Women's rights

Her Horizon Fund aims to pull $100 million from donors, with the initial support provided by the Wallace Global Fund, a private philanthropic foundation based in Washington, D.C. Now, shortly, we'll hear from Nimco Ali, an FGM survivor, activist and CEO of the Five Foundation, formerly known as the Global Partnership to End FGM, who has her concerns about this fund.

But first, to set it out, I'm joined by Susan Gibbs, the Wallace Global Fund Senior Advisor on Women's Rights and FGM.

Thank you for joining us on Women's Hour.

So, Susan, can you explain what Her Horizon Fund is?

Sponsored by Chumba Casino.

women in industry the period of this ferment was also the age of the industrial revolution in america the rise of the factory system and the growth of mill towns the labor of women was transferred from the homes to the factories then arose many questions the hours of labor the sanitary conditions of the mills the pressure of foreign immigration on native labor wages of women as compared with those of men and the right of married women to their own earnings labor organizations sprang up among working women the mill girls of lowell massachusetts mainly the daughters of new england farmers published a magazine the lowell offering so excellent were their writings that the french statesman thiers carried a copy of their paper into the chamber of deputies to show what working women could achieve in a republic as women were now admittedly earning their own way in the world by their own labor they began to talk of their economic independence the world shaken by revolution such was the quickening of women's minds in eighteen forty eight when the world was startled once more by a revolution in france which spread to germany poland austria hungary and italy once more the people of the earth began to explore the principles of democracy and expound human rights women now better educated and more advanced in their ideas played a role of still greater importance in that revolution they led in agitations and uprisings they suffered from reaction and persecution from their prison in france two of them who had been jailed for too much insistence on women's rights exchanged greetings with american women who were raising the same issue here by this time the women had more supporters among the men horace greeley editor of the new york tribune though he afterwards recanted used his powerful pen in their behalf anti-slavery leaders welcomed their aid and repaid them by urging the enfranchisement of women The Women's Rights Convention of 1848.

The forces, moral and intellectual, which had been stirring among women, crystallized a few months after the outbreak of the European Revolution in the first Women's Rights Convention in the history of America.

It met at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, on the call of Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintick, three of them Quakers.

accustomed to take part in church meetings with men the quakers naturally suggested that men as well as women be invited to attend the convention indeed a man presided over the conference for that position seemed too presumptuous even for such stout advocates of women's rights the deliberations of the seneca falls convention resulted in a declaration of rights modeled after the declaration of independence for example the preamble began when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied the so also it closed such has been the patient suffering of women under this government and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled and then followed the list of grievances the same number which had been exhibited to george the third in seventeen seventy six especially did they assail the disabilities imposed upon them by the english common law imported into america the law which denied married women their property their wages and their legal existence as separate persons all these grievances they recited to a candid world the remedies for the evils which they had endured were then set forth in detail they demanded equal rights in the colleges trades and professions equal suffrage the right to share in all political offices honors and emoluments the right to complete equality in marriage including equal guardianship of the children and for married women the right to own property to keep wages to make contracts to transact business and to testify in the courts of justice in short they declared women to be persons as men are persons and entitled to all the rights and privileges of human beings such was the clarion call which went forth to the world in eighteen forty eight to an amused and contemptuous world it must be admitted but to a world fated to heed and obey the first gains in civil liberty the convention of eighteen forty eight did not make political enfranchisement the leading issue rather did it emphasize the civil disabilities of women which were most seriously under discussion at the time indeed the new york legislature of that very year as the result of a twelve years agitation passed the married woman's property act setting aside the general principles of the english common law as applied to women and giving them many of the rights of man california and wisconsin followed in eighteen fifty massachusetts in eighteen fifty four and kansas in eighteen fifty nine other states soon fell into line women's earnings and inheritances were at last their own in some states at least in a little while laws were passed granting women rights as equal guardians of their children and permitting them to divorce their husbands on the grounds of cruelty and drunkenness by degrees other steps were taken the women's medical college of pennsylvania was founded in eighteen fifty and the philadelphia school of design for women three years later in eighteen fifty two the american women's educational association was formed to initiate an agitation for enlarged educational opportunities for women Other colleges soon emulated the example of Oberlin, the University of Utah in 1850, Hillsdale College in Michigan in 1855, Baker University in Kansas in 1858, and the University of Iowa in 1860.

