Women's Rights Movement in the 1800's

In the 1800's the role of the woman was to birth children and take care of the home and family while the husband would work to provide for the home.  And when the man came home, she was to provide comfort for him and make sure he was happy.  The four characteristics of an ideal woman were piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.  Piety was to be devoted to a certain religion, this relates to purity because a woman would have to make sure she never sinned and abstained from sexual natures until starting a family.  An ideal woman also had to be submissive and conform to the ideals that would make her appear beautiful. Much of this had to do with what kind of clothing she would wear.  Women's clothing was designed to reshape her body, and could restrict proper breathing or prevent proper muscle development. To be domestic is to be an object of the household, so a woman would generally stay at home and do the housework that needed to be done as well a take care of the family.  This was known as the private sphere, a place where the woman would be safe from the outside world and not have to worry about finances and big businesses.  Her husband would work in the public sphere and make money to provide for the household.

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention.  Taking place over July 19-20, 1948 it discussed the rights and roles of women.  The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments was a major point of discussion at the convention. Written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it was based on the Declaration of independence but included women in it as well.

Many women's lives however, were not improved by the convention.  Cherokee Native american, African Americans and basically all other races of women were essentially left out of all of the rights given to wealthy, white women at the convention.  The resolutions we came up with in class included equality to men and women, but we also gave the same rights to people of all races not just whites.  

I think that the most important resolution was that a woman was a mans equal and should be treated as such.  This is the most important because it bestows many if not all of the rights that men have upon a woman. Today this is something that we in the U.S. have no trouble accepting but in many places around the world women are still treated with less respect as men but it is a vast improvement from where we stood in the 1800's