For ages societies have been divided, placing women in one role and men in another, never to be switched or combined. We can see today in our own society that this is not necessarily the most effective system. At one point in our history, the U.S. did not treat men and women as equals, and it was not until an intense rebellion that basic rights such as to hold property, earn wages, and the right to vote, were granted equally to women as they had been for men. Women were restricted to a life of obedience first to their fathers, then later to their husbands. Elizabeth Stanton was one of the country's most influential forces in the women's civil rights movement; without her contribution women today might never have come so close to escaping their role as second class citizens. Over coming a difficult childhood, Elizabeth Cady Stanton became an important women's activist, which greatly helped women achieve suffrage.
Even though childhood was rough for Stanton she overcame all the obstacles her parents threw at her and became a very strong women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in 1815 to the affluent parents Daniel and Mary Livingston Cady in Jamestown, New York (www.womenshistory.about.com). Her father, Judge Daniel Cady, was recognized as a leading legislator and legal mind throughout New York State and practiced his legal profession in the old Fulton County Courthouse and at the Cady residence located where the Fleet Bank is today on Main Street (ibid). Her mother was Margaret Livingston of the Hudson River Livingston's whose father was Col. James Livingston of Revolutionary War fame (ibid). Elizabeth was the seventh child of ten born to her parents (www.nps.gov). Cady's parents made it obvious that they preferred sons to daughters when they showed their mutual displeasure of the birth of Elizabeth's younger sister (ibid). Determined to succeed at a level relative to her brothers, Elizabeth attended Jamestown Academy and studied Greek and Mathematics (www.