FREE ESSAY ON WOMEN IN POLITICS

WOMEN IN POLITICS

During the revolutionary era, American leaders decided to use economic boycotts in their 
struggle against Britain. The goal of these boycotts was to stop the purchase of imported
goods 
(which could only be purchased from England). For this to be successful, women would have
to 
increase the production of homespun while finding a way to do without certain products
that could 
not be obtained locally. This gave women's domestic roles political significance. The
success 
of this political tactic rested on the shoulders of women. Their participation in
politics, even 
in this slight way, produced a change in the way women thought of themselves. Prior to
the 
revolutionary era, should a woman had made a comment about politics, she would instantly

apologize for her 'mistake'. Women no longer thought of themselves as excluded from
politics. 
They began to discuss politics widely. The discussion of politics among women soon led to

political participation outside of domestic roles. A trend started by Esther Reed,
women's 
groups started collecting money. This money was collected for the sole purpose of being
donated 
to the American war effort. The money was greatly needed and accepted with much gratitude
by 
General Washington. Female political participation would not stop there. In 1790, New
Jersey 
adopted an election law referring to voters as he or she, thereby giving women the right
vote 
more than a century before the 19th amendment would be added to the constitution. For the
first 
time women could actively participate in politics. Not just by discussion or donations.
Women 
had the ability to effect the outcome of an election. The American leaders who had
proposed the 
economic boycotts had no idea what they had started. Women's roles would never be the
same. 
Even though women's roles had changed through the course of the revolution, the men were

still reluctant to acknowledge any sort of equality. The revolutionary era had thrown
political 
importance on the domestic duties of women, but it had not changed them. The women were
only 
asked to do what they had previously done. They were not asked to step outside of the
feminine 
boundaries which had confined them before. Only now the importance was recognized. The 
discussion of politics slowly became socially acceptable. Other political acts were given

feminine characteristics in order to rationalize the fact that women were responsible for
them. 
When the women's groups contributed money to the war effort, it was used to purchase
shirts for 
the soldiers. The argument was that one of the woman's domestic responsibilities was
sewing. So 
in using the money to purchase shirts, Washington had changed a non-feminine act into one
that 
was feminine. The women's suffrage that briefly occurred in New Jersey was not due to a
strong 
commitment to the principle of equality by the men. It was due to the fact that there was
a 
loophole in the New Jersey constitution. The women were eventually disenfranchised. The 
revolutionary era may have broken down the barrier confining women from politics, but it
did not 
declare that male and female roles should be the same. A woman's public role was located
in her 
feminine domestic responsibilities. The revolutionary era only opened up new ideas which
would 
later grow into the women's rights movement.