Women turning points

Question 1

The 19th Amendment Political

Answer 1

Yes
- Women could now participate in politics and vote in elections

No
- Women’s voting saw a slow incline, a poll found that in Chicago only 35% of women voted in the election of 1923, 63% of men did

Question 2

The 19th Amendment economic

Answer 2

Yes
- Certainly the argument that with a formal political voice women’s rights to employment must be reformed, one could argue that the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which allowed more women to work by providing some level of child care was a result of women gaining the right to vote.

But
- Not an obvious link

Question 3

WWII economic

Answer 3

Yes

• In 1945 25 million women worked and a gallup poll suggested that 75% of women wanted to remain in employment
• Whilst many had to leave their employment to be replaced by the returning men many retained jobs and all left with employable skills

But
- The trend in more women working was an already established one with the percentage of the workforce being female, increasing from 17% in 1900 to 23% in 1920 to 25% in 1940, to 40% in 1960.

Question 4

Roe v. Wade reproductive

Answer 4

Yes
- Marked the legalisation of abortion across all states

But

• Many states had legalised abortion
• The debate on abortion was by no means over, Reagan and Bush both advocated the constitutional banning of abortion

Question 5

Comstock laws being established reproductive

Answer 5

Yes
- In 1873 it became illegal to transport contraception or even information about contraception

But
- At this point contraception was rudimentary and not so widespread, the condom was not in wide circulation and the pill had certainly not been invented yet

Question 6

Comstock laws repealed reproductive

Answer 6

Yes
- In 1938 the federal ban on the transport of contraception and information regarding it was lifted thus legalising it on a federal level

But

• The fact that Griswold v. Connecticut 1965 was required to legalise contraception suggests that this was not such a turning point
• State level bans and limits still existed

Question 7

1869, the establishing of the NWSA and the AWSA

Answer 7

Yes
- Both institutions lead by figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton were hugely influential in the suffrage movement and were the first large scale and national female political groups, Stanton being the first women to run for president

But

• There founding cannot be seen as much of a turning point
• The movement can be traced back to the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
• Membership figures didn’t pick up until the 20th century, the fused group the NAWSA (1890) had only 17,000 members in 1905, growing to 100,000 members in 1915

Question 8

Jeanette Rankin of Montana becoming the first female representative in the House of Representatives 1917 political

Answer 8

Yes
- On the eve of the 19th Amendment this appears to be part of a great political turning point

But
- However women’s political participation didn’t really pick up, as late as the 1940s only 2% of the House of Representatives were women, with 10 representatives