Question

Imagine that you are a woman in 1915, fighting for the right to vote. You and a group of women have gathered in the town square to organize a small protest. Another woman walks up to you and asks you why you are protesting. How do you explain women’s suffrage to her? (Hint: What historical events can you reference that have advanced the cause of women’s rights? Why is it important for women to be able to vote?)

Answer 1

The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the movement more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.