New trades and professions were opened to women, and old prejudices against their activities and demands slowly gave way.

the national struggle for women's suffrage the beginnings of organization as women surmounted one obstacle after another the agitation for equal suffrage came to the front if any year is to be fixed as the date of its beginning it may well be eighteen fifty when the suffragists of ohio urged the state constitutional convention to confer the vote upon them with apparent spontaneity there were held in the same year state suffrage conferences in indiana pennsylvania and massachusetts and connections were formed among the leaders of these meetings at the same time the first national suffrage convention was held in worcester massachusetts on the call of eighty-nine leading men and women representing six states accounts of the convention were widely circulated in this country and abroad englishwomen for instance harriet martineau sent words of appreciation for the work thus inaugurated it inspired a leading article in the westminster review which deeply interested the distinguished economist john stuart mill soon he was the champion of women's suffrage in the british parliament and the author of a powerful tract the subjection of women widely read throughout the english-speaking world thus do world movements grow strange to relate the women of england were enfranchised before the adoption of the federal suffrage amendment in america the national suffrage convention of eighteen fifty was followed by an extraordinary outburst of agitation pamphlets streamed from the press petitions to legislative bodies were drafted signed and presented there were addresses by favorite orators like garrison phillips and curtis and lectures and poems by men like emerson longfellow and whittier In 1853, the first suffrage paper was founded by the wife of a member of Congress from Rhode Island.

appeals and petitions poured in upon congress and the president militant suffragists held daily demonstrations in washington on september thirtieth nineteen eighteen president wilson who two years before had opposed federal action and endorsed suffrage by state adoption only went before congress and urged the passage of the suffrage amendment to the constitution in june nineteen nineteen the requisite two-thirds vote was secured the resolution was carried and transmitted to the states for ratification on august twenty eighth nineteen twenty the thirty sixth state tennessee approved the amendment making three-fourths of the states as required by the constitution thus women's suffrage became the law of the land A new political democracy had been created.

By that same token, it's also hard to distinguish between what Waters really thinks, what she's supposed to say, what's rage bait, and if there's any meaningful difference between those categories.

Her ex-background used to be a photo of What's Wrong with Equal Rights for Women by Phyllis Schlafly, an activist who started speeches by thanking her husband for allowing her to be there.

When I ask her about it, Waters says, if your enemies think you're oppressed, play up the trope.

On the right, optics are everything.

Let's listen to part of our interview where Annie Laurie and I talked with Robin Morgan back in 2021 on our TV show, Free Thought Matters.

Robin, you have dedicated your life to the cause of feminism, and we do wanna talk about that and the threats to women's rights, but first I'd like to talk about why you are an atheist, why you're such a staunch supporter of secularism.

Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, I, [laughs] I can't think why one wouldn't be an atheist, a free thinker.

You know, that, that wonderful phrase that you used, free thinker, it's just such a beautiful word.

I wish we could get them out or ensure their safety in some way, because I'm afraid of a bloodbath.

You're damn right.

Well, and then women's rights under a religious regime.

Exactly.

And I'm deeply honored.

So my presentation is about women's rights in the United States after suffrage.

When did women's rights change in the US? How did they change? Why did they change? Why women won rights initially and ironically, had much to do with the US civil rights movement.

The women's rights movement awakened a large group of women and men to a set of wrongs.

And in an extraordinarily brief timeframe, you'll see considerable legislation was passed and various judicial decisions bolstered these laws.

But the passage of some legislation reinvigorated an anti-feminist, traditionalist movement, mainly of women, that is with us today.

I will end by showing the deep divisions that have existed in the U.S. between traditionalists who are women and feminists who are women.

By women's rights, I will always mean that the legal, political, and social rights of women are absolutely equal to those of men.

noticed that there was something a little bit familiar.

Now, some male abolitionists, notably Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, became supporters of women's rights, but ultimately the male leaders of the anti-slavery movement denied women's demands for equality, believing that any calls for women's rights would undermine the cause of abolition.

And they may have had a point, because slavery only existed in parts of the country, whereas women existed in all of it.

In fact, one of the arguments used by pro-slavery forces was that equality under the law for male slaves might lead to a slippery slope ending with, like, equality for women.

And out of this emerging consciousness of their own subordinate position, the movement for women's rights was born.

The most visible manifestation of it was the issue of women's suffrage, raised most eloquently at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and many others wrote and published the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled very closely on the Declaration of Independence.

Except,

in some

And that actually ties in with the very next event that I'll mention in the very next section, but I'll wind that down here, and we'll, we'll switch to the next section after this.

All right, the next major topic I saw come up a lot was, uh, women's rights, queer liberation, and cultural reckonings during these Venus retrogrades in Scorpio over the past century.

So the first one was, was really early on.

It was a really cool one that I saw, which was in 1915 when Venus was retrograde in Scorpio during the later part of that year, the US House held its first ever floor vote on a federal constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote, and it ended up, um, failing at the time.

People who have the symptoms feel like they never heard anybody else complain about this.

All they see is the March for Women's Rights and the people defending it all the time.

And so it can leave people feeling extremely isolated and very isolated.

Like something's wrong with me.