UVM HST96 (Moore) The Women's Movement -- 2nd Wave

Background Conditions

World War II -- "Rosie the Riveter"

Job Discrimination -- 1950 -- 30% of all women are in the paid labor force. More than half of all single women and more than a quarter of married women. But women in 1955 make 63 cents for every dollar made by a man. By 1960 women earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men; women of color earn only 42 cents.

Early Feminist Theory -- Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1953)

Middle-Class Housewife Boredom -- Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine Mystique (1963), detailed the "problem that has no name." Five million copies are sold by 1970, laying the groundwork for the modern feminist movement.

Birth Control -- 1960 -- FDA approves birth control pills.; 1965 -- Griswold v Connecticut , Supreme Court overturns one of the last state laws prohibiting the prescription or use of contraceptives by married couples; 1972 -- In Eisenstadt v. Baird the Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy encompasses an unmarried person's right to use contraceptives.

Equal Rights

1957 -- The number of women and men voting is approximately equal for the first time.

1961 -- Pres. Kennedy creates the President's Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Fifty parallel state commissions are eventually established.

1963 -- The Equal Pay Act, proposed twenty years earlier, establishes equal pay for men and women performing the same job duties. It does not cover domestics, agricultural workers, executives, administrators or professionals.

1963 -- The report issued by the President's Commission on the Status of Women documents discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life. It makes 24 specific recommendations, some surprisingly far-sighted (example: community property in marriages). 64,000 copies are sold in less than a year and talk of women's rights is again respectable.

1964 -- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination by private employers, employment agencies, and unions based on race, sex, and other grounds. To investigate complaints and enforce penalties, it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which receives 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination in its first five years.

1965 -- Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 takes the 1964 Civil Rights Act a step further, requiring federal agencies and federal contractors to take "affirmative action" in overcoming employment discrimination.

1966 -- In response to EEOC inaction on employment discrimination complaints, twenty-eight women found the National Organization for Women (called NOW) to function as a civil rights organization for women. Betty Friedan first president.

1969 -- California adopts the nation's first "no fault" divorce law, allowing couples to divorce by mutual consent. Other states follow rapidly.

1969 -- In Bowe v. Colgate-Palmolive , the Supreme Court rules that women meeting the physical requirements can work in many jobs that had been for men only.

1970 -- Women wages fall to 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. Although nonwhite women earn even less, the gap is closing between white women and women of color.

1970 -- On the 50th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, NOW organized the "Women's Strike for Equality." There were demonstrations and rallies in more than 90 major cities and small towns in 42 states. Some 50,000 women marched on Fifth Avenue in New York and across the country more than 100,000 women were involved.

1970 -- The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into Congress.

1972 -- Title IX of the Education Amendments requires that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

1972 -- Congress passes the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, giving the EEOC power to take legal action to enforce its rulings.

1972 -- After languishing since 1923, the ERA is passed by Congress (House: 350-15; Senate 84-8) and sent to the states for ratification. By the end of the year, 22 states had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment: (in alphabetical order) Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

1973 -- The U.S. military is integrated when the women-only branches are eliminated.

1973 In a suit brought by NOW, Pittsburgh Press v Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations , the Supreme Court affirms the EEOC ruling against sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers. This opens the way for women to apply for jobs previously limited to men and offering better pay and advancement opportunities.

Women's Equality Day, conceived by NOW, and introduced in Congress by Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY), was confirmed by Congress and the President. Feminist groups took to the parks and streets across the country to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of Women's Suffrage.

1974 The Equal Credit Opportunity Act forbids sex discrimination in all consumer credit practices; extended to commercial credit in 1988.

1974 Ella Grasso becomes the first woman to win election as governor in her own right, in Connecticut.

1974 The number of women in public office begins to rise. Women now hold 8% of state legislative seats and 16 seats in Congress. By 1986: 14.8% of legislative seats, and 24 seats in Congress. In 1997: 21% of legislative seats, 62 seats in Congress.

Women's Liberation

Civil Rights Movement in the South treats women activists as second-class citizens. At a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Council (SNCC) staff meeting, Ruby Doris Smith presented a paper on "The Position of Women in SNCC." SNCC leader Stokley Carmichael declared, "The only position for women in SNCC is prone." (1964)

Experiences with SDS men.

1967 Chicago Women's Liberation Group organizes, considered the first to use the term "liberation."

1967 -- New York Radical Women is founded. The following year they begin a process of sharing life stories, which becomes known as "consciousness raising." Groups immediately take root coast-to-coast.

At the opening of Congress, a coalition of women's peace groups (5000 women) called the Jeanette Rankin Brigade, demonstrated against the Vietnam war. The New York Radical Women staged a "Burial of Traditional Womanhood" in a first action by radical women to raise the consciousness of their anti-war activist sisters. This was the first use of phrase "Sisterhood is Powerful."

