the women’s movement was not just a single-issue movement. Stanton realized that women were being oppressed in every aspect of their lives. Among the causes that she advocated are as follows: coeducation, girls’ sports, job training, equal wages, labor unions, birth control, cooperative nurseries and kitchens, property rights for wives, child custody rights for mothers, and reform of divorce laws (Wood 67). Many women did not find a problem with fighting for these grievances, they were, however, fearful of the suffrage issue. They felt that it was just too radical. Stanton, however, recognized the importance of the politics, due to the influence of her father, during the early years of her life. She knew that without the right to vote, or political recognition, women had little chance of advancement. Stanton and the other women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth, who organized the Seneca Falls convention, had great hopes that this convention would trigger “a series of conventions embracing every part of the country.” And that is exactly what happened. Women’s rights conventions were held on a regular basis from 1850 until the start of the civil war (Gurko 27). It was after the civil war, that the movement suffered a setback. The main focus of political reform that dominated after the civil war was Black suffrage. This very much so influenced the struggle for women suffrage. The abolitionists, whom the women had fought for and felt they were allies with, turned their back on the women. The abolitionist wanted nothing to do with the women’s struggle for freedom until their rights were secure. It was at this time that to women realized that gaining the right to vote had to be their most important focus. It was then that “women’s rights” became almost synonymous with “women’s suffrage”(88 DuBois). Although the alliance with the abol...
