The women's 

rights movement of the mid-nineteenth century unified

women around a number of issues that were seen as
fundamental rights for all citizens; they included: the right to own property, access
to higher education, reproductive rights, and suffrage. Women's suffrage was
the most controversial women's rights issue of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries and divided early feminists on ideological lines. After women
secured the right to vote in 1917, the women's rights movement lost much
of its momentum. World War I and II encouraged women to do their patriotic duty by
entering the workforce to support the war effort. Many women assumed they would
leave the working world when men returned from service, and many did.
However, other women enjoyed the economic benefits of working outside the
home and remained in the workforce permanently. After WWII, the
women's rights movement had difficulty coming together on important
issues. It was not until the socially explosive 1960s that the modern
feminist movement would be re-energized. In the four decades since, the
women's movement has tackled many issues that are considered discriminatory
toward women including: sexism in advertising and the
media, economic inequality issues that affect families, and violence against
women. Two ongoing issues in which women seek social change are those having
to do with wage discrimination and reproductive health.

Sex, Gender & Sexuality

Overview

Women's Rights
Like any almost every other modern social movement, the
women's rights movement comprises diverse ideals. Feminist and American
responses to the movement have generally fallen along three lines:
* Staunch opposition to change;
* Support of moderate and gradual change; and
* Demand for immediate radical change (Leone, 1996).
The women's rights movement rose during the nineteenth century in Europe and
America in response to great inequalities between the legal statuses of women and
men. During this time, advocates fought for suffrage, the rightto own property, equal
wages, and educational opportunities (Lorber, 2005).
In the United States, suffrage proved to be one of the driving issues behind
the movement. However, when the movement first began, many moderate
feminists saw the fight for voting rights as radical and feared
that it would work against their efforts to reach less controversial goals such as
property ownership, employment, equal wages, higher education, and access to
birth control. The divide between moderate and radical feminists started early in
America's history and continues to be present in the
women's movement (Leone, 1996).

Suffrage

First proposed as a federal amendment in 1868, women's suffrage floundered for

many years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment gave women
the right to vote in 1920. It was 1917 when the National Woman's Party (NWP) met
with President Woodrow Wilson and asked him to support women's suffrage. When
the women were dismissed by Wilson, members of the party began a picket at the
White House. Their protest lasted 18 months. Harriot Stanton Blatch, the daughter of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul were among the first organizers of the
picket. However, the picket was not supported by the older
and more conservative women's rights group, the National American Women's
Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Its members saw the picket as somewhat "militant"
and sought to win suffrage state by state rather than through a federal amendment
(Leone, 1996).

America's involvement in World War I during the spring of 1917 affected the

women's suffrage movement in a number of ways. The NWP refused
to support the war effort, while NAWSA saw support of the war as an act of
patriotism and a way to further women's rights issues. The differences between
the two groups led to hostility that continued until August of 1919 when the
Nineteenth Amendment was passed. Both the NWP and NAWSA claimed
responsibility for the passage of the amendment. Historians disagree about which
party was most influential. Many credit the combination of militant and moderate
strategies that were employed by each group (Leone, 1996).

After the women's suffrage movement, some men and women considered the fight

for women's rights to be over. Many of the organizations that had been so active in
promoting suffrage disbanded after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.
Though some women's suffrage groups did continue as organizations--namely, the
League of Women Voters--the feminist movement sputtered without a unifying
cause (Leone, 1996). The Great Depression of the 1930s further hurt the
women's movement: most women simply did not have the time or energy to
dedicate to feminist causes. With America's entry into World War II, many women
entered the workforce for the first time. However, this entry was accompanied by the
assumption that women would exit the workforce once American men returned
from service. Postwar America saw a steep decline in participation in the
women's rightsmovement. The numbers of women attending college dropped
during the 1950s as women married earlier and had more children.

Applications

The women's rights movement re-formed during the 1960s as the women's

liberation movement (Lorber, 2005). The period would mark the "revitalization of
feminism" (Leone, 1996).

According to Judith Lorber, twentieth-century feminism was more fragmented than

nineteenth-century feminism, perhaps as a result of deeper understandings of the
sources of gender inequality (Lorber, 2005). In the twenty-firstcentury, there are still
many issues that challenge women's economic and political status in the world,
and women of all kinds are fighting many battles on many fronts.

