On March 31st, This Day in History — an online daily history synopsis — posted that on this day in 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, later to become the second U.S. President to “remember the ladies.”
Part of her letter read:
“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
Regrettably, Mrs. Adams’ words were only the opening salvo of a struggle by women to gain rights equal to men. It was another 144 years before the 19th Amendment came to fruition in this country, a century-plus during which women were denied rights that should have been spelled out in our founding documents, not in a lengthily-contested process during which those rights were hotly contested by cadres of men who sought to keep women in minority roles and subservient to them.
In 1920, the 38th state needed to pass the amendment — and still debating its propriety, Tennessee was able to confirm the amendment by a single vote in the legislature.
Our most revered document, the Declaration of Independence, even ignores the rightful role of women in society, declaring, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”
The 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868) should have made the 19th unnecessary. It declares:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Still, women were considered secondary citizens, with limited “rights.”
Two years later, in 1870, by ratification of the 15th Amendment, women were overlooked once again when persons could not be denied rights because of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
But not because of sex. Not women.
It was another half-century of struggle for women to be granted their long-ignored rights. That half-century was a period during which a great shame pervaded this nation, a shame nearly as great as that of slavery, a shame compounded by public beatings, lengthy jail sentences, hunger strikes, and forced feedings.
Praise be to Wyoming which granted suffrage to women in 1869, a full 51 years before it became the law of the land.
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But make no mistake. Women were not “granted” or “given” the right to vote. It was theirs from the beginning, just not recognized by a male-dominated society.
In wars, victory is not “given” or “granted” to the winner. Neither did women receive a gift or a grant. They fought for it, and for far longer than any war ever lasted.
And today, women are once again subjected to the stentorian strictures of laws promulgated mostly by men (and some women) all across this country.
And once again the perseverance of women, when faced with the erosion of their rights, will be tested.
Only this time, they will find that many more of the opposite sex stand with them.
