We Did It #WhileBleeding – Women’s Rights Throughout History

What have women done throughout history #whilebleeding and without equal rights? While your history books might gloss over women’s contributions, take it from us: it if weren’t for women, we’d still be living in the political stone age.

With fewer rights than men and stuck in stereotypical roles – some by law! – women had to navigate a hostile landscape that pervaded the work space, politics, and even their own homes. Can you imagine dealing with your period using only primitive menstrual products while prepping for a women’s rights protest in the 1800 and 1900s? Now you’ll get an idea of exactly how powerful and determined a woman had to be to get ahead!

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, let’s go out with a bang and get schooled on some of America’s most pivotal moments in female history. We hope you’ll leave with a bit of humble inspiration. At least you can get through each month with modern period products to keep you cozy and clean while you kick-ass #whilebleeding!

Women’s Suffrage and the Right to Vote

The suffrage movement is quite possibly the most well-known historical milestone in women’s history. On August 18^th, 1920, women finally won the right to vote with the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution after almost a century of political protests. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that women have only been able to cast their electoral votes since the 20s!

In the 1820s, women began to gather in various reform groups to protest gender restrictive laws that prevented them from owning property, voting in elections, and even claiming income from their own hard work. Women were expected to focus on raising children and keeping house, and now-famous figures like Elizabeth Cady Staton and Lucretia Mott decided it was high time for change.

By 1848, activists began to organize on a national scale. That same year, Staton and Mott organized the Seneca Falls Convention, one of many political platforms that would eventually push the American government to allow women basic human rights.

It was a long, trying fight in-between the first women’s political gathering in Seneca Falls and that fateful day in 1920 when the Susan Anthony Amendment granted women the right to vote. When the amendment passed, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time.

Believe it or not, the 19^th Amendment didn’t change voting rights overnight. Southern states like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia had rejected the bill when originally proposed in the House of Representatives.

It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Women in Mississippi, the last state to acknowledge the amendment, still couldn’t vote until March 22, 1984.

Now that’s an eye-opening look back on what women went through #whilebleeding!

Women’s Right to Work and Earn Equal Pay

The #wagegap is still a hot topic in today’s business environment, but did you know that women can actually sue an employer if they feel excluded or paid less based on gender?

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which forces employers to pay men and women the same wage for the same position. In the past, women earned far less than men, even if they performed the exact same work duties. Now it’s perfectly legal to take action against a business if a woman can prove that her boss is paying her male counterpart a higher salary for an otherwise equal type of job.

Considering our progress, it’s difficult to believe that women haven’t been working all that long. It wasn’t until World War 2, when working men were in short supply while overseas for the war, that women were allowed to enter the workforce in droves.

Despite the fact that 7 million women were now newly employed, with 2 million of those in heavy, physical labor positions, women still had almost zero rights on the job. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was responsible for granting basic human rights at work, stating that employers may not discriminate against people on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Once again, women were seriously suffering for centuries on all fronts, and most of us have parents that were alive to remember when our rights were won. While empowering, it’s also fairly disturbing!

A Woman’s Right to Pleasure and the Feminist Sex Wars

By the late 1970s, many feminist activists were fed up to the extreme. Some famous protesters, like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, believed all porn and sexual imagery of women, especially when heterosexual men were involved, were akin to rape.

Amid this anti-porn movement came figures like Betty Dodson and Gayle Rubin, who believed women had the right to judge their own pleasure on an individual basis. In the early 1980s, the sex-positive feminist movement began, a precursor to the popular, social media-spurned sexual wellness revolution we’re living today. Women like Dodson and Rubin knew that consensual sex, whether heterosexual or not, was a mutually pleasurable experience, and this tenet of feminism is still heavily preached today by media influencers.

Sex-positive feminism has evolved to cover not only intimate physical relationships, but also the sex work industry, including pornography and prostitution. Progressive activists believed that, when entered voluntarily and with full control over one’s job, sex work could be an empowering career choice.

Now the sex-positive movement is making waves in the 2000s and creating equal opportunities for all genders, body types, sexual identities, and sensual experiences.