From Abigail's letter to John, dated March 31, 1776:
I long to hear that you have declared an independency -- and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.
That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
Obviously women were not given anything remotely resembling equal footing in the new US government. Was there any progress at all spurred by the founding or were women's rights mostly unchanged by the revolution? Specifically, did John Adams himself seem to make any earnest attempt to do what Abigail asked of him?
This might be getting too away from the original question but what happened with the possible rebellion Abigail mentioned? She seems to have plainly stated that women need to have a voice in government. Would that have been understood to mean a vote, which they obviously didn't get on any wide scale?
Thank you for raising this question as Abigail's famous words are often reiterated in high school classrooms and college lectures halls throughout the country. Foremost, I'd advise you to grab a copy of Woody Holton's insightful, well-written, and Bancroft award winning book Abigail Adams. (Basically everything I'm writing is a summary of Holton between pages 99 and 107.) As Holton wonderfully explains, John's reply to Abigail's "Remember the Ladies" letter seems to have been "designed to tick her off." John wrote, "I cannot but laugh" at his wife's previous letter.
It is important to remember, however, exactly what John was referring to with this line. Perhaps most vitally, it is necessary to assess Abagail's intent. Although transformed in the years since 1776 as an early feminist plea for equality under the new nation's law, Abagail had tempered expectations in a private letter to her husband she could not have fathomed would go on to be such a widely read piece. If you scrutinize her request, she seems most dedicated toward convincing her husband to consider women when drafting new laws about marriage. "Do not push such unlimited power into the hands of husbands," she wrote. Most importantly, Abagail hoped her husband could curb what she believed was rampant physical abuse of wives at the hands of their husbands. She wanted protection against spousal battery in the new nation's laws.
When Abagail cited "Your sex are Naturally Tyrannical" and "all Men would be Tyrants if they could," she was actually citing a previous essay John had written, but not published, years before. Abagail also couched her demands in humor threatening that ladies could be "determined to foment a Rebelion, [sic] and will not hold ourselves by any laws in which we have no voice, or Representation." While without humor today, Abigail's jest that there could be a rebellion within a rebellion led by the wife of one of the revolution's leaders would have played out much differently in the letter to her husband back in 1776.
John's reply continues further from his "I cannot but laugh" line. He argued the common-law marriage practices of the time, known as coverture, which gave men full authority in the household, were not actually practiced in most families. He explained that there was a gap between legal theory and practice, writing, "Our masculine systems...are little more than theory." While he acknowledged that abuse could and did occur, for him the problem was far less widespread than Abigail believed and perhaps unworthy of attention in national law.
Abigail received John's reply and wrote back on May 7. "I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies," she wrote before utilizing Alexander Pope's lines to agree with her husband's sentiments, "Charm by accepting by submitting sway/ Yet have our Humour most when we obey." Adams would continue that her husband "Remember the ladies" in letter lasting through the early 1780s.
As for the founders and women's rights, the easy answer is that during the American Revolution and the decades of the Early Republic women saw their place in the public sphere, which includes politics, diminish. This occurred mostly at an ideological level, but of course women were never given the vote or a formal say in the new government, except in a small loophole that occurred in post-revolutionary New Jersey. The ideological movement that confined women to the sphere of the home was largely due to the idea of "Republican Motherhood." This popular notion was actually based on democracy, but excluded women from participation in politics. As a dutiful Republican Mother, women were to educate and raise virtuous sons because the republican system was only as strong as the men who supported it. This political system, however, was seen as corrupting, dirty, and dangerous; it was not the place for virtuous women who suffered from "impressionable dispositions". Therefore, women were largely excluded in law and in practice in the early nation. For a very good summary of this, I would look to Linda Kerber's The Republican Mother and Rosemarie Zagarri's Revolutionary Backlash.
TL;DR: Although Abagail Adam's letter has been read as an early feminist piece, it's important to recognize the exact reasons Abagail urged her husband to "Remember the Ladies"; basically she was hoping for laws against spousal abuse that were allowed under common practices of coverture. Women in the Early Republic actually saw their place in public sphere shrink as ideas of Republican Motherhood emphasized their place in the home.
A follow up question: how involved were the Quakers at the time, if at all? Were there any other religious groups present in the Colonies with equally contentious ideas about gender roles/equality?
Follow-up question: What was up with spelling common words differently back then? In a single paragraph, she wrote both 'Ladies' and 'Laidies'.