Without women's voice in government, these laws might not exist

If in 1920, the 19th Amendment had never been ratified, many rights and laws that women (and in many cases men) enjoy today may never have passed.

If in 1920, the 19th Amendment had never been ratified, many rights and laws that women (and in many cases men) enjoy today may never have passed. Here are some of the most significant rulings that may have always been “What Ifs” if it weren’t for early suffragists.

The Pill (1960)

Prior to 1960, women used Lysol and lemons to stop procreation. Almost 50 years before that, Margaret Sanger became the voice of birth control. She began trying to overturn the Comstock Law — birth control legislation that outlawed contraceptives — as early as 1916.

In 1936, she helped bring the case of United States v. One Package to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision allowed physicians to legally mail birth control devices and information throughout the country.

In May 1960, the Federal Drug Administration approved the birth-control pill. On Aug. 18, 1960, it was sold for the first time. By 1963, 1.2 million women were on the pill.

Finally, in 1965, the Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut overturned the Comstock Law, ruling that the private use of contraceptives was a constitutional right.

Title IX (1972)

At the time it was passed, fewer than 30,000 female students participated in sports at NCAA member institutions. To put that in perspective, that’s the average amount of students in total that attend Texas Tech — and that was nationwide. Today, thanks in large part to Title IX, that number has increased six-fold. At the high school level, the number of girls participating in athletics has increased ten-fold.

The origins of Title IX arose from the feminist movements of the late 1950s and 1960s. However, sports were not the only arena the law affected. Research shows that females in the classrooms of colleges and office environments felt its rippling effects across America.

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Fought and won by two female lawyers, this historic Supreme Court decision overturning a Texas interpretation of abortion law and making abortion legal in the United States is still one of the most controversial verdicts by the court. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, could choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy. The alias “Jane Roe” was used for Norma McCorvey, on whose behalf the suit was originally filed, alleging the abortion law in Texas violated her constitutional rights and the rights of other women.

Sexual harassment (1986)

A law that gave women the right to fight back against workplace cat calls and indecent proposals, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Vinson v. Meriton Savings Bank that sexual harassment can be illegal sexual discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The court held that sexual harassment is illegal when the workplace is permeated with “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult” that changes the conditions of the victims’ employment and creates an abusive working environment.

Family Leave Act (1993)

Thank this law if you announced you were pregnant to your employers and didn’t lose your job. The FMLA is a labor law requiring larger employers to provide employees job-protected unpaid leave due to a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform his or her job, or to care for a sick family member, or to care for a new child (including by birth, adoption or foster care). Prior to its passing, the provision of leave for family or medical reasons (i.e., a hysterectomy, breast cancer) were up to the discretion of the individual employers. At the time, if you announced you were expecting, you could be expecting to find a new job.

The Lilly Ledbetter Act (2009)

It was passed, but it hasn’t truly kicked in yet. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law by President Obama as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It all began when Lilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination.

The ruling ensures that women everywhere can effectively challenge unequal pay for doing the same job as a man.


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