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September 30, 2013 at 08:00 PM
Throughout my life, I have known strong women who did what they had to in order to survive and flourish, without asking permission of a man. My grandmother and great aunts, my business partners and my wife, my clients and friends all stood up to discrimination. None would abide disrespect from men. With much courage and flair they proved to their fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, bosses and colleagues that they were, and are, very much equals.
These women all cited key influences in their lives, including groundbreakers who paved the way and special individuals who invested in their development. Let’s take a look back for a moment.
We’ve come a long way
In 1923, the suffragist leader Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment, presenting it as the “Lucretia Mott Amendment” at the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments.
Mott was a Quaker minister who fought passionately to eradicate slavery and racism in America. At the time, a woman’s participation in the anti-slavery movement was perceived as a threat to society. Even many of her fellow abolitionists believed that women should not be involved in public activities, especially public speaking.
Mott’s success in promoting the rights of those who could not argue for themselves drew the attention of the women’s rights movement and she, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. At this first women’s rights assembly in the United States, activists advocated for equality in marriage, including women’s property rights and access to their own earnings.
America is still working to advance equal rights, but think of how far we’ve come in the last half century. In the 1950s, women needed a man to guarantee a mortgage; in the 1960s, a woman could not get a credit card in her own name; in the 1980s, the U.S. tax code required a wife’s income to be reflected on her husband’s tax form while she had no reciprocal right to be informed of her husband’s income.
Outside of the United States, misogyny and extreme bias continue to oppress women. Imagine living in a country where women are not permitted to drive; or where citizens burn down a girls’ school with the girls still in it; or where women are raped then convicted of adultery.
Opportunities abound for American girls who dream of what they will do when they grow up, thanks to the courage of people like Lucretia Mott.
