Top 10 Wars Won By Women
Take a look back on all the hard-won battles women have poured their blood, sweat and tears into over the past 150 years.
Top 10 Wars Won By Women
In this, the year of the War on Women, it seems important to take a look back on all the hard-won battles women have poured their blood, sweat and tears into over the past 150 years. Seeing how far we've come makes it hard to understand why there are so many people across the country right now working to roll back our reproductive rights, restrict our access to birth control, and allow employers to pay us less than men. It's like they want to erase the '70s! Let this top 10 list light a fire under your ass so you make sure that doesn't happen this election year.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.10. The Women's Suffrage Movement in America A quick timeline:
1848: The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY, over two days with about 300 attendees.
1869 (May): Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association in an effort to secure women the right to vote via a Constitutional amendment.
1869 (Nov): A national association is formed, focusing on gaining women's voting rights through amendments to state constitutions.
1878: A federal woman suffrage amendment written by Susan B. Anthony is introduced in Congress.
1890: The two suffrage groups merge to form The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) .
1919: The federal woman suffrage amendment is passed by the House and Senate.
1920: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives women the right to vote, becomes the law of the land.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.9. Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Campaign
In 1916, Sanger opened the first U.S. birth control clinic in Brooklyn, NY. It only lasted 10 days and she was arrested, but she kept fighting, and two years later founded the American Birth Control League, followed by another -- this time successful -- clinic in NYC in 1923. Twenty years later in 1942, the ABCL became the Planned Parenthood we (almost) all know and love.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo8. Women's Minority Groups
Since women were already a minority -- at least back before we made up more than half of the population -- we might call the following two pioneering organizations "minority minority groups."
In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of slave parents, founded the National Council of Negro Women to represent the concerns of black women and fight against job discrimination, racism, and sexism. Today, the group has 39 affiliated national organization and reaches almost four million women.
In 1955, The Daughters of Bilitis became the first lesbian organization founded in the United States (in San Fran, natch). What began as a secret social group -- an alternative to lesbian bars, which were illegal at the time -- later grew into an educational and political organization, with chapters across the country and a monthly magazine. It only lasted 14 years but, according to one DOB scholar, succeeded in "creating lesbian identity, visibility, institutions, and political strategies....broaden[ing] the very definition of social change to include female sexuality."
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo7. FDA Approval of The Pill (1960)
By the mid-20th century, after more than twenty years of research had been conducted on steroid hormones, the pump was primed for the development of hormonal birth control, but nobody wanted to touch it -- not universities or pharmecuetical companies or the government. Thanks to Margaret Sanger (again!) and some private investors, scientific work on what would eventually become the Pill began in the 50s. And by 1957, the first version of the Pill was approved by the FDA, but only for menstrual disorders.
Three years later, with already half a million women having used it, the birth control pill was approved as a contraception. Still, it took a year for its producers to market it as such. Plus, the Pill wasn't available to married women in all states until the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut in 1956, and wasn't available to single women in all states until Eisenstadt v. Baird in -- get this -- 1972!
Because of its ease of use, high effectiveness, discreetness, and separation from the actual act of intercourse (no more "hold on while I slip into something more comfortable"), the Pill is credited with giving women unprecedented control over their reproduction and thus increased women's enrollment in college, participation in the workforce, and enjoyment of sex.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo6. The Equal Rights Movement
Here's a brief timeline of the strides made against the discrimination of women in the workplace and at school:
1961: Eleanor Roosevelt chairs Prez Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women and finds significant, widespread discrimination against women in the workplace; recommends fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave & affordable child care. 1963: Congress passes the Equal Pay Act, making it a crime for employers to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. 1964: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination in the workplace based on sex or race. 1967: President Johnson's affirmative action policy of 1965 now is expanded to cover discrimination based on sex. 1973: The Supreme Court upholds a ruling that sex-segregated help-wanted ads in newspapers (i.e. "women need not apply") are unconstitutional. 1972: The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), originally introduced to Congress in 1923, is finally passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification -- which never happens. 1972: Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools, i.e. girls are athletes too! 1978: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bans employers from firing a woman or denying her a job or a promotion because she is pregnant (or may become preggers). 2009: President Obama signs the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.5. Popular Feminist Publications
While there are countless publications from the 60s and 70s that were a major force in the beginning of Second Wave Feminism, two stand out:
In 1957, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique revealed how psychologic theories, advertising, educational institutions, and the workplace systematically kept women from reaching their full potential. Originally intended as an article, the book ended up as a book published in 1963, since no magazine was interested in the story. Friedan went on to help found the National Organization of Women (NOW).
