A Research Paper on Women Movements

Introduction

The women's movement has strongly influenced ideas about leadership throughout its history. The women's movement spans from approximately the early 1800s to the present time. The first wave of the women's movement began in the 1800s and tapered off during the 1940s as industrialized countries granted women the vote, which was one of the early goals of the movement. A revival of the women's movement termed the “second wave” began during the mid to late 1960s, focusing on the status of women in society. Terborg (pp. 56-68) mentions as this struggle continued and positive changes occurred, a younger generation of women emerged during the 1990s with a different perspective and their generation is considered the “third wave” of the women's movement. This wave coexists with the organizations and goals of secondwave feminists. During the first wave, the fact that women took leadership roles to fight for women's suffrage and other rights was significant, because it meant that women became leaders in the public sphere. While this continued to be true to some extent during the second wave, it is also true that during the second wave women challenged traditional notions of leadership. Currently, in the third wave, some organizations within the women's movement are offering feminist leadership training (Terborg, pp. 56-68).

Women Movements and Suffrage

Women movements are the movement to gain women the right to vote in the United States. During the nineteenth century, the women's suffrage movement, intent on winning the right for women to vote, emerged and gradually spread throughout Europe and the United States. Participants in the movement were intent on achieving their aim of political participation and the right to vote for all women.

Women's suffrage was such a radical idea at the time that the first women “suffragettes,” (Terborg, pp. 56-68) as they were known, were subjected to all forms of humiliation, social rejection, violence, and even imprisonment. To imagine how completely women were excluded from public life, consider that it was not until 1928 that Englishwoman Frances Wright became the first woman to address an American audience composed of both men and women (Flexner and Ellen, pp. 56-69).

It was not until 1870 that the Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to all American males, regardless of race. Previously, only white males enjoyed the right to vote. Women finally received the right to vote with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Many black women were still denied this right, however, due to intimidations imposed by such measures as poll taxes, literacy tests, and other educational and character requirements.

The National Women's Party, which was one of the major women's groups working toward the vote for all women before the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, had in fact often worked against the interests of black women. For one thing, they were reluctant to campaign in the South for the right for black women to vote because they felt that this would harm their interests as a whole and reduce support for their ...