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Unit 9: Status of Women

Women’s suffrage spreads Notes
Similar suffrage movements were also taking place in western countries, such as New Zealand, which
was the first nation to grant women full voting rights in 1893; Sweden, which granted full women’s
suffrage in 1921, and Britain, which gave women voting rights in 1928.
Other countries, such as China, France, India, Italy and Japan, did not grant women suffrage until
the mid 1900s. By 1990, women were allowed to vote in almost all democratic nations.
Women lead voting population
If leaders like Anthony and Stanton were alive today, they would surely celebrate the large number
of women who now visit the polls for political elections.
According to a report by the Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), titled The
Gender Gap and the 2004 Women’s Vote, Setting the Record Straight, women vote in higher numbers
than men and have done so in every national election since 1964. The report noted that in 2000, 7.8
million more women than men voted. In 2004, according to a CNN exit poll, women comprised 54
percent of the voters in the presidential election, compared to 46 percent male voters.
Other victories
While suffrage remains a vital milestone in the women’s rights movement, it is one of many
accomplishments women celebrate in America this March.
Here in New Jersey, for example, Bergen County attorney Madeline Marzano-Lesnevich notes that a
state statute added to the books in the early 1970s played a significant role in the women’s rights
movement by, in effect, granting women more economic rights when a marriage is ended.
In contrast with years prior, this statute, she notes, requires the courts to consider a variety of factors,
such as the care and education of children, and the extent to which a spouse has deferred achieving
career goals, in distributing property and awarding support.
The statute gave women economic rights within a marriage that they did not have previously, notes
Marzano-Lesnevich. Knowing this, she says, empowered women and provided them with more
freedom to leave an unhappy or abusive marriage.
With more women joining the workforce, in 1963 Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which promised
equitable wages for the same work, regardless of the race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the
worker, according to a timeline sponsored by the National Women’s History Project. Also, in 1964
according to the NWHP timeline, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting employment
discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker.

More to do
While it may seem tempting to sit back and enjoy the successes already achieved, women’s rights
proponents like Beard of the Alice Paul Institute contend there is still more to be done.
As an example, Beard points to the issue of equal pay, and notes that in spite of legislation like the
Equal Pay Act, women are still not earning the same money as men. According to the U.S. Department
of Labor, women, on average, who work full-time earn only about 75 cents for every dollar that a
man earns and the gap is even larger for women of color.
Also, Beard and others continue to advocate for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S.
Constitution, an idea that
Paul first introduced in 1923 and continued, without success, to actively lobby for until her death in
1977. While a number of state constitutions, including the New Jersey Constitution, contain provisions
prohibiting discrimination based on gender, no such amendment exists at the federal level, Beard
says.
Currently, the ERA Amendment has been ratified in 35 states, which is three states short for it to
become an official amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1982, Congress voted to eliminate the
deadline for state ratification of the amendment. Essentially, this means that if and when any three of
the 15 states that have not ratified the ERA Amendment were to do so, it could become the 28th

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