Challenges to gender equality occur in many ways. Some of the most commonly

recognized issues are:
* Education: Men tend to have higher educational attainments, though in
the US and Western world this gap is rapidly closing.
* Wages and Employment: Men occupying the same jobs as women tend to be
paid more, promoted more frequently, and receive more recognition for their
accomplishments.
* Health Care: In some countries, men have more access to and receive better
health care than women.
* Violence and Exploitation: Women are subjected to violence and exploitation
at greater rates than men.
* Social Inequality: Women still perform the majority of domestic duties such as
housework and child care (Lorber, 2005).
Issues

Educational Attainment

Women's unimpeded access to educational opportunities is strongly supported by

feminists. The gap in educational attainment is shrinking rapidly in the
industrialized world, and the gap in the US is quite small. However, lack of
education still hurts women in fundamental ways, the most obvious
being economic. This essay will discuss in more detail the gender wage gap
that exists in the US. While education does increase a women's earning potential,
research suggests that a definite and pervasive gender wage gap exists at
every level of the workforce.

Gender Pay Gap

A "gendered division of labor" exists across the globe. A 1980 United Nations

report stated that women performed two thirds of the world's work, garnered 10%
of wages worldwide, and owned 1% of the world's property (Lorber, 2005). Even in
the early twenty-first century, the workplaces of industrialized nations continue to
demonstrate a curious paradox. While research shows that companies that
encourage diversity and promote women to leadership roles have
higher levels of financial performance than companies with less diversity, women's
earnings are still significantly less than men's (Compton, 2007).
Great Britain, like the US, has grappled with the existence of the gender pay gap for
many years. The US passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, and Great Britain
instituted its own Equal Pay Act in 1970. Both of these acts "offered women a
legitimate avenue to seek remuneration for unequal pay"(Compton, 2007, 1. In
1970, the pay differential in Great Britain between men and women's wages was
30%. Nearly five decades later, in 2008, the gender pay gap still
hovered around 17% and was the highest
of all EU countries (De Vita, 2008). Some project that the disparity in
wages will not be eliminated until around the year 2030 (De Vita, 2008).
The question remains, if women are legally guaranteed equal pay, and if promoting
women is generally recognized as good for business, why do women still earn less
than men? The causes of the gender wage gap are various and complex.
The fact that many women choose to leave their jobs in order to have children is
often identified as one reason for the wage gap. Proponents of this
theory argue that, statistically, women earn less than men because somewomen do
not hold paying, full-time jobs, thus dragging down women's average wages.
However, most studies of the wage gap only count the earnings of women
who work full-time. These studies reveal that of the women who do work full-time,
those with children under the age of 18 earn 5 percent lower wages per hour per
child than women who do not have children earn (Correll, 2013). In Great Britain, by
age forty, men who have children earn 19 percent more than what men without
children earn, while childless women earn 11 percent more than working mothers
counterparts do, according to researchers at the Institute for Public Policy Research
(Darlington, 2012). These statistics show that women's incomes
are negatively affected by parenthood while men's incomes appear
to actually benefit from it.
De Vita (2008) offers a few other explanations for the gap:
* Social norms,
* Workplace biases,
* The low expectations women may have of themselves, and
* The competing demands that work and family responsibilities place on women.

"Occupational segmentation," or the gendered division of different industries and

types of work, is one pervasive societal norm. Women are more likely to enter
"caring, catering, and public sector" jobs, according to De Vita (2008), where wages
are generally low. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to pursue jobs
in such high-paying industries as energy and engineering (p. 62). Additionally, men
are more likely to hold managerial positions while women more frequently occupy
administrative positions. One reason for this segregation may be that women are
socially conditioned to gravitate toward these jobs and lack role models for careers
and jobs that are generally male dominated (De Vita, 2008).
However, other research shows that in Great Britain, men still earn higher salaries
than women even when they occupy similar positions in similar industries
(De Vita, 2008). Thus, itwould appear that the gender wage gap is pervasive across
industries.

