Many people are unhappy with the rights that are given to women today in the 21st century. In the 19th century the situation was a lot worse. During the 19th century, women could not vote, they were mistreated often by men, and they just generally were treated as if they were inferior to men. Today women and men are not treated equal and, I do not feel that they will ever be treated equally because they are different. However women have gained more rights and now have to ability to vote, run companies, and have a larger impact on our world. As of today there are 172 female billionaires in our world. Most people in the 19th century would have never saw that coming.
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| Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions |
Close to the midpoint of the 19th century many women gathered to finally stick up for themselves. In July, 1848 a group of women gathered to attend the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. At the convention the women created the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. This document stated many of the problems that women were having in society. Some examples being, men had total control over money and land, they couldn't vote, they had a subordinate position in the church. This was a major act of feminism in the 19th century.
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| National Reformer Article |
Many people had varied reactions to the production of the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. For example the writer of the Oneida Wig states," If our ladies will insist on voting and legislating,where, gentlemen, will be our elbows and dinners?" This writer was intimidated by the potential of powerful women. He is concerned that if women are off voting, and working then they will have no one cooking meals for them at home. This is obviously a negative reaction to the Seneca Falls Convention. Many other newspapers reacted poorly to the feminist movement. For example the Mechanics Advocate the writer states,” Every true-hearted female will instantly feel that it is un-womanly, and that to be practically carried out, the males must change their position in society to the same extent in opposite direction..." This is also a negative reaction to the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. This writer is saying that women should understand that if they get the rights of men then they are basically no longer women. There were some positive reactions to the declaration. For example in The National Reformer, which was published August third, 1848, when talking about the people against women he says, “They may ridicule, but not reason away the facts and arguments there set forth.” This quote shows that the men can joke all they want about not having dinner or that women are becoming manly, but when it comes down to the facts women deserve to be treated better and with more respect.
In the 21st century women are still not being treated as well as men. Often when a man does something he receives a much different label than if woman were to do the same thing. This is displayed in a Pantene comercial. Very often there are stories in news about people discriminating against women because of the fact that they are women. For example many places in the world today girls still have to go through a major struggle to attend school.This being said, there are some positive things going on for women in the 21st century. One major example is women who cover the sideline in sports. Sports were originally thought to be just for women but now today we have women reporting at games.
