Why were women so late?

In answer to the question “Why do you think it took so long before women decided to organize a concerted effort to receive rights?” my first response would be, “I have no idea. I wasn’t there, I don’t know much about the day to day life of people who were, and I’m not even a woman.” One way I could approach this question is to place all of the blame on men—at least I am a man and might be able to understand their position a bit more than the other genders (I said understand, not sympathize with or agree with).

According to my understanding, men were, and in many cases, still are of the opinion that women’s role is predominately in the home. Indeed, it appears that Mother Nature herself, or the less animate Biology, would agree. Anyway, if men were of that opinion, it makes sense that they would have opposed any changes to the status quo. If a woman, for example, sought to exercise more power out of what her husband had delegated her, she might even be subjugated more.

Reflecting on the last paragraph, I feel that it doesn’t say much.

Another reason that might have contributed to the fact that women in general waiting a long time to organize a concerted effort to receive equal rights is that the women who went around in circles of high influence were bound my propriety and tradition. Many women, simpler women, might have exhibited the characteristics of a more liberated individual. Say, it is likely that some rural women participated in the same activities as their husbands or the men around them—similar types of work, similar responsibilities. These women, however, and also the men of such status, for that matter, were not really in position to organize groups of people to elicit change.

Women who were affiliated with political leaders, organizers, and those associated with money and education, were bound by tradition. After years of education, many women were essentially trained in the art of being fragile and tender, weak and submissive. While their male counterparts were being to taught to manage money, people, and in some cases, nations, the women were learning to remain oppressed.

The social norms revolving around individuals of money also taught a woman to know her place. She was taught that politics were too much for her feeble mind, and that weightier matters should be left in the hands of the men.  If she were to reject such notions outright, she would risk being ostracized from her public sphere.

Such were some of the obstacles that stood on the way of women organizing themselves to fight for equal rights. I wish now, however, to return the original question: “Why do you think it took so long before women decided to organize a concentrated effort to receive equal rights?” I have to ask myself in considering this question if in fact it did take them “so long.” It might all be relative, but compared to other nations and cultures, women of the United States were early in their fight for equal rights. Why did it take so long for women of other nations to do so? And why did the women of the United States do it so early compared to others?

If we consider the fact that it was only recently that the Liberty and Freedom of American standards were established in the world, and that women in the world were for the great part not treated with equality anywhere in the world prior to the 19^th Century, it is not surprising that it happened when it did. Men in general were not equally much prior to the time when women began to organize themselves lobby for equal treatment. Indeed, equality was not known amongst men by any means at the time of the Seneca falls convention, and hundreds of years later, it would still be a stretch to say that men enjoy equality. I do not feel that the women’s movement for equal rights began late; I feel that relative to the fight for equality for man generally, they were very prompt.