Elsie Hill Florence Kelley

D. Directly after the 19th amendment passed, giving women the right to vote, a feminist debate broke out. Two sides emerged with different views on how to continue to pursue women's rights. On one side, the National Woman's Party proposed a new amendment to secure equal rights for both sexes, while the other side was comprised of those against the passing of this amendment, for they worried it would wipe out the protective laws they worked so hard to obtain for women workers. The proposition of the Equal Rights Amendment proved to be controversial, and was the center of scrutiny on both sides. The voices of these two sides were those of women of significant stature in women's rights campaigns, Elsie Hill and Florence Kelley. “Elsie Hill …show more content…
Hill declared “the removal of discrimination,” not “the methods by which they are removed,” was most important. She brings to light numerous situations in which men hold more control than women. These instances included, but were not limited to, various states denying working women their own income if married, the husband of a household controlling where his wife may live, and men could dictate where their wives voted. To Elise Hill, and many others, “the legal discrimination against women as mothers were more serious than the discrimination against them as wives”. In different states, the father was able to “will away the guardianship of a child from his mother”, and there were some that gave the father “sole guardianship” of the children. These laws gave the “father alone” authority to “decide what church and school a child shall attend”, and what his career would turn out to be, leaving the mother with no say. Hill advocated for the be ridding of these laws with one swift stroke. Elsie Hill backed the Equal Rights Amendment as a fix-all, blanket bill to bring an end to all these ridiculous laws depriving women of their