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Teaching Women's Movements

We like to movement movement.

  • Activities: 5
  • Quiz Questions: 33

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Before the women's movement, women's movement was restricted—both by the clothes they were supposed to wear and the fact that they were expected to stay at home. Things are still far from perfect, but it's your job to explain how we got to where we are today, and where we can still go from here.

In this guide you will find

  • lessons analyzing the quotes, images, and iconic figures of the time period.
  • discussion questions on gender and politics. 
  • resources on current events like the on-going debate over the f-word (no, not that f-word).

And much more.

What's Inside Shmoop's History Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring history to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 3-5 Common Core-aligned activities (including quotation, image, and document analysis) to complete in class with your students, with detailed instructions for you and your students. 
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.
  • Reading quizzes to be sure students are looking at the material through various lenses.
  • Resources to help make the topic feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.
  • A note from Shmoop's teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the topic and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching Women's Movements?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: Elizabeth Cady Stanton was more insistent than most of her mid-19th-century feminist colleagues in arguing that securing the vote was essential to the advancement of the movement's other objectives. 

In this exercise your students will consider this proposition. They'll analyze a quote from Stanton and then write an in-class essay explaining whether they agree or disagree with Stanton and why. After they finish writing (15-20 minutes), students will have a chance to share ideas from their essays and discuss the topic in greater detail with the whole class. 

As an optional follow-up, you can have students edit and revise their in-class essays, creating polished, final draft copies. 

Length of Lesson: One class period

Materials Needed:

  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton quote (provided below)

Step One: Share the quotation below with your students.

"Having decided to petition for a redress of grievances, the question is for what shall you first petition? For the exercise of your right to the elective franchise—nothing short of this. The grant to you of this right will secure all others, and the granting of every other right, whilst this is denied, is a mockery. For instance: what is the right to property, without the right to protect it? The enjoyment of that right today is no security that it will be continued tomorrow, so long as it is granted to us as a favor, and not claimed by us as a right."
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1849

Step Two: Give students 15-20 minutes to write an essay that analyzes the validity of Stanton's stance. In their essay, they should summarize Stanton's assertion and state whether they agree or disagree.

Step Three: Allow students to share excerpts or ideas from their essays.

Step Four: Follow up by discussing the questions below with the whole class.

  • Was Stanton correct?
  • How essential is political power to the protection of other rights?
  • Can one segment of voters (voters of only one gender, say, or one race) be trusted to use their political power to protect the rights of others who do not have the vote?
  • Does gaining the vote ensure that other rights will be protected?
    • Did the Nineteenth Amendment lead to other gains for women?
    • Did the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments lead to other gains for African Americans?
  • What other factors contribute to the social and economic advance of oppressed groups?
    • Education?
    • Occupational mobility?
    • Activism?
    • Economic pressure (i.e., boycotts)?
  • Which of these is most effective?
  • If you were organizing a movement to improve the status of an oppressed group, where would you begin?
    • Would you focus on the vote? Or would you emphasize other issues and avenues to social advancement?

Step Five (Optional): Have students take their in-class essays and revise them to create polished, final draft essays.

Instructions for Your Students

Sometimes it's tough to decide where to start. Should you twist open the Oreo and eat the filling first? Scrape off the filling and eat the chocolate wafers first? Take the wafer-filling-wafer approach? Or just bite into the cookie whole? 

Decisions can be tough. 

In 1848, feminists were debating their own tough decisions. (And this was a good 60 years before the invention of the Oreo cookie, so they had other things on their minds.)

The debate: where they should focus their energies. Some suggested that they should concentrate on temperance; others said they should work toward reform of divorce laws. Some feminists held that they should work on increasing women's property rights; and still others argued that they should pour their energies into increasing women's educational opportunities. 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, however, said that the movement's first priority should be winning the right to vote.

Today, you'll read a quote from Stanton and decide whether or not you think she was right. 

And once you figure that out, you can get back to us about the best approach to eating Oreos.

Step One: Read the quotation below with your teacher and classmates.

"Having decided to petition for a redress of grievances, the question is for what shall you first petition? For the exercise of your right to the elective franchise—nothing short of this. The grant to you of this right will secure all others, and the granting of every other right, whilst this is denied, is a mockery. For instance: what is the right to property, without the right to protect it? The enjoyment of that right today is no security that it will be continued tomorrow, so long as it is granted to us as a favor, and not claimed by us as a right."
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1849

Step Two: Don't discuss it yet! Instead, take 15-20 minutes to write an essay that analyzes the validity of Stanton's stance. In your essay, you should summarize Stanton's points and state whether you agree or disagree with her.

Step Three: When everyone is done, take a minute to share excerpts or ideas from your essay and listen to what your classmates came up with.

Step Four: Follow up by discussing the questions below with your teacher and classmates. 

  • Was Stanton correct?
  • How essential is political power to the protection of other rights?
  • Can one segment of voters (voters of only one gender, say, or one race) be trusted to use their political power to protect the rights of others who do not have the vote?
  • Does gaining the vote ensure that other rights will be protected?
    • Did the Nineteenth Amendment lead to other gains for women?
    • Did the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments lead to other gains for African Americans?
  • What other factors contribute to the social and economic advance of oppressed groups?
    • Education?
    • Occupational mobility?
    • Activism?
    • Economic pressure (i.e., boycotts)?
  • Which of these is most effective?
  • If you were organizing a movement to improve the status of an oppressed group, where would you begin?
    • Would you focus on the vote? Or would you emphasize other issues and avenues to social advancement?

Step Five (Optional): Take your in-class essay and revise it to create a polished, final draft essay.