To gauge how far women have come, consider where they were 151 years ago. At that time, women were forbidden to vote, prohibited from attending college, and barred from many trades and vocations. Married women were unable to sue, divorce, or own property. But that was all to change.

On July 19, 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary McClintock, and Lucretia Mott—who had been excluded from an anti-slavery convention in 1840—along with Martha C. Wright and Jane C. Hunt, organized a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, to advocate equal rights for women along with the right to property, education, employment, marriage, and suffrage. Then, Elizabeth C. Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments that she had patterned after the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…" read Stanton’s Declaration, which also argued for the right of women to "participate with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce." Such equality, said the document, signed by 68 women and 32 men, would be for "the highest good of the race." As it turned out, it was.

After the first convention, Elizabeth C. Stanton faithfully continued to coordinate a series of state and national conventions on women’s issues and petitioned to grant women the right to vote and own property. Twenty-two years later, in 1860, the New York legislature passed the Married Women’s Property Act, allowing women to control their own earnings and property, and to enter into contracts. Finally, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted by Congress, yielding American women the right to vote. From there, the direction has been steadily upward.

Women today not only have obtained the right to attend college, but actually earn the majority of master’s degrees. The wage gap is narrowing as women’s salaries expand and more women are starting businesses and becoming executives. But there is still much more women can do for themselves, in the spirit of the Declaration of Sentiments.

For example, our social security system continues to treat women unfairly. Women tend to live longer than men, requiring increased savings. Our social security system also penalizes married working women while rewarding stay-at-home women with greater benefits. Women can follow the example of Elizabeth Stanton and petition for the advancement of justice, through private individual retirement accounts that they own and control.

Rather than calling for government action to guarantee women equal wages and executive representation, women can compete with men (and other women) by making rational choices concerning degrees, fields of education, and the level of commitment to their careers. After all, women, rather than the authoritative government, are responsible for their own choices. Women should be judged for their individual actions, not classified as a collective gender, in need of paternalistic assistance.

While major battles still need to be fought, women’s equality and potential are ideas whose consequences are apparent on every hand. In their level of education and their advances in employment, women have independently proven their capabilities over the last 151 years. America has become a freer and more productive environment for all people. Elizabeth Stanton would approve.

— Laura Anne Dykes

Marketing Coordinator