Ellen Carol DuBois in the Washington Post: “What Activists Today Can Learn from the Women’s Suffrage Movement”

Persistence and coalition-building are the keys to overcoming backlash

Era: Post-Suffrage Era, Suffrage Era | Media: Commentary, Newspapers, Web-based

UCLA Professor Emerita Ellen Carol DuBois contributed this commentary to the Washington Post on International Women’s Day 2019: “What Activists Today Can Learn From the Women’s Suffrage Movement.” She maintains, as the subhead suggests, that persistence and coalition-building are the keys to overcoming backlash.

“Suffrage was a product of a difficult battle that required overcoming enormous political challenges,” she writes. “A small group of farseeing pioneers had to attract more and more women to their vision of political power and equality. They had to become astute and clever in their strategies, all while developing the stamina to stand up against determined opponents and ingrained traditions. Through all this, they had to remain true to their basic belief that American democracy owed women full political rights.”

Prof. DuBois has written extensively on the women’s suffrage movement. You can find a list of DuBois’ books here, via Google Books, including Feminism and Suffrage, Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage,  Votes for Women: A 75th Anniversiary Album, and Woman Suffrage and Women’s Rights. See this video celebration of her distinguished career.

 

Back to Browse