Women in our country have been second class citizens since our countries inception and still struggle today with maintaining equal rights. Women in the United States have faced a long and arduous road towards acquiring equal rights in the eyes of the government and still fight today to be seen as equals in all that they do. From the time before the Civil War until present day the issue of equal rights for women has been fought for by many activists. Women have struggled with issues such as the right to vote in elections and receive equal pay for equal work in the workplace. There have been many victories in the battle to become equal citizens by women, but there have also been many setbacks throughout the history of our country. In 1868 one of the pioneers of the women’s movement Elizabeth Stanton gave a speech to the Women’s Suffrage Convention entitled the Destructive Male. “Twenty years earlier, at Seneca Falls, New York, she had helped to launch the women’s right movement in America.”(History, Art & Archives 2013) In her speech she outlined how masculinity offered elements of negativity to the world and that a woman’s touch would be needed to help counter balance this fact. “The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and death.” (Stanton, Elizabeth, 1868) Her speech at the convention is important because it outlined how women of the time actually felt about what was happening in the world when it pertained to their rights. Women were not allowed to vote in elections, not allowed to earn wages comparable to men, and not allowed to express themselves outside of what was consider the social norm. (Bowles, M. D. 2011) While her speech seemed to downplay and vilify the males of The United States she in fact riled up