The Women's Liberation Movement has its origins in the suffrage movements during the 1890s as women in the United States and the United Kingdom struggled to gain the right to vote. The commonly-held patriarchal view of the right to vote supported the notion of separate spheres, which kept men in positions of power and women in their subordinate roles. According to this view, voting was a “masculine” privilege which should not be made available to members of the “weaker sex”.
As the struggle continued, the Women's Social and Political Union was founded in the United Kingdom in 1903. Its members, known as suffragettes, invaded and disrupted Parliament, chained themselves to the gates of government buildings and staged other public protests. The National Women's Party in America began
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Citation: Grimshaw, Tammy. "Women’s Liberation Movement". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1385, accessed 23 November 2024.]
