Leaders of the Progressive Movement Women such as Jeanette Rankin, Jane Addams, and Emma Goldman were often leaders of the Progressive movement because they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The 14th and 15th Amendments had denied them basic rights, such as voting, that blacks - whom many suffragettes considered to be inferior - had gained. So-called progressive men such as President Woodrow Wilson also denied women suffrage. Thus, in the course of their lengthy struggle, these women learned that their gender was most capable of getting the needed social reforms accomplished. They ban