Furthermore, according to De Vita (2008), the pay gap starts before a woman even
accepts her first job. In one study of American postgraduate students, during
negotiations for their first jobs, 57% of men asked for higher salaries, while only 7%
of women did. As a result, on average, the men's starting salaries were 7.6% higher
than the women's (De Vita, 2008). Because a person's starting salary is the figure on
which all of his or her future salary negotiations are based, it can have an enormous
impact on his or her lifetime earnings. As De Vita (2008) demonstrates, a difference
of $5,000 can result in a $300,000 difference in lifetime earnings.
How men and women approach salary negotiations may, again, be attributable to
social norms and social conditioning. Men may be more confident in negotiations,
and their behavior may be viewed in a positive way. Women, on
the other hand, may be seen as aggressive or pushy if they try to negotiate, and
their behavior may be viewed negatively (De Vita, 2008).
Additionally, women in business often do not have the same access to informal
networks and decision makers that men have. Women are not mentored as often as
their male counterparts, and their access to high-profile assignments
is limited as well ("A Worldwide Gender Pay Gap," 2008). Globalization of
the world's markets and economies has narrowed the gender pay gap, but closer
examination reveals that instead of women's wages going up, men's wages are
falling ("A Worldwide Gender Pay Gap," 2008).
Equal education is not proving to be as effective in leveling playing field for women
wage earners as was once thought. For many years, educational deficits had been
blamed for holding women's wages back over time and contributing to the wage gap.
However, studies suggest that wage gaps continue to exist regardless of a woman's
educational attainment. A disturbing trend in both Great Britain and the US is the
growing gap between men and women at the senior management level. US wage
data from 2011 indicated female chief executives earn only 69 percent of what their
male counter-parts take home (Glynn & Wu, 2013), and
research shows that it extends through upper management levels all way to
boards of directors. While it was once assumed that higher educational attainments
increased earnings, in reality, as Table 1 shows, the more educated a woman is,
the larger the gap between her lifetime earnings and those of her male peers
(Carnevale, Rose, & Cheah, 2011, p. 10).

Table 1: Life Time Earnings Gap & Level of Education

Table 1: Life Time Earnings Gap & Level of Education

Level of Education Lifetime Earnings ($) Male Lifetime Earnings ($) Female
High School Diploma $1,500,000 $1,117,000 Bachelor's Degree $2,593,000
$1,939,000 Master's Degree 3,145,000 $2,321,000 Doctoral Degree $3,466,000
$2,857,000 Professional Degree $4,033,000 $3,010,000

Women in industrialized countries are narrowing the gap in educational attainment,

which has long been one of the goals of the women's movement. But looking at
the issue of the wage gap, one might wonder how exactly education is benefiting
women. According to former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts Evelyn Murphy
and Brandeis University's resident scholar E. J. Graff, "Unfair pay means all women
lose. All women--rich and poor, whatever their race or color or native language--are
being cheated by wage inequity" (2005, p. 3).

Reproductive Rights
Reproductive responsibilities and rights have been ongoing concerns for centuries.
Throughout history, women and men have actively sought to make conscientious
decisions about family planning. Education, contraceptives, and family planning
information are among the greatest assets available to
women seeking to control their reproductive systems. In the US, where safe and
effective contraceptives are widely available, access to contraceptives is no longer
as divisive a topic as it once was. Instead, the truly polarizing
reproductive rights issue is abortion.

By late 2011, over 60% of the world's population lived

in countries where some type of abortion was generally allowed (Center for
Reproductive Rights, 2011). Estimates put the number of abortions at 43.8 million
in 2008, with an overall rate of 28 abortions per 1,000 childbearing-aged women
worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Guttmacher
Institute (2012). Of those, almost half were conducted under unsafe conditions or by
someone lacking the necessary training, the majority of which were performed
in developing nations, and some 47,000 abortions resulted in the woman's death
(Guttmacher Institute, 2012b). It is difficult to calculate the numbers women who
suffer serious consequences from self-administered, or "botched" abortions, but in
2005, an estimated 8.5 million women developed complications from unsafe
abortions every year (Guttmacher Institute, 2012b).

Though abortions had been available and tolerated in the US throughout the

nineteenth century, by the turn of the twentieth
century, they were illegal in all 50 US states ("The History of Women's
Reproductive Rights," 2005). Itwas not until the 1973, when the Supreme Court
ruled that states could not ban first-trimester abortions, that women were again
able seek out legal abortion options. The landmark decision Roe v. Wade (1973)
remains in force. Shortly after the ruling, federal funds were
authorized through Medicare to help low-income women to pay for abortions.
Almost as soon as the legislation passed, opposition arose (Kissling &
Michelman, 2008).
Feminists and others who support women's reproductive rights have been working
ever since Roe to protect the gains they won through the
ruling. While many countries are making access to abortion easier, in the United
States, similar efforts have faced considerable opposition.
Polls show that most Americans are ambivalent about
abortion: while most support keeping abortion legal, many
also support keeping some restrictions in place ("A Question of Life or Death,"
2007).

