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However, philosophers and writers often ignored women and Wollstonecraft was among the first to call for gender equality. She believed reason and education should be the foundation of social order that included equality for women. Her books (<i>A Vindication of the Rights of Women</i>, published in 1792, and <i>Maria, or the Wrongs of Women</i>, published in 1798, were controversial in their day but also demonstrated her ideas. She saw the lack of focus in educating women as making them appear less informed as men in society. Although we see her views as largely expected and normal today, for over a century her writings and influence were minimized or even avoided by later feminists due to the morals of the day. She had at least two highly publicized affairs that produced at least one child out of wedlock and was explicit about her sexuality. The focus on her behavior, rather than ideas, unfortunately, diminished her influence in the early 19th century as feminists ideas increasingly emerged.<ref>For more on Wollstonecraft, see: Taylor, B. (2003). <i>Mary Wollstonecraft and the feminist imagination</i>. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press.</ref>
[[File:Suffragettes-1921.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Figure 2. The suffrage movement and suffragettes helped create momentum for the right to vote for women.]]
====The Birth of the Social Reform Movement====In the United States, early 19th century women emerged advocating emancipation for slaves, temperance and greater freedom for women compared to men. These campaigns were a direct outgrowth of the [[What was the Second Great Awakening?|Second Great Awakening]]. The Second Great Awakening in the United States (1790-1830) was a religious revival that not only brought in new converts to Christianity, but it inspired female reformers in the United States. The leaders of this Christian movement argued that people had control over their lives and salvation in opposition to views of the existing Calvinist churches. As part of this movement, women were encouraged to build new churches and push for moral reforms in the United States. Fairly quickly women became moral advocates, while most women joined the Temperance Movement other were attracted to the abolition of slavery and expanding rights for women.
The Seneca Convention, in 1844, was the first organized convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. This was led by Quakers, who were also leading abolitionist. Prominent women that began to emerge from this convention and its later offshoots included Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and, among the most well know, Susan Brownell Anthony. Interestingly, many early congresses calling for the emancipation of slaves often shunned women or gave them secondary roles. One key obstacle was many had interpreted their faith to stand against slavery, but at the same time they saw or interpreted that God created the sexes differently. In effect, women were not equals to men concerning rights. This contradiction, therefore, became an obstacle for early feminists working within the abolitionist movements.<ref>For early 19th century feminists and the Seneca Convention, see: Roediger, D. R., Blatt, M. H., & Lowell Conference on Industrial History (Eds.). (1999). <i>The Meaning of slavery in the North</i>. New York: Garland Pub.</ref>