1968 -- Women's Liberation groups, joined by members of New York NOW, targeted the Miss America Beauty Contest in Atlantic City. This was the event from which the myth of "bra-burning" feminists was created by the press, distorting the early image of the movement. In fact, there was an ordinance against burning anything on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, which the demonstrators observed.

1968 -- More than 200 women from 37 states and Canada convened in Chicago for the first national Women's Liberation Conference.

1968 -- The Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement appears in Chicago, edited by Jo Freeman and others. By 1971, over 100 women's movement newsletters and newspapers are being published across the country.

1969 -- The radical feminist group Redstockings was formed. The group practiced a formalized concept of consciousness raising and declared its principles in a document called "The Bitch Manifesto."

1970 -- Sexual Politics, A Surprising Examination of Society's Most Arbitrary Folly , by Kate Millet, a historical and cultural analysis of sexism written originally as a doctoral thesis, became a widely debated and quoted best-seller. Kate Millet was an active member of New York NOW.

1970 -- Sisterhood Is Powerful, An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement edited by Robin Morgan, A Dialectic of Sex, The Case for a Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone and The Female Eunich by Germaine Greer were published.

1970 -- San Diego State College in California establishes the first official, integrated women's studies program.

1971 -- New York Radical Feminists holds a series of speakouts and a conference on rape and women's treatment by the criminal justice system. Susan Brownmiller's book, Against Our Will , is one result. Another: the establishment of rape crisis centers across the country.

1972 -- Ms. magazine first appears. Gloria Steinem, Ms. co-founder and editor, becomes a leading journalist and media personality for the Second Wave.

1973 -- Billie Jean King scores an enormous victory for female athletes when she beats Bobby Riggs in "The Battle of the Sexes," a televised tennis tournament watched by nearly 48,000,000 people.

1974 -- Hundreds of colleges are offering women's studies courses; there are over 80 full programs in place. Additionally, 230 women's centers on college campuses provide support services for women students.

Self-Determination over Women's Own Bodies

1967 -- California becomes the first state to re-legalize abortion.

1968 -- New York NOW demonstrated for abortion law repeal. Among the chapter demonstrators was Kate Millet carrying a sign that read, "Nobody should legislate my rights to my body."

1969 -- The first national conference on abortion laws convened in Chicago and decided to establish the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL).

1969 -- Members of Redstockings disrupted an abortion law reform hearing of the New York State legislature when the panel of witnesses turned out to be made up of 14 men and one nun. Like NOW, the group demanded the repeal, not reform, of all abortion laws.

1969 -- Chicago women set up "Jane," an abortion referral service. During four years of existence, it provides more than 11,000 women with safe and affordable abortions.

1969 -- The Boston Women's Health Book Collective publishes the self-help manual Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women , incorporating medical information with personal experiences. Nearly 4 million copies sold as of 1997.

1971-- New York Radical Feminists held a "Speakout on Rape." Women told about their experiences and analyzed societal assumptions about rape.

1971 -- The first battered women's shelter opens in the U.S., in Urbana, Illinois, founded by Cheryl Frank and Jacqueline Flenner. By 1979, more than 250 shelters are operating.

1972 -- Vermont's abortion law was invalidated by the state's Supreme Court in the case of Beecham v. Leahy ; New Jersey Supreme Court strikes down its abortion law.

A two-part story line in which TV's "Maude" (Bea Arthur), a 47-year old grandmother, found herself with a late-life, pregnancy and opted for abortion was shown on CBS. Produced by Norman Lear, "Maude's Dilemma" was carried by all but two of CBS' nearly 200 affiliates.

1973 In Roe v. Wade , the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to abortion, effectively canceling the anti-abortion laws of 46 states.

Poor Women and Women of Color

1968 -- National Welfare Rights organization if formed by activists such as Johnnie Tillmon and Etta Horm. They have 22,000 members by 1969, but are unable to survive as an organization past 1975.

1968 -- Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She is a NOW member. She becomes first black woman to run for President in 1972.

1970 -- North American Indian Women's Association is founded.

1970 -- The Comision Feminil Mexicana Nacion is organized to promote Latina rights. Founders include Graciella Olivares, Gracia Molina Pick, Francisco Flores, and Yolanda Nava.

1972 -- Barbara Jordan (D-TX) becomes first Black woman elected to Congress from a Southern state.

1973 -- The National Black Feminist Organization is established.

1973 -- 9 to5: National Association of Working Women, is founded by Karen Nussbaum in Boston. Nussbaum later becomes Director of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor.

1974 -- Mexican-American Women's National Association (MANA), organizes as feminist activist organization. By 1990, MANA chapters operate 16 states with members in 36.

1974 -- Coalition for Labor Union Women founded, uniting blue-collar women across occupational lines.