Saint Paul told Christian wives to be obedient to their husbands. Other religions such as Hinduism, which believes in reincarnation, thought that if a woman was a good wife and obedient, then she would be "lucky" and be reborn as a man. Of course there were always exceptions to women's dependence on men. In ancient Babylon and Egypt women could hold positions of power and property.

The beginning of change took place during the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. These historical events not only stirred up economic and social changes, but they also found women saying, "Why can't we have the same rights as the guys?", along with other reform movements in the 18th and 19th centuries.

During the French Revolution women's republican clubs pleaded that the goals of liberty, equality, and fraternity should apply to all, regardless of sex. The subsequent adoption of the code Napole`on, based on the Roman law, obliterated any immediate realization of such hopes on the continent. Mary Wollstonecraft, a native of England, wrote A Vindication of the Woman (1792). This was the first ever major modern feminist work. This piece of work called for equality for women, stated in such a manner that was unacceptable at that time.

The Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the women's independence. Although the conditions in factories were hazardous, and their pay was lower than that of a man. In fact the husbands controlled their wives wages. At the same time the middle and upper class women were to stay idle and only to be decorative symbols of their husband's economic success. The only jobs that respectable women could get were to work as a governess, clerk, shop assistant, or servants. Such conditions were encouraged by the feminist movement.

On the content, feminist groups appeared sporadically but lacked strength. The Roman Catholics opposed feminism. They thought that is would destroy the patriarchal family. Agrarian countries held on to the traditional ideas. In industrial countries, feminists' demands were absorbed by the social movement.

In mostly Protestant areas of Great Britain and the United States, feminism was more successful. The leaders were more educated, leisured, reform-minded women of the middle class.

In 1840, between 100 and 300 people attended the first women's rights convention at Sececa Falls, New York, led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Candy Stanton. The feminists demanded equal rights, including the right to vote, and an end to the double standard.

British feminists first convened in 1885 behind the limited goal of property rights. The Subjection of Women (1869) by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill focused public attention on the British feminist causes.

The movement in the 1990's was the surface of more complex issues. There is no doubt that the women that attended that landmark discussion in 1840 could not even have imagined the issues of this movement. Some of them, to name a few are:

* Women's reproductive rights. Whether or not women can terminate pregnancies is still controversial today.

* Women's enrollment in military academies and services in active combat.

* Women in leadership roles in religious worship.

* Affirmative action.

* Pornography, is it degrading, even dangerous to women, or is it simply a free speech issue?

* Sexual harassment.

* Surrogate motherhood.

* Social Security benefits.

Without all of these great women, women of today would not be able to do the things that we enjoy without the women of yesterday fighting for our rights. These are just some of the extraordinary women that most of us don't know, but had a great influence on women's rights. Their part in the suffrage movements is why it became successful. Women backed each other up, and believed in their causes. Women's rights will continue to evolve into the 21st century.