In 1971, there was nothing -- journalistically speaking -- for women to read that wasn't run by men. So Gloria Steinem, along with several other feminist activists, founded Ms. Magazine, named after the new-at-the-time honorific that didn't define women by their marital status (unlike Miss and Mrs). Since feminist ideals aren't always cash cows, over the past 25 years the magazine has had several different owners, went from monthly to bimonthly to quarterly, and did away with commercial ads altogether to avoid conflicts of interest. Since its inception, Ms. has broken important, impactful stories on everything from the wage gap and the glass ceiling to sex trafficking, date rape, and domestic violence.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo4. Roe v. Wade
Jane Roe was the pseudonym of a Texas mother of two who had an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy she ultimately was forced to carry to term because of the laws at the time in 1969. Her U.S. District Court case in the Lone Star State went to the Supreme Court, where in 1973 the Justices delivered the landmark decision which deemed abortion a fundamental federal right under the Constitution.
The seven Justices in favor of Roe agreed that the Constitution insured a right to privacy that is "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." And so ended the American era of illegal and thus dangerous "back-alley" and "coat hanger" abortions, but began a heated national debate that basically split the country in two -- into the progressive pro-choice camp and the often religiously inspired pro-life camp.
Over the past forty years, the anti-choice movement has slowly chipped away at the liberty and autonomy Roe gave women over their own bodies and lives, gaining considerable, unprecedented momentum and power at the state level in just the past two years. Thank you Tea Party zealots! So if you thought this was settled law, think again.
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo3. Marital Rape Laws
Less than 40 years ago, it was perfectly legal in every U.S. state for a husband to rape his wife. After all, how can you rape a woman if she's practically legally obligated, as your wife -- i.e. your property -- to give you sex whenever you want, whether she wants to or not? The only "real" rape is stranger rape, right?
Nebraska was the first state to make marital rape illegal in 1976. It only took a whopping 17 years before it was made illegal in every state in the country -- in 1993. Nineteen-ninety-three? That's some fucked up shit.
Unfortunately, marital rape is still one of least reported crimes, and still considered less serious than other crimes, even according to certain state laws (e.g. some states have a shorter reporting deadline for marital rape than other forms of rape and some make it harder to prove marital rape than other forms).
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo
2. EMILY's List & Women in Public Office
In 1985, EMILY's List ("Early Money Is Like Yeast") was founded in Ellen Malcolm's basement with 25 friends "armed with Rolodex's" to help pro-choice Democratic women running for national political office "raise dough" (get it?). The idea being that early money attracts more money later in a campaign.
EMILY's List raised a cool million in their third year. In 1992, they helped elect four new women senators and 20 new congresswomen (hence it being dubbed "The Year of the Woman"); in 1994, they got another four female congresswomen in office; in 1996, one new senator, nine congresswomen and one governor. By 1998, EMILY's List had helped bring the total number of Democratic women in Congress to a record high of 43. Do you see a pattern forming here? In 2000, women candidates won the most seats in Congress since 1992 (four House seats, four Senate seats). And in 2002: three new pro-choice Democratic women governors, two new women of color to the U.S. House, with every EMILY's List incumbent seeking re-election winning and pro-choice Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman Minority Leader.
EMILY's List has been on a roll for the past 25 years! (Get it? Yeast, dough, bread, roll...)
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo1. Violence Against Women Act In 1994
Violence Against Women Act In 1994, then-Senator Joe Biden helped draft the Violence Against Women Act, which provided federal funds toward the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave un-prosecuted, and established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice. The Act passed with bipartisan support by both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Clinton.
Much like Roe v. Wade, it's been chipped at by conservatives ever since. In 1995, House Republicans tried to cut the Act's funding. In 2000, a conservative Supreme Court struck down the law's provision that allowed women the right to sue their attackers in federal court, arguing it was an infringement on states' rights. And just the other day, the Republican House passed the bill to reauthorize the VAWA but only after leaving out protections for LGBT, Native American, and immigrant women. Biden issued a statement, that read in part: "The House has passed a version of the Violence Against Women Act that will roll back critical provisions to help victims of abuse. I urge Congress to come together to pass a bipartisan measure that protects all victims. VAWA has been improved each time it's been reauthorized, and this time should be no different."
Tune into PUSH GIRLS Mondays at 10P, the all new series of women challenging the norm.
Author: Em & Lo