Legislation

The Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 was seen as a victory for many opponents of
abortion, or pro-life advocates. The law prohibits the procedure commonly known as
partial-birth abortion, which is generally performed during the second trimester of
pregnancy. During this type of abortion, labor is induced and the fetus is partially
delivered, with its head remaining inside the uterus. The base of the fetal skull is
then punctured, and the skull's contents are suctioned out, resulting in the skull's
collapse. The fetus is then entirely removed from the woman's body. It is a highly
controversial type of abortion that has been variously portrayed as
* A "rarely" employed procedure that is used to abort a fetus that is likely suffer
severe developmental issues if brought to term and to do so in such a way as to
pose the least danger to the woman undergoing the procedure (Frantz, 2007); and
* "A gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary
and should be prohibited" ("Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003," 2004, ¶3)
Three years after it passed, the Supreme Court ruling Gonzales v. Carhart (2007)
upheld the act. To both pro-life and pro-choice advocates, the ruling was correctly
seen as a precursor to further restrictions on abortion rights ("A Question of Life or
Death," 2007; Center for Reproductive Rights, 2011). In 2011, 92 restrictions on
abortion access were passed across the country, and an additional 43 were
enacted the following year (Guttmacher Institute, 2012a).

Feminist View--Reproductive Rights

Feminists who support abortion rights have begun to imbed the abortion debate

into the larger issue of reproductive rights. Their arguments include a more holistic
approach that places importance on reducing the need for abortion by supporting
sex education, access to contraceptives, and other educational initiatives. It is
hoped that the women's movement's emphasis on prevention will help to win over
middle ground by proposing solutions that will reduce unwanted pregnancies
("A Question of Life or Death," 2007). International organizations such as WHO
also advocate for such changes in order to bring down the numbers of abortions,
particularly those considered "unsafe," as part of broader public health efforts (WHO
& Guttmacher Institute, 2012b).

Other feminist voices call for moving toward a more "European" model of women's

reproductive health care that would support a wide range of services that would be
covered under health insurance plans. They argue that women ought to have
access to
* inexpensive contraceptives,
* comprehensive prenatal care,
* excellent birthing services,
* paid medical leave (maternity leave or other), and
* abortions, if desired.

According to authors Kissling and Michaelman, the US systematically "eviscerated"

reproductive health services, leaving women struggling to maintain
and control their reproductive health. The feminist perspective argues that society
needs to "respect the necessity of allowing individual women to make [reproductive]
choices" (Frantz, 2007).
In the early 2010s, there appears to be some promise of such concerns being met.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 created new provisions for
health insurance coverage of an array of reproductive health areas. Among these
are routine gynecological exams, contraceptives, counseling and screening for
sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, cancer screenings, prenatal care, and
breastfeeding assistance (Health Resources and Services Administration, n.d.).
Conclusion

The women's rights movement of the nineteenth and twentieth century

has become the modern feminist movement of the twenty-first century.
Early activists in the women's rights movement understood that many of the
issues that affect women would be decided in the political arena. Thus, passage of
the Nineteenth Amendment laid a foundation that would insure that generations of
women following the early suffragists would be able to
exert political influence over issues that were of importance to them. The modern
women's movement is seeking to educate and advocate on a number of important,
ongoing social issues, including wage disparity, economicequality, and women's
health issues.
Terms & Concepts
1963 Equal Pay Act: Prohibits employers from offering unequal pay to employees on
the basis of sex.
Feminism: Defined as political, cultural, and social movements that work to obtain
equal rights and opportunities for women.
Gender Pay Gap: The disparity in wages paid to men and women irrespective of the
fact that they may hold similar jobs or perform similar work.
Occupational Segmentation: The gendered division of different industries and types
of work.
Roe v. Wade: A1973 US Supreme Court case that resulted in the ruling
that states cannot ban first-trimester abortions.
Woman's Suffrage: A social movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
that sought to secure voting rights for women. It resulted in the passage of the
Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.