Introduction
The right for vote was very important for women in all ages, as it proved their significance and made them feel like the worthy members of societies of their countries. There is no doubt as well that not every woman could put all at stakes and choose the path of struggle in 18th or 19th century. These were difficult periods for many countries of the world, and specifically for the USA, when people were fighting for their freedom to express what they think and what they feel. However, some women had courage to put everything at stakes and sacrifice their happiness at home with husbands. In any case it was not that kind of sacrifice, as they felt proud and dignity by what they do.
The history of women movement for voting rights
The rise of female movement for the voting rights started in the beginning of the 18th century, when first women started to be organized in groups who were standing for their rights to vote, equally to their husbands. After the end of the War of Independence, in which the American colonists fought for political rights, more than half of the American population has been deprived of them. The main part were women; the rights also did not have slaves, servants and poor contract. Accepted that the abolitionist movement, the peak of which just falls in the middle of the XIX century, has had a significant influence on the rise sufrazhizm. It is on the first World Anti-Slavery convention, held in 1840 in London, two future pioneers of women's rights movement - Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) and Lucretia Mott (Lucretia Mott) - determined to be active after undergone considerable gender discrimination in the course of the conference. Quaker religious group known as the Religious Society of Friends (Religious Society of Friends), also contributed to the spread of progressive ideas. Home through the most famous Quaker families passed the so-called "Underground Railroad" that accounted for the emancipation of slaves, and a splinter in June 1848 a group of progressive friends advocated the full equality of women. Year beginning the long struggle for women's suffrage in the United States is considered to be 1848, when the congress was held in the town of Seneca Falls (Seneca Falls), New York, where about three hundred men and women expressed their complaints and made a list of actions. Elizabeth Stanton was the Declaration of Sentiments, sometimes also referred to as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, signed during the Convention. Document the basis for the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the U.S. and endorsed Stanton that "all men and women are created equal", and has also taken 18 charges the men - just as much as the American colonists once nominated George III. As expected, the Conference did not cause approval in society and the media. Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist, sufrazhist, orator and public figure, a former slave, wrote in "North Star": "The debate about animal rights would cause more friendly responses of those who are considered wise and benefactor in our country, rather than a discussion of women's rights". Despite the inconvenience caused public outrage, Stanton remained loyal to his cause. When the New York Herald was in jest published the full text of the Declaration of Sentiments, she was glad of the attention of the press, even distorted. "It will make women think and men too; and when men and women think about the new issue - this is a step toward progress"[3], - she said. After the Civil War, which at the time suspended the suffragette movement, activists are divided on the issue of association with the campaign for the provision of electoral rights to former slaves. Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone (Lucy Stone) and Susan B. Anthony (Susan B. Anthony) fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that would put the rights of women and blacks at the same time. American Equal Rights Association (American Equal Rights Association) was founded by them in 1866, was elected Chairman of the ILO and the first meeting held in Boston. When adopted amendments 14 and 15, the rights of black men, Stanton and Anthony broke with the ILO and the Association created the National Women's Association sufrazhizm (National Woman Suffrage Association), which opposed the amendment and 15 taken in their ranks only women. Another splinter group, the American Association of Women's sufrazhizm (American Woman Suffrage Association), supported the amendment and 15 considered it a necessary step to expand voting rights. Later national organizations joined women's clubs, which since the late 1860's began to pay great attention to women's rights. In 1890, two rival organizations united under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Cat (Carrie Chapman Catt) and Anna Howard Shaw (Anna Howard Shaw) in the National American Women's Association sufrazhizm (National American Woman Suffrage Association). From 1900 to 1920 the association was active propaganda sufrazhizm, and, except in the case of Alice Paul (Alice Paul), which formed a radical Congression Union (Congressional Union), to keep the unity. Members of the Union, established in 1913, organized pickets, hunger strikes and other extreme forms of disobedience in an attempt to get an amendment that entitles men and women rights. Paul and her supporters were excluded from the National Association, but attracted the attention of the public methods of fighting raised the question of women's rights at the center of the agenda. During the First World War for the first time women were actively involved in the development and played an important civic role, working in factories, helping to rear. After the war efforts of the National American Women's Association sufrazhizm not slow to remind President Wilson and Congress that women's work should be rewarded granting equal political rights. Woodrow Wilson, tending to women's equality, in a speech September 18, 1918 said: "In this war, women have become our partners. Should we treat them as partners in suffering and hard work, or as partners in their rights?" June 4 The United States Senate also approved an amendment by 56 votes to 25, and then she was sent to the states, where its passage was very difficult and was completed only by August. Awareness of the hard-won struggle, however, did not end suffragette movement. Reformers Congress Union founded the National Women's Party (National Women's Party), which promoted the laws of full equality between men and women. National American Women's Association sufrazhizm became the League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters), who worked on the political aspects of education of voters, while not adhering to any of the parties. Weakens with 30s of the 20th century the movement again gained momentum in the 1960s, when the struggle for economic and social equality of women has become part of the unfolding civil rights movement.
