Women's Rights and Historical Novels

I am currently reading two series of historical fiction mysteries: one by Tasha Alexander
http://www.tashaalexander.com/index.html set in late 19th Century England, about Emily Ashton, a fairly liberal, for the time, independent thinking woman.

The second series is by Miriam Grace Monfredo, http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/miriam-grace-monfredo/must-maiden-die.htm set in Seneca Falls, New York shortly before the War
Between the North and the South. Seneca Falls was a place where women's rights suffragettes were active, and was part of the underground railroad.

Both series discuss the constraints on women during these periods in history: their lack of rights, their dependency on husbands for support and standing in society, their lack of credence as capable professionals. 

We take for granted how far women have come in the equal rights realm.  I remember as a yound child there were many things I could not do because I was a girl.  In junior high, I wanted to take shop.  I wanted my parents to go to the school board and open the opportunity for me.  My father said he would do that if my mother agreed. She did not. Some few years later, shop was opened to girls.

When I was in high school, I wanted to take the NRA rifle safety course.  This was not an original idea. My neighbor, Kate, had taken the course some few years before, and she was my role model for this.  My father had to go into the session the first night and clear the way for me.  The instructors of the session literally giggled at having a girl in the class.  Many of the participants were male students in my class, and they knew I was smart.  I passed all the tests with 100%.  The instructors were chastened  by my performance.  

The point is women have come a long way.   When I bought my house in 1992, I was not concerned about credit or having the right to sign for property, but these were issues as late as the 1980s. 

We are not just fortunate to have the rights we have as women. History is replete with stories of the sacrifice and sufferening that suffragetes endured to enable women of the future to have the rights and the closer equality that we have. As women, it is important to be mindful of past suffering that gave us our place in the social, political and employment strata.