Mary Mcleod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune’s Impact on Society

Angela Wang

Andover High School

February 13, 2015

In United States history, women’s identities were confined to limited rights and a domestic sphere of work. Women had no say in politics that affected them or even in their own households. Typical work for women mainly consisted of household work, such as farming, cleaning or taking care of the children. These limitations in daily life affected the manner in which women were treated and respected. Women were not allowed to own land, divorce or make their own decisions. Sometimes, women were killed or married just for the land they possessed. The treatment of women was very harsh and cruel with no consideration for women and their needs. The unjust laws and lack of rights pushed women to fight for human rights and improvements in daily life.

Attempts to improve women’s stature in society existed throughout history but few were effective enough to cause a change. In the United States, women’s rights movement started in the mid-1800 with the first women’s convention in Seneca Falls, New York where men and women outlined the agenda for the women’s rights movement. However, efforts to improve women’s contributions in society in the early mid-1800s were not prominent until increasingly radical changes took place. Activists used conservative ways in attempt to improve rights for women but were unsuccessful. Therefore, the shift from moderate actions to drastic decisions affected how successful women were in gaining equal rights. An example of more extreme actions taken by women was strikes, which included hunger strikes when women were imprisoned for picketing outside the White House. However, even these efforts were not taken seriously until World War I when women’s contribution to the war and the extremes of the strikes affected how President Wilson viewed women’s suffrage.[i] This eventually led to the...