Introduction
Women suffrage is defined as the right of women to vote or stand for elective offices. Women in the United States were generally not allowed to vote before 1920. It was only after the congress amended the constitution in 1919 that women acquired the rights to vote. The achievement of this milestone required a difficult and lengthy struggle that took decades of protest and agitation.
This paper compares and contrasts the opinion of two professors, Professor Kuhlman and Professor Woodworth-Ney who have commented about this issue and will also look at the patterns and trends in the suffrage movements that the two see. In addition, the input of Philip Foner to this issue will also be looked at.
Both professors and Foner also seem to establish a pattern or trend in the suffrage movement. According to the two, voting reforms in America along with other nations were mainly triggered by the establishment of an administrative system that was different from the colonialist nation as well as related nationalist movements which advocated for women’s suffrage.
The right to vote was not the only concern that women suffrage sought to address according to the two professors and Foner. Some of the other concerns that the three view as key include easy divorce as well as an end to discrimination in pay and employment. Although these concerns were not fully addressed by the women suffrage movement because of the priority placed on voting rights, the movement however helped to set the path for the advocacy of these rights in later years.
Given the points of view of the professors and Foner, the granting of rights to women can be seen as an evolutionary process. This is because it is not something that occurred overnight but was rather a continuous process brought about by radical and intensive advocacy.
Works Cited
Woodworth-Ney, Laura. Women in the American West. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Print.
Kuhlman, Erika A. A to Z of Women in World History. New York: Facts On File, 2002. Print.
Douglass, Frederick, and Philip S. Foner. Frederick Douglass on Women's Rights. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1976. Print.
