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Brief History of Struggle for Women Rights
The twentieth century marked a great change in the gender equality. Before the century, one gender was perceived to be directly opposite of the other, that is, a woman was believed to be the opposite of the man. This mentality affected even their natural positions and rights in the society. The society believed the position of a woman to be at home performing tasks like taking care of the family and the general house. Women were not allowed to be educated, hold any leadership position or even engage in any economic activities. These were places reserved for men since they were the “intelligent” ones to make the decisions in the society. Women were not even allowed to vote since they did not have the capacity to make any logic decisions that would affect the society (Lambert, 1).
Consequently, towards the end of the nineteenth century, this mentality started being challenged. In some colleges, they began to educate women such as The Vassar. However, the education for women during this period was reserved for the upper class and some of the middle class. Towards the early twentieth century, the suffrage was becoming an issue and women with the help of some men started advocating for their rights to vote. Women felt that through having their voting rights they would be able to advocate for much more recognition (Lambert, 1). The men, however, opposed this right as they felt women would become more powerful.

This is because they were more than men in numbers, and they might decide to vote as a block. In addition to that, men felt that it was against the natural roles of gender. This is because position could have given women powers to make decisions which were reserved for men. The struggle for suffrage took many years. Later on, in 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed, and women were allowed to vote in 1922 (Radek, 1).
Contrarily, this suffrage brought along other freedoms as women got the feeling for equal political rights with men and shifted their focus to personal freedom such as economic power, education, and employment opportunities. It was, however, short-lived when the great depression hit the world in 1929, and the society believed that the freedom offered was the reason behind the economic crisis. This is because they viewed it as immoral for genders to abandon their natural positions in the society. The things went back to where they were, but again women started gaining acknowledgment during the World War II when the men went to battle. The women left behind were encouraged to join the workforce as a sign of patriotism and also since they the only breadwinners in the families (Farmer, 1).
Simultaneously, they were urged to go colleges and fill the desks so that the colleges could not be left empty. When the war ended, men came back home and started demanding their jobs back, and many women were retrenched (Radek, 1). Few women were left in the workplaces but could not hold the same positions as men. However, this time women did not go silent as they had gained more education and this made the struggle for independence and equality to become more intense. Many international organizations such as UN Women, Global Women’s Right, Global Funds for Women just to mention a few have emerged to ensure women issues are addressed (Farmer, 1).
Summarizing, even though today women issues have not been fully addressed, big steps have been made in the last one century, and a lot of women freedom has been realized in all sectors, that is, education, economic, workplace and political. Women are seen holding presidential positions around the world serve in the same professional positions in the offices as well as own big businesses and get recognized in the society. However, there is still a lot to be done as it can be seen for women to be given equal opportunity to a man even today; she has to be exceptionally outstanding (Radek, 1).
Work Cited
Farmer Ashley. A Historical View of the American Workplace. Stanford University Website, 2014.http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/historical-view-american-workplace
Lambert, Tim. “LIFE FOR WOMEN IN THE 20TH CENTURY.” Local Histories Organization Website, 2016. http://www.localhistories.org/women20th.html.
Radek, Kimberly M. “Women in the Twentieth Century and Beyond .” Women in Literature Website, 2006. http://www2.ivcc.edu/gen2002/twentieth_century.htm.