Alice Paul: The Second Wave Feminist Movement

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‘The movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic in the end.’ These are the wise words of Alice Paul on the second wave feminist revolution which began in the early 1960s and continued on throughout the early 1980s in the United States. Eventually it spread throughout the Western World, and later became a worldwide movement.
The second wave Feminist revolution was unlike the first which was focused on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality. Second wave feminism broadened the debate on a wide range of issues, including sexuality, family, workplace, reproductive rights, de facto and official legal inequalities as well as drawing attention to domestic violence and marital rape. This wave of feminist uprising coincided with the outbreak of other social movements that were struggling for rights such as immigrants, indigenous and homosexuals at the time.
Various events that occurred during the second wave feminist revolution include; the 50,00 women that participated in the Women’s strike for peace in 1961, the National Organisation for Women forming in 1966 and 68, the Women’s strike for equality in 1970 and Gloria Steinem’s founding of Ms Magazine and the National Women’s Political Caucus. …show more content…

After the “roaring 20s” brought women’s votes into play, and the post-war baby boom had occurred, many women were returning to the domestic sphere. Subsequently, in 1963, a woman by the name of Betty Friedan published her book ‘Feminist Mystique’ which captured the frustration and despair of a nation of women; it stunned the nation and as such, is credited with the sparking of the second