Vivi

In 1890, the legal age of sexual consent in Delaware was seven years old. Seven. In 38 American states, it was twelve or younger. A man accused of sexually assaulting a little girl could escape conviction by arguing that she had consented. One woman helped change that. Her name was Helen Hamilton Gardener. At a time when most American women couldn't even vote, Gardener joined a movement demanding that lawmakers raise the age of consent and offer girls greater protection against sexual exploitation. What she discovered was horrifying. Some legislators resisted reform because they feared girls would falsely accuse men. Others insisted that girls matured early enough to consent to sex. In Texas, opponents argued that working girls might blackmail their employers. Another argument was that Southern chivalry offered women sufficient protection. These were actual arguments recorded in an 1895 report on legislative opposition. Gardener refused to remain silent. She wrote novels exposing the consequences of sexual abuse, published detailed comparisons of state laws, and publicly identified states that refused to strengthen their protections. She encouraged Americans to question nearly 9,000 state legislators about their positions. She also fought proposals that would have denied protection to sexually assaulted girls unless they could prove they had been virgins. And she challenged the supposedly scientific arguments used to portray women as intellectually inferior to men. Her campaign was part of a much larger movement involving thousands of women, including suffragists, temperance activists and Black reformers. By 1900, 32 states had raised their age-of-consent thresholds to between fourteen and eighteen. Gardener subsequently became an influential campaigner for women's suffrage, helping secure President Woodrow Wilson's support for a federal constitutional amendment. In 1920, she became the first woman appointed to the United States Civil Service Commission. She died in 1925. There is something extraordinary about the women who fought these battles. They had to ask men for permission to protect children from other men, while those same men denied them the right to participate equally in making the laws. And some of those lawmakers were more concerned about protecting adult men from accusations than protecting little girls from sexual assault.