Women were not as free as today, in the United States, compared to the 19th century. Women had no freedom to do anything of their own and were considered as someone who would is expected to provide service and pleasure to men while taking on a domestic lifestyle at home. They were restricted to their rights and limitations compared with those of men. The domination of a male-driven society angered a handful of progressive women who believed that women should have the same liberties and equalities as those of their male counterparts. Women started to make proposals to advance women’s liberties and rights and have society accept women’s freedom. This is what led to the Women's Rights movement and how it would change society and the people who live within it.
In ‘Home Life’ by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Stanton argued that equality is extended into the private life of women. She wrote the essay after the idea of equality changed the way African-Americans were treated and given the right to vote, which she wanted for the same for women. She argued for marriage, divorce and the end of male power over women. She believes that granting divorce and other rights to women, will put an end to the bonds of “slavery”, as known as marriage. “From women's standpoint, I see that marriage is indissoluble tie is slavery for women, because law, religion and public sentiment all combine under this idea to hold her true to this relation, whatever it may be and there is no other human slavery that knows such depths of degradation as a wife chained to a man who she neither loves nor respects” (VOF, 16). She states that if women were given the right to divorce then women wouldn't have to be chained down by unhappiness and pain of marriage. She also points out that when men and women are not owned by each other as property but with love, then their marriage will be a lifelong relationship, not some contract.
In ‘Women and Economics’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gilman fought for economic independence for women. She argued that economic independence is important to the improvement in marriage, motherhood, and domestic life. She describes the values of a woman as a wife and the restrictions on women’s work within the economy as they work harder, not in maternal affairs but with domestic affairs, as they have no freedom of their own. “Women work longer and harder than most men, and not solely in maternal duties. The savage mother carries the burdens, and does all menial service for the tribe. The peasant mother toils in the fields, and the workingman’s wife in the home” (VOF, 81). Hiding behind the curtain of domestic life and having men control women’s lives would only harm their social and economic potential but she believed the lifestyle can be reversed once women learn to stand for themselves and gain their freedom.
In ‘Free Motherhood’ by Margaret Sanger, Sanger brought up the issue of birth control and how laws set limits to freedom of expression. Her arguments brought the idea of feminism to light and stressed the importance of free motherhood. She defines free motherhood as the free choice of whether or not they want to become a mother and having control over her own body. She argues that having access to birth control would bring happiness and it would bring not only liberty for them but also their children. “It is the essential function of voluntary motherhood to choose its mate, to determine the time of childbearing and to regulate strictly the number of offspring… She will give play to her tastes, her talents, and her ambitions. She will become a fully- rounded human being…” (VOF, 95). Through birth control, women can have the choice to not be tied down by maternal responsibilities and have the freedom to obtain a job.
In 'Address to Congress on Women's suffrage' by Carrie Chapman Catt, Catt argued for women’s suffrage in society. She was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She reasoned to Congress expressing her belief that women's suffrage was bound to happen and requesting that Congress see it as something that cannot be changed and vote to pass the amendment of women’s right to vote. She claims denying women the right to vote violates a principle of democracy of “taxation without representation” since women are required to pay taxes but are denied representation in government. “Behold him again, welcoming the boys of twenty- one and the newly made immigrant citizen to “a voice in their government” while he denies that fundamental right of democracy to thousands of women… Is there a single man who can justify such inequality of treatment, such outrageous discrimination? Not one...” (VOF, 115). She urges through her address that a change is to be made and give women the same rights and liberties, as women's suffrage is inevitable.
In ‘Elsie Hill and Florance Kelley Debate the Equal Rights Amendment’, Elsie Hill and Florence Kelley were 2 feminists who debated for the Equal Rights Amendment, which proposed that civil rights to not be divided based on sex. Elise Hill, who represented the Women's Party, fought for women’s equal rights and human liberty. Florence Kelly, the head of the national consumers' league, argued that women will always need laws that differ from those needed by men and women should deserve equal political rights. “The inescapable facts are, however, that men do not bear children, are freed from the burdens of maternity, and are not susceptible, in the same measure as women, to poisons now increasingly characteristic of certain industries, and to the universal poison of fatigue” (VOF, 161). Kelley believed that since men don't have to worry about the burdens of motherhood, she doubts maternity defines women’s rights and makes laws different from those of men. Hill argued that women were denied equal custody to their children and their right to earn money.