The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers For Women

It wasn’t that long ago when women fought for equality. In the 20th century, society set expectations for women. A woman was expected “to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking” ("The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers for Women"). Women who were married “bore the full load of housekeeping and child care, spending an average of 55 hours a week on domestic chores” ("The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers for Women"). This was the life they were expected to live. Just like at home, there was inequality in the workplace as well. In the 60s, women were not welcome at professional jobs ("The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers

They were tired of having a nice little life carved out for them by society. They were tired of being treated like they only served three purposes: have babies, tend to the children, husbands included, and stay inside all day like a hermit. In August of 1970, women went on a strike. It was a “nationwide wave of protests, marches, and sit-ins” ("The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers for Women"). However, it wasn’t until “the 1970s did the courts begin to mandate changes intended to eliminate and redress the damage done by workplace segregation aimed at African Americans and women” (Love). The 20th century was an unstable time in the U.S. It was a century of revolution and change. Women banded together to fight against the expectations that was forced upon them. Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson were working professional jobs in a time when women were expected to be nothing but housewives. It was extremely courageous of them to work at the jobs they did, especially since they were women in a time of gender

At the time NASA was known as NACA or National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Before any major protests and changes came about, NACA was like every other workplace in America. Women were not equal to men and there was segregation. In the mid 1950s, NACA bought their first IBM computer (Shetterly, 138). Before, NACA relied on the women working there to do most of the calculations. The IBM computer could “calculate a trajectory-a detailed flight path” (Shetterly, 138). For NASA, this purchase was like hitting the jackpot but for the women mathematicians, it was a potential threat to their jobs (Shetterly, 139). Not only did women struggle but so did the African Americans. They faced segregation at NACA. Despite segregation, the surprising fact that is not really known is that “as late as 1970 just 1 percent of all American engineers were black-a number that doubled to a whopping 2 percent by 1984. Still the federal government was the most reliable employer of African Americans in the sciences and technology: in 1984, 8.4 percent of NASA’s engineers were black” (Shetterly, XIV). However the binding laws of Jim Crow were still there. When Dorothy, Katherine and Mary worked there, there was a sign in the back of their cafeteria that said Colored Computers (Shetterly, 43). Even though African Americans and women were contributing a lot to NASA, they still were not seen as equal. This was the workplace that