America has had women, black, white and Indian and others on this continent since 1608 when the first Anglo women arrived from England. They came voluntarily at the behest of the Jamestown Colonist’s males. The came to become wives, mothers and helpmates. They generally came with no contract, unless it was a marriage contract. Their coming was indispensable to the survival of Jamestown.
As The Treasurer, Edwin Sandy of the Virginia Company of London put it in 1620, "...the plantation can never florish till families be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil."
http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/the-indispensible-role-of-women-at-jamestown.htm
The next women to arrive were those intrepid souls aboard The Mayflower which anchored off the shore of the Massachusetts coast in November1620. It was while anchored that the first governing document, The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed by the 61 male Puritan/Pilgrims. None of the 40 or so women aboard was asked to contribute to or sign the document.
The Women of our first colonies were not simply wives, mothers and laborers, they fought alongside their men in skirmishes against their occasionally hostile Indian neighbors. Most were quite adept with a firearm or a sword if need be.
In the latter part of the 18th Century, women accompanied their men or assisted in or actually participate in some battles of the War of Revolution. Catherine Moore Barry was one such as were Margaret Corbin and Nancy Hart, after whom War Woman Creek in Georgia is named to commemorate her actions during the war. Molly Hays McCauley, better known as Molly Pitcher not only carried water; she also fired her husband’s cannon at oncoming British forces.
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/women_american_revolution/adams.html
Attempts to establish a government for the American Colonies were hampered by opposing forces. The leaders, Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, Washington and others finally convened the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. All colonies being represented except Georgia which was having trouble with the Creek Indians and needed British help to settle matters. As was the custom, no women took part in the proceedings. The Congress did not advocate independence but rather sought to resolve differences and even introduced a plan of
Union of Great Britain and the Colonies. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h650.html
The Colonial leaders were preparing a Second Congress when things came to a head at Lexington and Concord. John Adams who corresponded regularly with his wife Abigail informed her that a Declaration of Independence was being considered. In a response, Abigail reminded him to “take care of the women, who would not hold themselves bound by laws in which they had no voice.”
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/women_american_revolution/adams.html
The War of Revolution won, efforts were begun to execute a Constitution of Governance to replace the less than effective Articles of Confederation. No women participated in these discussions nor were any officially consulted. Women were not given the right to vote nor to hold office. The women held a women’s rights meeting at Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848. The ladies issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions modeled after the Declaration of Independence detailing, the "injuries and usurpations" that men had inflicted upon women and demanded that women be granted all of the rights and privileges that men possessed, including the right to vote.”
On February 3, 1870 the XV th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. That was purely a political move to give free men of color the vote to the exclusion of all women. It must be noted here that black men never fully enjoyed the right to vote until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The XV th Amendment ushered in more problems. Some states required that voters and candidates had to be Christians; some Northern and Western politicians wanted to continue the disenfranchisement of non-native Irish and Chinese. It took women 50 years more before they were enfranchised to vote. Some of these women, Alice Paul for example, underwent physical violence, incarceration and torture along the road to passage of the XIX th Amendment in 1920. The Amendment gave women the right to vote; however, it did not give them equality in every sense. Alice Paul went on to earn three law degrees andwrote the Equal Rights Amendment which has yet to be passed and ratified.
http://www.alicepaul.org/alicepaul.htm
Why should our Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, or any other female citizen be denied a basic right enjoyed by the male citizenry? I suggest that one word is the answer; Gynophobia, which can mean fear of or contempt for women. While the male contenders for the Republican nomination appear to detest each other, there are at least two women ready and willing to accept the duties and responsibilities of the Office of President of the United States.