Why the Right to Vote is Important Is important (In the Context of different Countries)
Exactly 79 years ago, Turkish women gained the right to elect and be elected. On the eve of this topic have been many round tables, panel discussions. It is noteworthy that the anniversary of the recognition of women's suffrage coincided with the present day, when on the eve of municipal elections the party centers actively declare the candidates who are fighting in the election battle for life and death. The textbooks we always read as follows: "This right was granted to the Turkish woman even earlier than in Switzerland." But every time I hear this sentence, I want to remind this fact. The world's first women received the right to vote in 1718. In some countries, there was a land requirement, in others - a woman was supposed to be the widow of the owner, in the third - to pay taxes. In some countries (e.g. the UK), the age limit for men is 21 years and for women - 30. A number of states (for example, in the U.S.) are right there in some regions (states), and the whole country was his confession later. In some countries, women's suffrage should only apply to local elections. Somewhere women were able to choose, but not to be elected, or to become the head of the municipality, but not the prime minister. But in the end in large parts of Europe, North and South America, the Soviet Union, Asia, Australia, the Balkans, including Albania, before the Swiss woman, albeit with some limitations, but got the right to choose, and in some places and to be elected. Moreover, for this purpose, they fought hard, someone is in prison, and some even died. The first country that granted women the right to vote in every election, regardless of age, the property tax liability in 1906 was Finland. Her in 1913 was followed by Norway in 1915 and Denmark, Iceland, Russia, in 1917, Canada in 1918, Germany in 1919 and Austria in 1920, the United States, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, in 1921, Ireland in 1922, in 1924 Ecuador, Mongolia, Uruguay in 1927, Britain in 1928, Turkey in 1934. But again, in most of these countries, women are much earlier (albeit with some restrictions) may exercise their right to vote in local elections and even to be elected to the post of head of the municipality, member of the municipal and regional parliament. The above list reflects short years, when suffrage was granted without limitation any conditions. Judging from the situation in the world, Turkey, we can say is in the middle, taking not too high, but not low position. For example, Azerbaijan - the first Muslim country which granted the right in 1918. In Switzerland, the right to elect and be elected women won in 1971 in Liechtenstein - in 1984. (In some cantons of Switzerland it existed before). - One in four women in Turkey is illiterate.- Only 3.9 % of woman in Turkey has higher education.- The number of women in the Turkish parliament is 4.4 %.- Income of women in Turkey is 40% below that of men.- Every year, 2.5 thousand women in Turkey die during childbirth. Moreover, with regard to the current candidates for the presidency of the municipality in our country, the only thing that draws attention to itself - except in Gaziantep candidate of the Party of Justice and Development Fatma Sahin (Fatma Şahin) and candidate Diyarbakyre from Peace and Democracy Party Gülten Kyshanak (Gülten Kışanak), we traditionally observe men in ties and suits. Admittedly, Peace and Democracy Party has always attached importance to this, and even a month ago stated that present women candidates in 22 centers party, but apparently abandoned the idea. At the same time Republican People's Party almost never saw the face of his prospective candidate in Ankara Eileen Nazlyaka (Aylin Nazlıaka). Closely connected with the movement for the rights of black Americans struggle for women's rights. Even longer than blacks, women needed to achieve real voting rights. For almost the entire history of American women, they do not participate in elections and government. Women were the largest group of the population, which was denied participation in the elections. Their struggle lasted a long time, so they had to destroy traditional ideas about the role of women in public life. At the time when Congress is debating an amendment of the Civil War, women leaders, among whom was Susan B. Anthony, demanded that suffrage was extended to women. They believed that their long-term support for the