What Is the Women’s Rights Movement?

November 8, 2016

You might not expect an old cemetery to be a busy place on Election Day in the United States. But 2016 was different.

For the first time, a woman was running for US president from one of the two major political parties. It was Democrat Hillary Clinton. Her nomination was a milestone in the struggle of American women to achieve equality with men.

To celebrate, visitors streamed to Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. They wanted to honor the memory of Susan B. Anthony. She was an early women’s rights leader. People lined up to place flowers and flags on the grass. Soon, “I Voted” stickers covered the simple gravestone.

Susan would have been delighted. She devoted her life to the cause of women’s suffrage—the right to vote. Once, in 1872, Susan voted in a presidential election. It was illegal back then, and she was arrested. One newspaper published an illustration of her with the title “The Woman Who Dared.”

A judge sentenced her to pay a hundred dollars. Susan told him she’d “never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” She never did.

Susan B. Anthony didn’t live to see her dream come true. American women didn’t win the right to vote until 1920. That was fourteen years after she passed away.

And although Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 made history, she didn’t win the election. No woman has ever been elected president or vice president of the United States . . . at least not yet.

As Susan once said, “Failure is impossible.”