A History Of Women's/Reproductive Rights

Beginning at the 11:00 mark of the podcast below there is a focused history of how women's rights have always been suppressed in the USA:

Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood

Women's Vote In The USA: The History

"Like the momentum for the Fifteenth Amendment, the push for rights for women had taken root during the Civil War as women backed the United States armies with their money, buying bonds and paying taxes; with their loved ones, sending sons and husbands and fathers to the war front; with their labor, working in factories and fields and taking over from men in the nursing and teaching professions; and even with their lives, spying and fighting for the Union. In the aftermath of the war, as the divided nation was rebuilt, many of them expected they would have a say in how it was reconstructed.

"But to their dismay, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly tied the right to vote to “male” citizens, inserting the word “male” into the Constitution for the first time."

Click on the link below for the history of the steps involved in allowing women to vote in the USA. Unfortunately, it is similar to other rights efforts for women. 

I think frequently about my mother and the history of women's rights in the USA. She was born before women could vote. She graduated 4th in her high school class but could not go to college. She became a widow in 1962 but could not get a credit card in her own name until 1974.

History of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution

RBG And Women's Rights

"In her fight for women’s rights, the then–ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg did something unexpected: She argued on behalf of men.

"'It didn’t matter to her if the plaintiff was a man or a woman,' says the Georgetown law professor Wendy Williams. 'Because in most of those cases, the discrimination against the man was derivative of a prior and worse discrimination against the woman.'

"Craig v. Boren involved Oklahoma frat boys, a drive-through convenience store, and gender-specific beer laws. The Supreme Court’s landmark 1976 decision was foundational in advancing equal rights for women and represented a key moment in the future justice’s career."

Click on the link below for a podcast on a fascinating historical event that was seminal in not only the career of RBG but the Women' Rights Movement:

How RBG Became 'Notorious'