Gender Equality
Explore movements for gender equality in New York, from the campaign for women to win the right to vote to struggles to ensure equal protection under the law for all New Yorkers regardless of gender and sexual identity.
Case Studies:
Social Purity
New York City in the late 19th century was a hotbed of debate and conflict over sexuality, including what critics labeled obscenity or “vice.”
Woman Suffrage
On May 21, 1910, some 10,000 New Yorkers gathered in Union Square to demand that women receive the right to vote. “We call this the land of liberty,” Maud Nathan told the crowd, “…but there are no free sons born where the mother is not free.” The rally, the largest woman suffrage demonstration yet held in the country, symbolized New York City’s increasingly prominent role in the national movement for votes for women.
LGBTQ+ Rights
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn—an unlicensed club popular among a racially diverse mix of gay, lesbian, and transgender New Yorkers. The state routinely denied liquor licenses to bars that catered to gay patrons, which led to gatherings in unlicensed establishments. The Stonewall raid sparked three days of protests on the streets of Greenwich Village. Advocates for gay rights had been active in the city for decades, but the Stonewall uprising ushered in a new mass movement.
Women’s Liberation in New York
“We’re a movement now,” proclaimed feminist Kate Millett to tens of thousands of women who marched through the streets of New York on August 26, 1970, to demand full gender equality.
