When the fifteenth amendment was passed, African Americans jumped for joy. Finally, they would be able to vote. However, women were denied the right to vote because they were considered the “fairer sex.” The people in power, all of them men, believed that women could not think rationally enough to vote for various leaders of government. Most women disagreed with this belief. They believed that women could think rationally. To combat this belief, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association to fight for universal suffrage.

Suffrage is the movement to give women equality, the right to have individual rights after marriage, the right to have custody of children after divorce, the right to a college education and –the most famous argument– the right to vote. It took nearly a hundred years for women to gain the right to vote, and the campaign was not easy. There were little whisperings of gender equality beginning in the 1820s; however, the suffrage movement began gaining traction at the Seneca Falls convention in New York during 1848. Stanton invited many abolitionist activists to this convention to present their protest: American women had opinions as well, and they were just as equal as men. 

When the Civil War began, the women suffrage campaign lost a lot of traction, but quickly picked up after the 14th and 15th Amendments. Although these amendments were made to give equality, they made all MEN, white or black, equal, but did not include women. Questions about why women could not vote were again raised, and the campaigning for women to vote rose again in full force. The suffrage campaign became the model for other movements like the Civil Rights Movement in the ‘60s and anti-war protests during WW2 and Vietnam.

In 1910, Utah and Idaho granted women the right to vote before the 19th Amendment was ratified. The 19th Amendment stated: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” When the 19th Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, women across the United States celebrated. 

It has been 100 years since the 19th Amendment was passed. It has been 100 years of gender equality in the eyes of the law. 

As one of the first acts of his presidency, President Joe Biden passed a law saying transgender women can compete in women’s sports. On paper, this seems as though it is reaching toward equality of all genders and sexualities. However, any person who identifies as a woman, no matter if they are scientifically a male or not, can compete in women’s sports. Essentially, any male claiming he is a woman can compete in women’s sports. All of the steps taken toward gender equality in legislation and in sports have been completely disregarded. Our society has now regressed the steps taken. In the eyes of the law, women are now lesser than men.

The first professional women’s sports league, a football league, was established 40 years ago. The WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) was created in 1991. These sports leagues did not include men. They were created for women to have a level playing field. Scientifically, male and female bodies are created differently. Males are more inclined to be stronger, faster and larger than females, which generally makes them better than most females at sports. Women have fought hard for these separate sporting events to fairly compete against each other. In the 2018-19 season, Georgia High School Association (GHSA) added the girl’s state to the high school state wrestling tournament. This made them the seventh state in the United States to have a girl’s state. 

Now, any person identifying as a female can compete in any women’s sports. While it is understandable to allow transgender people who have gone through surgical changes and hormone treatments to compete, it is completely ridiculous to let an anatomically identified male compete as a woman. Reforms on this act should be made to accommodate those who were once male and have been surgically transitioned into a female. However, identification of gender is not enough. Males who feel as though they can not beat another male in sports, like wrestling or swim, will take the opportunity to enter into women’s sports because they are naturally built to compete better than other females. 

Women and males are no longer equal. The constitution states that everyone is equal, but now, in the eyes of the government, women are not equal. Americans are silently standing by as socialist agendas are infiltrating our laws and directly contradicting our constitution. But, no one is stopping them.