These ideas were in a complete contrast to the realities of women's lives that time. Women of the time were second-class citizens. Mary Wollstonecraft could look to her own life, history and to the lives of women around in her family. Abuse of women was close to home. She saw little legal recourse for the victims of abuse. And that contrast between the "rights of man" and the realities of the "life of woman" motivated Mary Wollstonecraft to write her book. She makes clear that only when woman and man are equally in family and social life there is true freedom. And for such equality there must be a quality education for woman – an education which recognizes her duty to educate her own children, equality to her husband, and which recognizes that woman, like man, is a creature of both thought and feeling: a creature of reason. With her book she challenged a society dominated by men, however such extreme thoughts did little to progress the status of women at the time, but they set the way for “The Feminist Movements”.
That’s why seventy years latter Lucretia Mott continued the journey of Mary Wollstonecraft. During the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 eight delegates from the United States were refused seating simply because they were women. Upset by such sexism, Lucretia Mott, one of the eight women delegates, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who attended as the wife of a delegate, resolved to hold a convention for women's rights. After this episode she became active in women's rights. In 1848, Mott and Stanton launched the woman's rights movement in the United States by calling the Seneca Falls Convention. The Declaration of Sentiments signed by Stanton, Mott, and other participants called for the extension of basic civil rights to women. These included the right to vote and the right to hold property. The basement for this Declaration was Declaration of Independence of United States. By adding just one word “women” she made her main statement: “that all men and women are created equal”.
19th century feminists had many aims: they desired to be able to train for employment to allow them to receive work beyond the home, they sought after equal educational prospects with men, the wanted identical rights in the law, and finally they wanted the right to vote. Having such a right to vote meant that women could vote for a party which would improve the situation that women found themselves in. The campaign for the vote by women is called 'The Women's Suffrage Movement'. The term “suffrage” means “to vote”.
Despite gains made by women in the second half of the 19th Century there was still large opposition to women's legal and political rights, and although some improvements were made, the issue of giving women the vote was still highly opposed. There were many varied reasons explaining why people opposed the vote for women. Even some women disagreed with the women's rights supporters, saying that politics did not concern women. And the injustice that women receive from men can even be blamed on themselves for raising their sons in that way.
Many men also strongly believed that. Women were seen as the weaker sex and that’s why weren’t able to make important decisions. Men believed that if women were given the choice between candidates, they would make their choice based on attractiveness or how charming they were, rather than on the political issues, and saw women to be too sentimental to make the right choice. But the real fear, that men felt, was that if women would succeed, they would be able to control the country's future. And many people thought that women wasn’t capable for it. Men believed it was their job to provide for and protect women believed that they were doing this by keeping them away form politics. Women didn't see it this way. The government also continued to refuse the vote for women. The fact is that at that time, even some men still did not have the vote. The Government felt it would be unfair that women would be able to have the vote before some men. To sum up, although parliament wasn't letting women vote, society was a very crucial reason of why women didn't get the vote in 1900 - 1914. When this was achieved at the start of the twentieth century, most believed that in winning suffrage rights, women had achieved full emancipation.
However in the mid of 20th century, the problem of feminism was brought out again into public. The main problem for feminism in the twenty-first century is that many of the original goals appear to have been reached. The right to vote was achieved in the early years of the twentieth century; feminism successfully campaigned in many countries for the legalization of abortion, equal pay legislation, anti-discrimination laws and wider access to education and political and professional life. So the central illusion for post-feminism is that the most obvious forms of sexual oppression have been overcome.
Anyway, it is still women who are usually employed in poorly paid, low status and often part time jobs. So the problem is still the subjection of women and the supremacy of men, but feminists are finding ways to agree on how and why women are still being oppressed. The main argument, which is based on believe of natural “weakness” of women, is that women should have the choice to work and raise a family. This, however, means that women are held back from having successful careers, often by the 'glass ceiling' meaning that employers will not promote a woman who has or wants to have children of her own. These ideas are influenced by nature that women have more preference about family and domestic life, than social life. But feminist belief that while men and women are different, they are equal and so should not be oppressed by being given worse jobs, and many women want to raise a family and have a successful job.
To sum up, women had been campaigning peacefully for the vote for 150 years and got nowhere. Then when they began bouts of violence they lost a lot of their original support. But, we really have to ask did they have any choice? Personally I feel that women did well to patiently wait for 150 years peacefully and that is why I feel they had the vote long before. Today, it may be naïve to imagine that simply equalizing educational opportunity will ensure true equality for women. But the century after Wollstonecraft was a progression of newly opened doors for women's education, and that education significantly changed the lives and opportunities for women in all aspects of their lives. Without equal and quality education for women, women would be doomed to vision of a separate and always inferior sphere. Even not in all countries, ex. South Arabia, women are still equal to men both in social and family life. And on the contrary, ex. Germany or Britain, women can and become the head of the state. Reading a “Vindication of the Rights of Woman” today, some parts seem relevant to nowadays public and family situations, and others seem archaic. This reflects the great changes in the value society places on women's reason today, as contrasted to the late 18th century; but it also reflects the many ways in which issues of equality of rights and duties are still with us today.
