ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting) in the 19th century

Hey kiddo! Do you know how sometimes big people don't treat little people fairly? Well, that used to happen a lot to women and girls a long time ago. But over time, women and some brave men spoke up and fought for women's rights so that women could have the same opportunities as men.

In the 19th century, which was a time a long time ago, women didn't have many rights. They couldn't vote, which means they couldn't choose who they wanted to be in charge of the government. But some women started to question why they couldn't vote or have other rights.

The first big change came in the 1830s and 1840s when women started to work together to ask for better education and job opportunities. They said that they wanted to learn, to have better jobs, and to earn their own money. Some universities started to allow women to go to school, and women started to become teachers, which was a big step forward.

In the 1850s, some people started to talk about women's rights formally, which means they stood up in front of a group of people and talked about why women should have the same rights as men. The person who is most famous for doing this is Susan B. Anthony. She argued that women were just as smart as men, and that they should be able to do anything they wanted to do.

More changes came in the 1870s and 1880s when women started to get the right to own their own property, which means they could own their own home or their own land. This was a big deal, because before that, everything that belonged to a woman or a girl was automatically given to her husband or her father.

Towards the end of the century, in the 1890s, women started to be allowed to go to college and universities more and more. This meant that they could study whatever they wanted, just like men could. They also started to be taken more seriously in politics and business, which means they could work with and speak up for other women.

It took a long time for women to get all the rights they have today, but by fighting for what they believed in, they changed the world for themselves and for future generations of women.