Women suffrage in America came at a time when the nation was deeply plunged in late 1800s. Passionate suffragists; Elizabeth Cady and Susan Anthony came out strongly to form the National Woman Suffrage Association to champion for the right of women to vote and hold public office in the late nineteenth century. Though women were oppressed of their rights to vote and shut out of what was considered male dominated white collar offices, they have made great strides in various fields in the recent years and have rose to high positions of power. From the first pioneers who engineered the Nineteenth Amendment of the American Constitution thereby by granting their fellow women the right to vote and equal opportunity for pursuit of high office, women have generally made tremendous steps in ensuring change in various field from politics, office jobs, what are considered manly jobs like masonry by male chauvinists to law professions and attaining high offices in the Judicial System. One instance where women acknowledge triumph in their pursuit in suffrage is United States Supreme Court appointing the first woman- Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman justice in 1981. This proved their cause for equality was not all a matter of fighting a losing battle, they were making great impacts and strides in championing for the rights of women which is envisioned in future appointments of other women into the law profession. In eighteen seventy three (1873), Susan B. Anthony one of the sitting presidents of The National Woman Suffrage Association, was tried for casting an illegal vote in the presidential elections and was fined by the courts one hundred dollars but she declined payment of the same. She at the same time gave a speech propagating for the rights of women in society. Her speech strongly argues that she had committed no crime but rather had gone to the ballot in full knowledge of her own rights as an American citizen to vote in accordance with the American Constitution and was simply was in exercise of the same just like the other people who had voted on that day. She pinpoints a preamble of the Federal Constitution: We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America[1] This excerpt from the constitution clearly explains the ‘we’ that she persistently bases her argument on as not only the whites of America but also the American Blacks, not only the male citizens of America but also the females were involved in the formation of this binding words. The unbiased decision for the formation of the constitution should be equated to equal rights for all American citizens. She further argues denying anybody the right to vote on an ex facto technicality is a violation of the same posterity we seek to achieve as a nation and it is a mockery to women’s rights as citizens of America by denial of exercising of the same through the ballot that was meant for all. Common stereotyping in the United States is a depiction of an oligarchy administration where the poor are governed by the rich, the ignorant are ruled by the educated and therefore it thus follows with sex assertions that the woman should be submissive and ever under the man in society. It is though against societal norms to argue on the basis of the white women’s votes could be used to neutralize black votes those that were awarded to them after very many eons of oppression. In this stance, the women suffragists lost their momentum in the fight for the right to vote with the argument that they would rather strip the Blacks right to vote and award it to them; it was a true picture of how Susan herself had made a very tenacious gravely wrong mistake. Historians like Webster, Worcester and Bouvier are reckoned in defining “citizen as any person in the United States entitled to vote and hold office[2] their words is a true explanation of women as citizens hence it will be discrimination against them just like the how Negroes were disliked in society back then and even the National Woman Suffrage Association at one time fought against them. In the early nineteenth century, a feminist Jane Addams who believed that women had the right to vote published an article in the Ladies Home Journal debating on “Why women should vote[3]. Her argument was based on the belief that the woman’s place was the in home keeping and guidance of children into responsible adult citizens. The fact that women continue to fail in fulfilling their obligations thrust upon them in society is based on they are not proactively involved in the setting of societal values that are the backbone of the task of home building because they fail to understand that as society continues to develop and grow, the responsibility forcefully vested upon them as home builders also in equal measure and continuously grow. She as a woman her duty is to maintain a clean household and feed her children yet she still has to depend on the Public Works officials to regulate and establish health safety standards that will govern her in her own domain-the house. Women need to acknowledge the fact that as society keeps on growing so do the responsibilities and they have to evolve with adaptations that keep them in the game of establishing their zones and ensuring everything is running smoothly as needed, she should not depend on the authorities to stipulate on ventilation and drainage system of her house. If the streets of their households are not cleaned by the relevant authorities, it will lead to a society versed in filth and cases of scarlet fever will be prevalent and who are to suffer if not the children whom it is the task of women to maintain their healthy lives. This gives a basis on why women should be involved in the planning and legislation of laws that govern the management of such environmental misuse and pollution. Such cases of filth in the streets that led to many deaths of children after scarlet fever outbreak and the women in urban centers turned to foreign women who helped care for