Sex Discrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment: Lost History

Introduction

“…It was expressed, indirectly, by the 'Founding Mothers' of the United States ( De Pauw 1975;Norton 1996;Roberts 2004) and in the French Revolution (Elson-Roessler 1996;Heuer 2005). It was recognized by American women who protested against the reference to voting rights for male citizens alone in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (1868) (Morais 1988), and then against the wording of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) that prohibits denial of the franchise only on grounds of race. It was understood by women who campaigned for or against the federation of the Australian colonies in the 1890s and those who petitioned for women's rights to be included in the new Australian Constitution (Irving 1999).…”