Stand UP, Speak OUT

Marriage, Partnering & Singlehood – Know Your Rights tells the story of America women’s 250 years and ongoing fight for the financial independence, political power and reproductive autonomy to have the freedom to decide if, when and with whom to partner or marry, and to leave without shame – from the founding of the US when enslaved women had no rights to marriage and free women no choice but to marry, yet lost legal personhood; to the Civil War when Black women gained the legal right to marriage; to winning some financial independence and the right to vote by 1920; to greater sexual freedom with The Pill; to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and access to higher paying jobs through affirmative action programs in the 1970s; to greater ease leaving an unhappy marriage with no-fault divorce by 1980; to greater partnership choice with Loving v. Virginia in 1967 and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015;  and the Far Right’s agenda in 2026 to force women back into the kitchen – barefoot and pregnant. 

 

Coming in 2027 – Women’s personal stories about having or not having autonomy in making decisions about marriage, partnering and singlehood