History- The feminist movement

• Feminist movement


  Movement that advocated and campaigned for the rights and equality of women
• Changes in women's working lives during World War Two


  Did not last into the post-war period
• Ideal of the American dream, consumer culture and the growth of suburban areas


  • Encouraged women to adopt 'traditional family roles'
• By 1960 women made up around half of the workforce
• Earning their own income


  Provided women with a new sense of independence
• President John F Kennedy set up the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women


  1961
• The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women reported that women earned around 60 per cent less than men for the same job, around 95 per cent of managers were men, and well-paid professional jobs were mostly done by men

  1963
• Civil rights movement


  The feminist movement developed in the late 1960s, building on the success and methods of the civil rights movement
• Activists in the feminist movement


  • Organised using a range of methods to advocate for women's rights
• Betty Friedan


  Key leader in the feminist movement, author of the influential book The Feminine Mystique
• Friedan and 48 other activists set up the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966</b>
• Goals of NOW


  • Work towards ending discrimination in employment
  • Achieve equality in wages between women and men working in the same roles
  • Advocate for child-care provision for working mothers
  • Advocate for the right to paid maternity leave
  • Advocate for legalised abortion
• Women's liberation movement


  Activists focused on confronting patriarchy as the root of women's inequality, and working together for freedom from men's control and oppression of women, rather than just legal equality
• Actions of women's liberationists

  • Protested at the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant, arguing that events like this exploited and degraded women
  • Held meetings to give women spaces to explore how and why they were exploited
• The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed by Congress


  1972
• Equal Rights Amendment


  Stated that equality "must not be denied on account of sex"
• The ERA needed to be ratified by at least 38 states to become part of the US Constitution
• STOP ERA campaign


  Led by conservatives such as Phyllis Schlafly, who believed equality under the law would undermine traditional family life and require women to fight in the military on the same basis as men
• Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling that all women had a constitutional right to get an abortion in early pregnancy


  1973
• Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v Wade, allowing individual states to ban abortion


  2022
• Impact of the feminist movement

  • Empowered many women and gave them a greater voice in society and politics
  • A generation of women became politicised and more women became notable figures in politics, such as Shirley Chisholm becoming the first black woman member of Congress
• In 1972 Congress passed a programme to make child-care facilities more widely available, but President Richard Nixon vetoed it, deeming it a threat to traditional views of family life