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Gendered Social Movements: A Critical Comparison Of The Suffrage And Gay Marriage Movements., Michelle Kearl

Michelle Kelsey Kearl

The elections of 2008 saw the passage of several overwhelming and expansive condemnations of gay rights across the nation. Most damaging to the gay marriage movement was the successful passage of Proposition 8 in California, the first time that the right gay marriage was repealed. I argue that the continued modeling of the civil rights framework defers an analysis of the argumentative strategies of historically gendered movements such as the suffrage movement and is a disservice to the strategic potential of the marriage equality movement. The critical comparison mad where between suffrage and marriage equality opens the potential for our …