What would she think of us now?
By Mariama Bah
In the early 1800s to early 1900s, American women started a revolution called the women’s suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were two exceptional leaders of this movement. During this time, women from all over the country fought, protested and rallied for equal rights with adult male citizens. They were able to accomplish many of their goals: getting the right to vote, the right to work, and even the right to divorce over time. Women also wanted respect, so that they would not be reduced to mere procreative or sex symbols, but be valued above all for their intellect and good character. The values of women from that time period compared to the values of women today appear to be completely different. In today’s society, women are degrading themselves for the sake of fame, entertainment, and money. Some examples are reality T.V. shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians and the Bad Girls Club.
Bad Girls Club first started playing on December 5, 2006. In every season of the show, about seven girls from all over the country came together in Atlanta, New York City or Las Vegas to live in an extravagant mansion. The whole purpose of this show is to find out which girl/girls are the “baddest” of that particular season. The producers pick women who they know will start lots of drama, fights, and fun. One is not considered a “bad girl” unless they party all night and fight all day for no reason. In an interview with Bunin/Murray Productions, it was found that during season six, Bad Girls Club received 1.71 million viewers. Relating this back to how the ethical values of women have changed since the early 19th and 20th centuries we must remember that during the early years of the women’s suffrage movement, women’s values led them to ask to be treated respectfully as the socioeconomic equals of men, and to be allowed to work outside of their homes. It seems that in today’s society, women’s value systems encourage them to degrade themselves for fame, entertainment and money.
Another reality T.V. show that reveals how much the values of women have changed since the 1800s and 1900s, is Keeping up with the Kardashians. In this show, there is no fighting like you would see in the Bad Girls Club. However in this show, you find a family that is submerged in materialistic values. This family became famous not because they are talented actors, or singers, but because they just happened to land on a reality T.V. show. A typical episode consists of the family traveling and communicating with each other in their house. When you watch this show one thing you will realize is that the members of this family don’t have normal nine-to-five jobs. And no one in the family appears to attend school. So basically this family is getting paid to just live aimlessly and have cameras follow and record their daily life. In this show, they are not encouraging women to get their education and get respectable jobs, which is the whole reason behind why Susan B Antony and Elizabeth Cady fought for women’s rights.
Over the past two centuries, American women have gone from having almost no civil rights, to securing the right to vote, to the right to hold our nation’s highest corporate position or political office. Today, we can watch Hillary Clinton campaigning to be elected the 45th President of the United States as proof that women continue working hard and demonstrating that they deserve equal rights with men. Unfortunately, “reality” television continues to degrade the images of women with “trash TV” like Bad Girls Club, which sends the public a completely different message.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both struggled for the women’s rights movement because they believed that a woman should be seen as just as intellectually capable as men, and not viewed as mindless sex symbols. They both agreed that women should be allowed to vote, receive higher education, and be allowed to have ambitious careers. Now, in the 21st century, women have the right to vote, get college educations, and work as entrepreneurs, in corporations, or as elected officials in government. Yet despite having the hard-won benefits of an amended Constitution, amended civil laws, and even amended Church laws aimed at supporting gender equality for women, modern American women are voluntarily embarrassing themselves on reality T.V. shows and dropping out of school. If Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were still around, they would probably be very sad and shocked to see the kinds of things women are doing now.