Throughout history women in the Americas have played an important role in society. In a time when women could take care of themselves, they could own property and enforce laws. Even after their rights were stripped by the arrival of Europeans in 1462, women had no control over themselves, could not own property, and had no political rights. They continue to have a great influence on the construction of the United States government. Today times have changed, women are reacting and taking charge of their freedom. Women are now once again gaining power over themselves and gaining political rights. In early America, women were afforded the same rights as men; when the Europeans arrived women were deprived of their equality and no longer had control over themselves, the extraordinary women fought back and have now regained their freedom. Women in the Americas before Europeans had some level of control over themselves. In most cases the family was based on women and when a woman married her husband had to move into his wife's house. Women owned property most of the time and when they had to divorce their husbands they were not affected by the loss of property. This meant that everything a woman had earned and punched was hers and the husband had no authority to take it away. This also meant that the husband had to move and look for a new home elsewhere. For much of the time, women had power over the plantations and fields that generated income and food for the family table. The ability to have a say on the plantations meant that they were the masters and that they were able to shape their community in a maternal way, in the same way that a mother cares for a newborn baby. With this... middle of paper... a friend, a woman, a mother. They are responsible for the formation of history and the survival of humanity. Man should not forget the struggles of women and how far away they have become. Man must remember women as our mothers of history and the mothers of our children and grandchildren because without the strength of women humanity will not survive. Works Cited Zinn, Howard. A People's History of America. New York, New York, United States. HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-the-19th-amendmentPublished January 24, 2013FoxNews.comhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/ 2013/01/24/panetta-opens-combat-roles-to-women http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138200/megan-h-mackenzie/let-women-fighthttp://www.dosomething.org /blog/chatterbox/girls-fight-too-role-women-militaryhttp://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-cady-stanton-9492182