IN 1923 THE NATIONAL WOMAN'S PARTY
launched a campaign "for a simple and far-reaching Amendment to the Constitution: 'Men and women shall have
equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.'" The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified by the required 38 states, but the status of women has advanced nevertheless. TIME has followed the progress of women as they transformed from suffragettes to supermoms. Some highlights:
In those days [1848] women faced many disadvantages. Their husbands could beat them provided it was with a stick 'no thicker than a man's thumb.' Husbands had the sole custody of children. Except among the Quakers, women did not engage in any public activities.
From A Septuagenarian
Jul. 23, 1923
The 36th State necessary for amendment of the American Constitution was Tennessee, which ratified woman suffrage on Sept. 18, 1920. The vote was immediately certified by Secretary of State Colby, who declared that the 19th Amendment was now a part of the American Constitution, and in the November, 1920, elections women voted throughout the Union.
From Complex Feminine Bill
Dec. 24, 1923
The Army had anticipated emotional outbursts, resentment at having to take orders, squawks about living in barracks, feuds and cliques and general troubles with the unpredictable (to men) nature of women.
From Hobby's Army
Jan. 17, 1944
The speech they liked the best was by red-haired Novelist Fannie Hurst, who rose majestically in a black cartwheel hat, a slinky black dress and an egg-sized, green-stoned ring. Her topic: 'Politics and the Sleeping Beauty.' Women, said she, 'regulate their lives according to the male's ideas of the ideal of women's status ... according to a clock which does not move forward but eternally marks the hour—sex o'clock. . . ." She advised them to 'gain dignity' by taking part in politics, running for Congress, etc.
From Sex O'Clock
Jul. 1, 1946
Even though she may work for a while after graduation, the average college girl winds up a housewife with children. She finds that the real openings are for good cooks and mothers.
From Just Well Rounded
Oct. 10, 1949
A century after Lizzie Stanton's declaration and 40 years after the 19th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of sex, the emancipated women of the U.S. are far from ridiculous. They form the largest single element in the American electorate
From As Maine Goes ...
Sep. 5, 1960
'Don't iron while the strike is hot,' advised the slogan of the Women's Strike for Equality. No one knows how many shirts lay wrinkling in laundry baskets last week as thousands of women across the country turned out for the first big demonstration of the Women's Liberation movement.
From Women on the March
Sep. 7, 1970
By all rights, the American woman today should be the happiest in history. She is healthier than U.S. women have ever been, better educated, more affluent, better dressed, more comfortable, wooed by advertisers, pampered by gadgets. But there is a worm in the apple. She is restless in her familiar familial role, no longer quite content with the homemaker-wife-mother part in which her society has cast her.
From Where She Is and Where She's Going
Mar. 20, 1972
The women's issue could involve an epic change in the way we see ourselves, not only sexually but historically, sociologically, psychologically and in the deeper, almost inaccessible closets of daily habit.
From The New Woman, 1972
Mar. 20, 1972
By giving the brethren their first sister, Reagan provided not only a breakthrough on the bench but a powerful push forward in the shamefully long and needlessly tortuous march of women toward full equality in American society.
From The Brethren's First Sister
Jul. 20, 1981
The numbers mark distance traveled and distance yet to go. Eighty percent of all women who work hold down 'pink-collar jobs' and get paid about 66% of a man's dollar.
From How Long Till Equality?
By Jay Cocks
Jul. 12, 1982
Ten years after it was passed by Congress, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution died, three states shy of the 38 needed for ratification.
From What Killed Equal Rights?
By Anastasia Toufexis
Jul. 12, 1982
The decade is off to a fast start. In 1990 women entered races in record numbers, even exceeding the rush of 1972, when Senate passage of the Equal Rights Amendment gave women the incentive to run. This year 11 were candidates for Governor, 87 for Congress, eight for the Senate, and hundreds more for local office.
From It's Our Turn
By Margaret Carlson
Nov. 1, 1990
If feminism of the '60s and '70s was steeped in research and obsessed with social change, feminism today is wed to the culture of celebrity and self-obsession.
From It's All About Me!
By Gina Bellafante
Jun. 29, 1998
Thanks to 30 years of feminist striving, the category 'woman' has expanded to include anchorpersons, soccer moms, astronauts, fire fighters, even the occasional Senator or Secretary of State.
From The Real Truth About The Female Body
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Mar. 8, 1999
This is the heart of Hewlett's crusade: that it is essential for women to plan where they want to be at 45 and work backward, armed with the knowledge that the window for having children is narrower than they have been led to believe and that once it begins to swing shut, science can do little to pry it open.
From Making Time For A Baby
By Nancy Gibbs
Apr. 15, 2002
The achievement gap in the sciences is closing, albeit slowly.... Today half of chemistry and almost 60% of biology bachelor of science degrees go to females.
From Who Says a Woman Can't Be Einstein?
By Amanda Ripley
Mar. 7, 2005
Thanks to higher incomes, better education and long experience at juggling multiple roles, women may actually discover that there has never been a better time to have a midlife crisis than now.
From Midlife Crisis? Bring It On!
By Nancy Gibbs
May. 16, 2005
Talk to Arab women and you'll quickly learn that the controversy over the Muslim veil that rages endlessly in Europe is the least of their concerns.
From Midlife Crisis? Bring It On!
By Scott MacLeod
Dec. 07, 2006
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