WOMEN'S RIGHTS FACTS

Did You Know? Facts About Woman Suffrage
Did you know
1. that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the mother of seven children? Susan B. Anthony would baby-sit Stanton's children while Stanton wrote suffrage speeches and petitions that Anthony would deliver. 2. that one of Elizabeth Cady Staton's daughters, Harriot Stanton Blatch, also became an important leader in the suffrage movement? 3. that many early suffrage supporters, including Susan B. Anthony, remained single because, in the early 1800s, married women could not own property in their own right and could not make legal contracts on their own behalf? 4. that in the early 1800s, in most states, women could not have custody of their own children? According to state laws, children "belonged" to the husband. Not until the 1840s, when women began to organize to obtain legal rights and gradually laws began to change, could women own property in their own right after marriage, or obtain custody of their own children. 5. that there is a difference between the terms "suffragist" and "suffragette?" In the United States, supporters of woman suffrage preferred and used the term suffragist. In Britain, militant supporters of woman suffrage called themselves suffragettes. When the American press, or those who opposed woman suffrage, called an American woman a suffragette, it was intended to be derogatory. 6. that actor Katharine Hepburn's mother was a prominent suffrage supporter from Connecticut? 7. that American women who were jailed for demonstrating for the right to vote were force-fed in prison when they went on hunger strikes? 8. that women were the first protest group in US history to picket the White House? Since then, this tactic has been used by many groups to protest for rights. 9. that Alice Paul, leader of the National Woman's Party, was put in solitary confinement in the mental ward of the prison as a way to "break" her will and to undermine her credibility with the public? 10. that suffragist Inez Milholland was the first woman to have a memorial service for her held in the United States Capitol? 11. that the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution granting women the vote was passed by only one vote? Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the Amendment, and it passed the legislature when Harry Burn, a young legislator, changed his vote to "yes" after receiving a letter from his mother telling him to "do the right thing." Women's Rights Internet-Links: D@dalos UN: DAW UN: Instraw UNHCHR: Women Amnesty: Women   I. Facts and Figures Education and Work Around 100 million children have no access to primary education, of whom at least 60% are girls. Women make up more than 2/3 of the world’s illiterate adult population numbering 960 million. Women bear more than half of all work done. More than three quarters of men's working time is spent in paid employment, whereas only a third of women's work is paid. Women in paid employment earn around 75% of that earned by men. Girls aged between 12 and 17 make up over 90% of household staff - the most common from of work for working children. Health and Discrimination Between 60 and 100 million girls have been aborted, killed, undernourished or terribly neglected because of their gender – girls are less likely to reach adulthood. In several regions of the world, the number of men is 5% higher than that of women. This unfair, targeted treatment of girls in terms of food and health has led to a situation in which the growth of 450 million adult women has been stunted as a result of malnutrition. More than 16.4 million women are today suffering from HIV/AIDS. In several regions of Africa and Asia five times more girls are HIV positive than boys. In Botswana one woman in three between 15 and 45 is HIV positive! Violence One woman in five is a victim of violence on a worldwide scale. Between 40 and 60% of all sexual crimes are carried out on girls under the age of 16. The majority of people smuggled into countries illegally are women, especially women to be sold or passed on to the sex industry. Many of these women were kidnapped or sold by their own families. Refugees Around 50 million people are currently on the run, approx. 75-80% of these are women and children. 80% of hand-held weapon victims in war are women. More than 300,000 young people serve as child soldiers, many of whom are female refugees. Poverty According to estimates, around 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty on an income of less than one US dollar a day. 70% of these people are women. The number of women living in poverty has risen by 50% since 1970, the number of men by 30%. [Evelin Kurs, taken from: Forum, Paper from the UNESCO School’s Project, Issue 3/2002: "Frauen und Mädchen der Welt" ("The World’s Women and Girls"), hrsg. v. Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission e.V., Bonn]	Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her daughter Harriet, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Divisio