Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Criticisms of the Nineteenth Century Gender Essay

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Criticisms of the Nineteenth Century Gender Order - Essay Example We live in a world where each day there arise new issues on gender. The most striking part is the role of women in the society as opposed to that of their male counterparts. In the 19th century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women activists realized that being denied influential rights such as the right to vote while men were allowed to was oppressing women. It was argued that since women were attached to men through husbands and fathers, men could vote for them. Men were also the main decision makers and women were only to submit to what had been decided. One wonders how women’s needs could be catered for if they could not be allowed to vote. There are issues which are unique to women and need only women to address them and focus is placed on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a woman who feared nothing to voice out the plight of women at a time when the cultural values in America restricted women from trying to challenge or be above men. The woman was simply to give birth and take c are of the children and the husband. This paper presents some of the criticisms that were made by Elizabeth Stanton such as issues to do with birth control, divorce and voting rights and shows how she fought to correct them. It analyses this issues in the current America to show that though some gender issues have been given attention and solved, others continue to emerge hence the need for continual review of the issues affecting women. The fight to gain women rights started and still goes on!!! Colin L. Powell once said that women rights are human rights hence failing to address issues affecting women implies failing to address the issues affecting the entire humanity.... As a result many of the challenges facing them were not addressed in the governments in place. Women were expected to respect the will of the men and therefore their choices. She felt that men only exercised tyrannical leadership towards women and never cared about their needs. The fact that women did not vote, according to her, was an implication that they were mute. That their plights could not be heard nor addressed. At one point she was furious to the point that she asked why the ignorant black men and immigrant men were allowed to vote while educated white women who were natives of America could not be allowed to vote. She felt the need to sensitize other women to fight for their rights to vote for these could be the only way in which their needs were to be addressed. They had to come together and with one voice demand for the rights that they had been denied for years. They had to be involved in political maters for this could enable them to be free from the frequent exploitati ons and dependence on men. This suggestion was obviously going to be met with a lot of resistance since it touched on some of the cultural values of the American society, which had been held by the American people for a long time. This is why Elizabeth Stanton and her female friend Susan B. Anthony did not see this dream they held come true up to their deaths. It took a long time for the American people, more especially men, to agree to the adoption of the ideas advocated by Stanton and other American feminists of the time. Stanton was also opposed to the idea the idea that men should have better and advanced education than women. This, she had experienced when her father