liberation of blacks will be rewarded, but it was denied. On the contrary, the Constitution has been clarified - "the male population" In the 14th amendment said the Voting Rights only men. But this did not prevent some states provide the right to vote for women. In 1874, advocates have argued the U.S. Supreme Court that the 14th amendment implies the right to vote for women. - Fourteenth Amendment The Supreme Court disagreed with this understanding of the text amendment. In its judgment, in the case against Happersetta Minor (1875), the court ruled that the fact that a person is a citizen does not automatically follow that he has the right to vote. This meant that if the state denies women the right to vote, it comes constitutionally. In 1876, during the celebration of the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, Susan B. Anthony spent female demonstration. Although representatives of the movement suffragists were not invited to the celebration, they came and read the text of the Women's Rights Declaration: We cannot forget, even in this happy hour, at that time, when all the men in the shadow of our national flag, regardless of skin colorendowed with all civil rights , all the women are still denied the right to vote. In Wyoming, women had the right to vote was still when it was an independent territory, whenSusan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and other leaders fought for women's right to vote.Why women denied the right to vote until 1920? Members of Congress have joked about these "ladies”' stuff', Wyoming lawmakers said they would not join the United States 100 years, if at their introduction to women will be denied the right to vote. Wyoming was admitted to the United States. Following Wyoming other western states granted the right to vote for their women. By the end of the First World War, women had the right to vote in more than half of the states. As it was already mentioned, the Supreme Court decided that the fact that a person is a citizen does not mean that he has the right to vote. Each state could not deny their women in this. And only 50 years after black Americans got the right to vote in 1920, 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. During World War II, women came in droves to the production. In this regard, the struggle of suffragists reached a new level. That red tape, which in the state by state granted women the right to vote, members of the movement suffragists pushed to new, more insistent demands. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support for the movement. In 1920, despite considerable opposition from granting voting rights to women, 19th amendment was adopted. After 130 years, women have won. In the 19th amendment stated:
Voting rights of citizens of the US shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex. According to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, “when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”
The right to vote was very important for women, especially in the period of 1000-1877, when USA was not that liberal country, as it is nowadays. Why women wanted to have this right? The answer to this question is simple. They wanted to feel their importance; they wanted to try their best to win equal rights, when they wanted to reach success. Success does not mean only complete dedication to what you do, but the thing is the correct attitude to what is going on, and providing every person with equal opportunities about what can be done. Women wanted to feel themselves necessary no matter if about voting rights or about other freedoms that later would be granted by the U.S. Constitution.
Works Cited
Dubois, Ellen Carol. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848–1869 (1999)
Kraditor, Aileen. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (1965) pp 12–37.
Million, Joelle. Woman's Voice, Woman's Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement, Praeger, 2003, pp. 136-37
Peterson, Anna. "Making Women's Suffrage Support an Ethnic Duty: Norwegian American Identity Constructions and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1880–1925," Journal of American Ethnic History, Summer 2011, Vol. 30 Issue 4, 5–23.
Public Law 89-110. “Voting Rights Act of 1965”. Eighty-ninth Congress of the United States of America.
Sneider, Allison, "The New Suffrage History: Voting Rights in International Perspective", History Compass, (July 2010) 8#7 pp 692–703.
US Constitution. The 14th Amendment.
