Womens Rights History

Women have been at the forefront of significant positive change for generations, and yet they still struggle to have their voices heard. There is no more obvious example of this than when learning about modern history, where little acknowledgment is given to women's incredible feats and sacrifices during major world events. However, there are hundreds of true stories of brave women activists, each one fighting for important causes such as ending slavery and other forms of oppression.

In the watershed year of 1919, world leaders met in Paris, promising to build a new international order rooted in democracy and social justice. Female activists demanded that statesmen live up to their word. Excluded from the negotiating table, women met separately, crafted their own agendas, and captured global headlines with a message that was both straightforward and revolutionary: Enduring peace depended on recognition of the fundamental humanity and equality of all people.

Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of postcolonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This audiobook makes an urgent intervention in the history of the conflict, which to date has been characterized by a fixation on sensational violence - or ignored altogether. Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three people who found themselves at the center of Punjab’s human rights movement.

Published in 1792, The Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft is not just a pioneering work of feminism, but also a step forward for political philosophy in general. Amit Varma explains how it drove liberalism forward with its argument, radical at the time, that human rights extended to all humans, and not just to men.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton said at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. One-hundred of the 300 convention attendees signed this speech that, modeled on the Constitution, served as a declaration of the women’s rights movement. Stanton did not mince words when she stated, “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.”

Emmeline Pankhurst was to women’s suffrage in England what Susan B. Anthony was for the same cause in America. She gave this memorable speech while campaigning in the US. In it, she explains the root trouble women face when campaigning for their rights: “We women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact - a very simple fact - that women are human beings.” Though she faced harsh criticism for her “militant” means of advocacy, she never backed down, and as a result, gained suffrage in her lifetime.

Are you ready to embark on a transformative journey through the untold stories of remarkable women leaders who defied societal norms and ignited a movement for women's rights?These women and girls came from the most disadvantaged groups in society yet defied the most powerful captains of industry. It's time to reclaim their narratives and celebrate their achievements.

At the historic Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Anita Hill spoke out courageously about workplace sexual harassment. Now she turns to the topic of home. As our country reels from the subprime mortgage meltdown and the resulting devastation of so many families and communities, Hill takes us inside this “crisis of home” and exposes its deep roots in race and gender inequities, which continue to imperil every American’s ability to achieve the American Dream. In this period of recovery and its aftermath, what is at stake is the inclusive democracy the Constitution promises.

How Sex Became a Civil Liberty is the first book to show how and why we have come to see sexual expression, sexual practice, and sexual privacy as fundamental rights. Using rich archival sources and oral interviews, historian Leigh Ann Wheeler shows how the private lives of women and men in the American Civil Liberties Union shaped their understanding of sexual rights as they built the constitutional foundation for the twentieth-century's sexual revolutions.

In the spring of 1970, seventeen women set out from Vancouver in a big yellow convertible, a Volkswagen bus, and a pickup truck. They called it the Abortion Caravan. Three thousand miles later, they “occupied” the prime minister’s front lawn in Ottawa, led a rally of 500 women on Parliament Hill, chained themselves to their chairs in the visitors’ galleries, and shut down the House of Commons, the first and only time this had ever happened. The seventeen were a motley crew. They argued, they were loud, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

A fascinating chronicle of radical feminism’s rise and fall from the mid-60s to the mid-70s, Daring to Be Bad is a must-listen for both students of gender history and activists of intersectionality. This 30th anniversary edition reveals how current debates about race, transgender rights, queer theory, and sexuality echo issues that galvanized and divided feminists 50 years ago.

Mahalia Jackson was known as the queen of gospel music. A close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s, she was also a civil rights activist who sang at the March on Washington. And she traveled the world, too! Experience all the inspiring moments in Mahalia's big life in this thrilling biography, packed with fun facts, like who invented rock and roll! Short and engaging chapters are interspersed with special lists and other information made to order to engage kids, whether they're already biography fans or "have to" write a report for school.

La idea de hacer este libro surgió de Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora por la necesidad de dejar una versión propia de su historia y contar en primera persona cómo se conocieron, cómo se organizaron, cómo se fueron construyendo. Muchas, la mayoría de las madres, ya no están con nosotros. Pero cada una de las que participan en este libro dio su testimonio y contó lo que recuerda de estos años junto a sus compañeras.

On the evening of November 1, 1843, a young household servant named Amelia Norman attacked Henry Ballard, a prosperous merchant, on the steps of the new and luxurious Astor House hotel. Agitated and distraught, Norman followed Ballard down Broadway before confronting him at the door to the Astor House. Taking out a folding knife, she stabbed him, just missing his heart.

Having lost her mother at a young age, Ella Fitzgerald struggled as a child, especially during the Great Depression. But after winning over the audience with her singing at an Amateur Night at the Apollo, Ella's career began, and she eventually went on to become a world-renowned singer known as the First Lady of Song.

Everyone knows about the “Votes for Women” campaign that led to the 19th Amendment in 1920. Few know just how long the struggle really was. Decades earlier, brave women began breaking the taboo of remaining silent at gatherings that included men. They began signing their names to petitions, flexing political muscle long before they had the vote. They wrote millions of words and published some of the most influential books and journals of their day. No one represents this early struggle — the small triumphs and discouraging setbacks — better than Clarina Howard Nichols (1810–1885),...

Gloria Steinem was no stranger to injustice even from a young age. Her mother, Ruth, having suffered a nervous breakdown at only 34, spent much of Gloria's childhood in and out of mental-health facilities. And when Gloria was only 10 years old, her father divorced her mother and left for California, unable to bear the stress of caring for Ruth any longer.

Since its very beginning, mainstream feminism has catered to a particular group of women: middle class, cis-gendered, Western and above all, white. And the exclusion of everyone outside this narrow category is not merely an oversight, a coincidence, a slip. It is baked into the way feminism works. This must change. White supremacy is killing feminism. Until all of us are free and equal in society, none of us are. The power to transform it lies with each one of us. It starts with understanding how we got here in the first place.

1974. A 22-year-old Jacqui French stands for a photograph in Omaha, Nebraska, thousands of miles from home. Behind a carefree smile lies a fierce hope, fuelled by the promise of a new beginning and the tapestry of opportunity an America of Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, and the newly passed Roe v. Wade, appeared to offer. The world was changing, and women’s fortunes seemed to be changing with it. It was this photo of her mother, discovered by accident decades later, that set Marisa on the path to this book.

Argentina's coup d'tat in 1976 led to one of the bloodiest dictatorships in its history - 30,000 people were abducted, tortured, and subsequently "disappeared". And hundreds of babies born to pregnant political prisoners were stolen from their doomed mothers and given to families with military ties or who were collaborators of the regime. "Anala" was one of those children, raised without suspecting that she was adopted.