The Women's Suffrage Movement in America

Over the course of time our world has changed drastically, industrialization, wars, and shifting world powers have all attributed to this. However, many times the greatest changes in our world are overlooked. Women in history is a subject many would not dare approach, although I believe to truly understand our world today, our past, and our future we must pause to appreciate the shifting role women have had on our society and world during WWI, II and prior to these dramatic events. Since the beginning of time women have fought against oppression and struggled to have a position in society that was out of the mundane normal. In just twenty years in the united states, in between 1900 and 1920 women’s roles shifted dramatically. Homebound and starved for any sort of role in society these women began pushing the boundaries of society at the time. Expanding into career paths outside the home, and into political and social reformers for their generation and those to come in just this short span of time. Men at this time thought very lowly of women, believing that a women had lesser intelligence than men. “The women's suffrage movement is only the small edge of the wedge, if we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands."- Winston ChurchillThe fictional thought that women could be represented by a close male relative or husband was the trend in society at the time. This however, could not be further from the truth. Women were not able to speak their mind at this point in time, seeing as political affairs had nothing to do with them, in the opinion of their male counterparts of course! With this in mind, how would any women be able to approach their spouse with an issue of the state? Changing what an acceptable role for a woman was is crucial for the escalation of female freedom. The united States in the 1900’s