Perspective: What activists today can learn from the women’s suffrage movement
Women bang pots and pans during a protest at the start of a nationwide feminist strike on International Women's Day at Puerta del Sol Square in Madrid on March 8. By Ellen Carol DuBois Ellen Carol DuBois is distinguished research professor at the University of California Los Angeles and the author of several history books about the U.S. suffrage movement, including the forthcoming"Suffrage Women’s Long Road to the Ballot Box.
From this struggle, several lessons emerge that can teach women how to navigate the next phase of their struggle to protect and expand American democracy. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were great constitutional advances that granted citizenship to ex-slaves and suffrage to black men, but they left out women’s political rights. Resenting this exclusion, white women suffragists first responded with anger and resentment that former allies were going to the ballot box without them. For the next half century, neither major political party was willing to take up their cause.
Politically, women have never been unified, something the 2016 election once again exposed as black and Hispanic women overwhelmingly cast votes for the first female presidential nominee while a narrow majority of white women supported Donald Trump. Women are half the population and divided in all the same ways as men, by age, residency, wealth, etc. Suffragists knew that women were not a unified bloc, and they still aren’t.
When it came to running for office, women found that enfranchisement had a ceiling. Politically skilled suffrage leaders were labeled as dangerous radicals — socialists, and even worse, feminists. When former suffragist Ruth Hanna McCormick ran as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in 1930, her party mobilized against her. They said that seating her would be a” punch in the eye of the Senate.”
Brasil Últimas Notícias, Brasil Manchetes
Similar News:Você também pode ler notícias semelhantes a esta que coletamos de outras fontes de notícias.
Perspective | Why Diane Feinstein was wrong to dismiss child activists as political pawnsPerspective: Why Diane Feinstein was wrong to dismiss child activists as political pawns
Consulte Mais informação »
Perspective | How I learned to let go of genetic connections after my ovaries failed meScience affords us the opportunity to do what our bodies can’t. All that’s left is to hijack someone else’s eggs.
Consulte Mais informação »
Perspective | Methodists could learn something from Southern Baptists’ historic conservative takeoverPerspective: Methodists could learn something from Southern Baptists’ historic conservative takeover
Consulte Mais informação »
Today’s activist-athletes have an emotional core: Trayvon Martin.LZGranderson writes: 'Before Colin Kaepernick took a knee; before the Golden State Warriors told the White House “nah, I’m good”; before the phrase “Black Lives Matter” crowbarred its way into the nation’s consciousness, there was Trayvon Martin.'
Consulte Mais informação »
Perspective | Every Michael Jackson song sounds different todayEvery Michael Jackson song sounds different today. 'Leaving Neverland' should change the way we hear his music forever, music critic Chris__Richards writes.
Consulte Mais informação »
Saudi prosecutors say women's rights activists to face trialProsecutors in Saudi Arabia say they have referred detained women's rights activists to trial and those charged 'enjoy all rights preserved by the laws in the kingdom' after them being reportedly tortured in custody, jongambrellAP reports.
Consulte Mais informação »
Saudi women's rights activists to face trial, prosecutors sayThe arrests were among the first incidents to cast a shadow over Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's attempts to position himself as a reformer.
Consulte Mais informação »
Saudi prosecutor indicts women’s rights activists held for nearly a year without chargeIt is not clear whether Saudi Arabia intends to vigorously pursue legal charges or release the activists under the cover of a judicial process.
Consulte Mais informação »