Eglin celebrates Women’s Equality Day

  • Published
  • By Dr. Robert Kane
  • Air Armament Center History Office
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  In 1971, the US Congress at the request of US Representative Bella Abzug established August 26 of each year as Women's Equality Day. 

On that date in 1920, Tennessee state legislator Harry Burns, after receiving a letter from his mother who urged him to vote for ratification, voted in favor of the 19th Amendment, the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920. 

On August 27,  Eglin will commemorate that event with several activities. Dr Julie Ballaro, chair of the Women's Heritage program, will host an Equal Rights Amendment Awareness Workshop at 1030-1115 at the base library. You can contact her at 882-8883 for additional information about the Equal Rights Amendment workshop. 

Later that day, the Air Armament Center History Office will tell the women's suffrage story in the course, "Women's Suffrage: The Fight for Women's Right to Vote." The course utilizes lecture, visual presentations, and the well received 2004 movie "Iron-Jawed Angels" to tell the story of how a small group of dedicated American women persisted--and suffered--to obtain the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. The course will be presented in Eglin Conference Center with a capacity for 200 students at 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Interested individuals can contact Dr. Bob Kane, AAC history office, at 882-0010 for more information. Register  at the College of Installation Sustainment and Management, Air Armament Academy registration site, https://afkm.wpafb.af.mil/ASPs/CoP/OpenCoP.asp?Filter=OO-ED-AA-A2. 

The right to vote (suffrage)--the privilege of participating in the selection of one's government representatives--is the essence of representative democracy. Yet, there are those who take the privilege of voting so lightly that they don't vote--and too many people don't even register to vote. For the last 40 years, the average turnout of registered voters in this country has been around 50% for presidential elections and about 40% for off-year elections. 

Before 1920, only one half of the voter-eligible population of the United States--males 21 years and older--could vote. Although a growing percentage of women 21 years of age or older earned an income and paid taxes by 1900, they could not vote--ironic since one of the rallying cries for American independence in the 1770s had been "no taxation without representation;" meaning American colonists could not vote for representatives to the British Parliament who enacted the tax laws. 

In the early 1800s, women in the United States were considered "naturally" inferior to men mentally and physically. Men were expected to work the farms or in the new factories to provide for their families' well being, and most women were expected to take care of the home, the husband, and children when they came along. Most women received only enough education to teach their children the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. As one pre-Civil War husband had put it, "Too much education ruins a good woman." 

Legally, women were second-class citizens. In addition not being able to vote, women could not hold public office. When they married, any property they owned, including property and money inherited from the death of parents and/or a prior husband, went to the new husband. As a result, some wealthy women spent their lives single, not wishing to turn over their fortunes to a husband. In doing so, they became marked as "spinsters" as most females were expected to marry at least by the late teens. 

The husband had total legal control of his wife as a woman could not sign a contract, obtain credit, or most of the other things women today take for granted. Most states did not punish husbands (or punish them severely) who beat their wives and did not condemn men who had mistresses. A woman, on the other hand, had little or no legal recourse for wife-beating and became a "marked" or "fallen" woman if she had a sexual relationship with any man other than her husband. These stereotypes became part of what was known as the "cult of domesticity" that dominated western societies in the 1800s. 

By the mid-1850s, in some western countries, small groups of dedicated women began to organize themselves to win the civil and social rights that would end their second-class status. Led by women, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and, later, Susan B. Anthony, the women's rights movement in the United States officially began with the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, on July 14, 1848.
During the second half of the century, the women's rights movement picked up momentum, interrupted only by the Civil War. When the Civil War ended, many women rights' leaders came to realize that the best, perhaps only, means to end their second-class status was to obtain the right to vote and use the power of the vote to influence politicians to change outdated laws concerning their status. In 1866, several of them created the American Equal Rights Association to secure the right to vote for all women, regardless of color or race. 

Between 1866 and 1915, this organization went through several reorganizations, name changes, and leaders. By 1915, the women's suffrage movement had seen five states enfranchise women. In that year, two more radical women, Alice Paul and Lucy Stone, formed the National Women's Party, dedicated to obtaining a constitutional amendment, giving women the right to vote. Their efforts culminated in passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution on August 26, 1920.