728 Words

ve sexual equality - began soon after the Revolution. During the early nineteenth century, women participated in numerous efforts to improve women’s status, defend their interests, and increase their rights. Educators, such as Emma Willard, Mary Lyon, and Catharine Beecher, promoted advanced training for women in female academies and seminaries. They spoke about women’s need for equal education, legal equality, divorce rights and married women’s property rights. Among women in the antebellum North, the "woman question" became a lively issue. The first women’s rights movement emerged in part from women’s sense of alliance with one another and their shared discontents. The Grimké sisters became advocates of sexual equality. "The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own," Angelina Grimké declared in 1836 (Ries and Stone) . The first women’s rights meeting, at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, capitalized on women’s antislavery experience and called by Mott and Stanton. One-third of the participants signed a "Declaration of Sentiments," modelled on the Declaration of Independence and drawn up by Stanton. The declaration denounced the "absolute tyranny" of men and presented resolutions demanding equal rights for women in marriage, education, religion, employment, and political life. During the Civil War, women’s rights leaders maintained their antislavery stance. After the Emancipat...