the ill children with great enthusiasm just like it had been done for their mothers. Women in America were asking for help like their British counterparts had done in the colonial era by requesting for help in their difficulties in handling their house duties. The response they got form the other nations was that of women involved in the municipal balloting process to aid them in the management of heir households more easily a thing that the American was at the present fighting for reverently. The Italian women for instance argued that their men were involved in rigorous industrial activities to prove their macho states and they stayed for long summers in their construction duties; this made the women be charged with the task of talking about their difficulties due to the unavailability of their husbands. They even at one time came together to talk about opening a public wash-house where they would chart their problems to each other and find solutions as a family “….Some of them came to Hull-House one day to talk over the possibility of a public wash-house…. and washing, instead of being lonely and disagreeable, is made pleasant by cheerful conversation…”[4] It was a challenge to the American women in follow suit and champion for women representation in the Municipal boards so as to influence decisions made in regards to proper hygiene and structural designs of their houses for they were kings in this territory. The same can also be said about Jewish women who have their markets covered to prevent their vegetables and fruit to be destroyed by sunlight; a comparison of American markets is the opposite of that where markets are open air and the vegetables are prone to contamination and thus a boosting point for push of women suffrage in the terms “….if women had a say about it they would change all that…” It is in unity through movements that women can be able to satisfactorily fulfill their obligations of taking care of children free from negative influences, provide them with necessary educative materials and protect them from child labor. Social organization is used as a tool to champion for the obligations of women through formation of mothers school clubs and mother’s congress where even the most conservative of mothers find a platform to discuss problems affecting their children. It thus is mimicry of what the public should be doing to help women have a vote in matters of school regulations and policies. Women involvement in the health nature is a focal point of children growth, comparison to Italy again comes to light; juxstapostioning of health conditions of a child in Italy and America shows the great gap between proper diet maintenance in the two nations “ …..the reason the babies in Italy were so healthy and the babies in Chicago were so sickly was not, as her mother had always firmly insisted, because her babies in Italy had goat's milk and her babies in America had cow's milk, but because the milk in Italy was clean and the milk in Chicago was dirty…..She said that when you milked your own goat before the door you knew that the milk was clean, but when you bought milk from the grocery store after it had been carried for many miles in the country, "you couldn't tell whether or not it was fit for the baby to drink until the men from the City Hall, who had watched it all the way, said that it was all right[5] The fact children development and maintenance of their morals outside school depends on women to sculpt them has led them to be at the forefront of ensuring that the children get the desired attention by majority of Juvenile Court Committee members being women. This was made possible by Juvenile Court Movements dozen of years ago thus establishing and portraying how important the woman is in society in the sharpening of young minds. The Woman’s Protest in nineteen twelve (1912) published Anti-Alphabets containing all letters of the alphabet depicting differences in society between men and women, the need for women to vote and how passionately and determined they were fighting for the right to vote and consequences they knew they will encounter in the pursuit for their right to vote to be upheld. The article further argued that working women needed to be protected and suffragists were very vocal in pushing for this dream to come true. Feminists argue that the push for eight working hours for males in the short term was indeed shadowing the real goal of eight working hours for women in the long term as well. However, a case of concern is biased treatment from employers: a woman and a man who announce their engagement at a workplace will get totally different treatment from the boss. The lady will be denied a pay rise though she dully should have one and the man will be granted the same on grounds that the woman will be taken care of by his partner and the man’s job is to take care of the lady thus justifying the pay rise. The many women who have shown a great example by leading the rest in campaigns of the right of equal treatment have surely paved way for the many others who have not been able to voice their opinion and are bound by oppression shackles to pursue their rights with vigor and are prospering in different professions presently.

Works Cited

Henretta, A. J., Edwards , R., & Self , R. O. (2011). Americs's History . New York: Bedford/ St. Martins . Press, U. o. (1912, August 18). Women Suffrage . Retrieved March 20, 2014, from Texas State Historical Association : www.tshaonline.org Winegarten, R., & McArthur, J. (1951). The Woman Suffrage Movement . Journal of Southern History , 81-87. Woodbrik, W. (1927). Woman Suffrage . Civil Rights , 16-18.

----------------------- [1] Susan B. Anthony, “Women’s Right to Vote”, accessed 1873, < http:// digitalhistory.uh.edu>. [2] Women Suffrage at Last: American History, 1910 [3] Ladies Home Journal, 1910- 12 [4] Jane Adams, “Why Should Women Vote”, accessed 1915, < http:// digitalhistory.uh.edu>.

[5] Battle of Suffrage, PBS, American Experience