Question

How does Christine Stansell establish the context for the beginning of the women's movement?

Answer 1

ctually  it tracks the movement from 1848 through a series of obstinated state campaigns in Colorado in the 1890s and beyond. Marilley stresses the adaptability of the abolitionist legacy and admires the size of equal-rights ideology after the Civil War to contain a variety of goals for women, including goals to protect women.

Suzanne Marilley’s history of the suffrage movement is referring to the full history from 1820 to 1906. The most innovative contribution comes from the author’s research in the Colorado suffrage victory in 1893, which offers an excellent analysis of state politics.  

In this case study she closely examines the political context and the array of liberal and illiberal arguments used simultaneously to gain the support of various constituencies. She manage to write about the social context of male control over most features of women's lives. She points to a hypersexualized American popular culture that presents women with “self-actualizing sexuality that still hinges on male approval” and persistent labor discrimination and maintains that the feminism that helped change marriage and possibilities for girls can fulfill its “promise” for social change.

She credits feminists who build coalitions to effect social change—for example, the twentieth century abortion reform movement culminating in Roe v. Wade victory represents concerted efforts of “physicians, psychiatrists, and family planning professionals along with activists.”