women

• How significantly did the position of women change 


  1917 - 1980
• The First World War

  Chance to work in more jobs

  Jobs ended amongst end of war

  Congress passed 19th amendment

  1920 giving voting rights and league of women voters created
• The Roaring Twenties


  Some pre - war women continues to work

  Married women expected to give up jobs

  Domestic work was common

  Flappers (women who made the most of their freedom) more symbolic and small numbers.
• The Great Depression


  1932 report on women in meatpacking industry found 97% worked because they had to

  Labour regulations focused on industry only and competition with minority workers for job
• The New Deal


  Eleanor RSVT created CAMP TERA for women

  36 camps by 1936, no work/wages

  Black women moved off most jobs

  1930 Housewives League 'don't shop where you cannot buy' - help black communities get themselves back together

  Boycotted MP industry, set up education + economic support
• The Second World War

  Women proved they could same jobs as men 'Rosie the Riveter'

  urged women to work, only 16% worked 1940

  Lanham Act 1941 -> free childcare

  3 million working in agriculture 1943

  Over 2,000 black women were in nursing courses by 1945
• The post war era

  1/2 of working women left jobs at wars end

  Federal day cares closed 1946

  Lack of equality continued
• Suburban living x Women's lifestyle

  Women expected to be housewives

  Many had lots of freetime due to labour saving devices

  Media/ TV/ Adverts encouraged perfect housewives

  'I Love Lucy'

  Women in rural areas/ inner cities looked up to suburban housewives as a model

  Many suburban women felt isolated
• Influence of 'The politics of equality' in early 1960s


  1961 Commission of Enquiry on status of women

  Praised equal pay act but lack of day cares to allow women to work and girls pushed towards domestic roles in education

  Lack of career guidance outside of homemaking

  1964 Civil Rights Act included sexual equality but wasn't enforced.
• Betty Friedan


  1963 'The Feminine Mystique'

  Constraints of suburban living on females

  Women were challenged to think out rights

  1966 she founded NOW and worked within political system for equality of women

  Enforcement of Civil Rights Act
• Young Radicals and WLM

  Mainly middle classed educated women

  Local radical groups to push for immediate change

  Media focused on extreme elements such as protesting Miss America by releasing sheep and burning bras in public
• What opposition was there to this movement?


  Made fun of by men

  Conservatives saw it as Un-American

  Phyllis Schlafly created STOP ERA against women's rights.
• Gains of WLM

  1967 Johnson extends affirmative action in federal movement to include women

  Equal pay act + extension of civil rights act

  1972 Eisenstaedt v Baird made contraception legal to unmarried women

  1973 Roe vs Wade made a general protective right to have an abortion
• Limitations of WLM

  Equal Rights Acts passed congress but failed to be ratified and still is not

  USA did not sign 1979 UN policy of non - discrimination against women, women's groups fragment over aims.