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The Seneca Falls Convention
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott initiate the first women's rights conference in U.S. history. More than 300 men and women came out to Seneca Falls, NY to display opposition to the mistreatment of women in the social, economic, political, and religious arenas. Attendees drafted the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, akin to the Declaration of Independence but with a twist of feminism. -
National Woman Suffrage Association Formed
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form an organization to gain voting rights. Stanton and Anthony formed the NWSA after suspecting abolitionist and Republican supporters of carrying African-American rights at the expense of women's rights. They aimed to do so by a Congressional amendment to the Constitution. -
Colorado the First State to Grant Female Suffrage
Utah and Idaho followed in its footsteps in 1896. Next, Washington did in 1910, California did in 1911, and so on and so forth! The likely cause for this event was the establishment of the National American Woman Suffrage Association's campaigning efforts to obtain voting rights for females. -
19th Amendment Grants Women Right to Vote
Upon the founding of the United States, women did not hold the same rights as men. Years later, in 1848, the women's rights movement launched throughout the nation, stemming from the convention in Seneca Falls, New York. After a 70-year fight for equal voting rights, feminist activists emerged victorious with the constitutional amendment. -
Equal Pay Act
The federal law amended the Fair Labor Standards Act with intentions to abolish wage disparity according to gender. Congress regarded sex discriminate as a hindrance to employee living standars, the workforce, competition, commerce, etc. The law provided that no employer could discriminate on the basis of gender by paying wages in that a rate was less than the way wages were payed to the opposite sex, unless the system was based on something like a seniority system or a merit system. -
Griswold v. Connecticut
The executive director of Planned Parenthood, Estelle Griswold, found that a Connecticut law criminalizes the usage of birth control (against the fourteenth amendment!).The Supreme Court declared that the Connecticut statute violated the "right to marital privacy," thus striking down the law against contraceptives. It is then widely recognized that citizens have a "right to privacy." -
California's No-Fault Divorce Law
The law eliminated the previously mandatory fault-based reuqirement to get a divorce both for spouses wanting a divorce by mutual consent. The Act formally put an end to California's action for divorce and instead replaced it with the proceeding for the closing down of marriage on the foundation of irreconcilable differences. Following the establishment of the divorce law, by 1985 all U.S. states had recognized paralleling laws, in addition to laws about the equal splitting of common property. -
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Because PDA is an amendment to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, discrimination involving pregnancy, childbirth, or relevant medical conditions is defined as unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII. Based on the Act, a female cannot be fired or passed up on a job or promotion simply because she is expecting or may be become pregnant. Also, she cannot be forced into going on a preganncy leave if she is competent and healthy to work. -
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
The Supreme Court reasserted the validity of a woman's right to abortion demonstrated under Roe v. Wade. As a result of the 1992 case, Pennsylvania's 1989 Abortion Control Act did not restore prior restrictions previously deemed unconstitutional. Planned Parenthood v. Casey also ruled that states may monitor abortions in order to protect the mother's health and the life of the fetus, and may outlow abortions of "viable" fetuses. -
United States v. Virginia
The Supreme Court brought down the Virginia Military Institute's long-term male-only rule in a 7-1 vote. VMI didn't have a valid reason for its sex-based admission policy, biolating the fourteenth amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Justice Ginsburg argued that the alternative program for women did not offer the same type of arduous training, support, facilities, etc.
