In this paper I will be going over issue 17, “Has the Women’s Movement of the 1970’s Failed to Liberate American Women?”. Sara M. Evans and F. Carolyn Graglia each voice their opinions about the issue. They talk about the history of the women’s movement throughout time and the effects it had in our country. F. Carolyn Graglia writes about how she agrees the movement has failed to liberate American women. Her views on feminism concluded that the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s was a reasonable but a faulty idea, in that it was based on a worthy opinion (that all men and women should be equal).
The Women’s Movement was a symbolic movement in achieving political and civil equality. It assisted women lifestyles in the United States, granting them equal opportunities as men. Therefore, the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteed equal rights with men and the Equal Pay Act guaranteed equal pay. But these opportunities rarely helped women since they were prohibited and discriminated from universities and communal school, young girls have to be taught at home by mothers due to the segregation from males and females. In the 1960s, organizations were predominantly constructed for women since they were driven away from society of men and can’t attend schools and colleges.
Many women believed that gaining the right to vote was the gateway toward gaining other rights. The founding of the National Organization for Women was the first public organization that focus on the public realm of gender equality especially in the workplace. Feminist leaders such as Betty Friedan wanted the organization to “demanded equal opportunity in jobs, education, and political participation and attacked the “false image of women” spread by the mass media” (Give Me Liberty 1006). She believe that American women employment was declining, “working women are becoming increasingly – not less – concentrated on the bottom of the job ladder” (Voices of Freedom 292).
The women's suffrage movement emerged advocating for women's rights and equality. Feminist movement activists “called for radical change – especially women – and sought to redefine not only women’s status and rights, but also social structures, institutions and society as a whole. These women became a source of many progressive ideas, which provided the intellectual foundation for social reform. They challenged the established consensus on how the basic socio-economic institutions of society – the state, enterprise, schools or households – were organized” (Vallet
During the mid-1800’s and late 1900s, women’s sovereignty organizations were important centers of involvement in advocacy. These organizations gave women a convention to address their issues, relate similar stories to oppression, and plan for action. Many feminists set out to voice multiple issues that afflict many women’s day-to-day lives. These were issues such as gender equality, the limited rights they had as women, and social attitudes towards them. Through this, women from multiple religious and cultural backgrounds came to fight for their rights and pursue fulfillment without having to undergo a title as a housewife.
Woman were domestic slaves nothing more nothing less, that’s how the world viewed them. They were not supposed to have jobs outside of the home, just be a great or acceptable housewife, love their husband, and raised children was their job (Stern, Attacks). Women began to question why they did not have the same opportunities as the men. In 1966, the National Organization of Women was created to help women utilize their privileges and help them become equivalent to the men economical, socially, and politically. They were protesting because they were tired of getting jobs that involved domestic work; not getting a job because they were a woman, setting behind a desk, low wages and idea of what a woman was supposed to do in over-all.
Did you know that women and people of color did not always possess the opportunities they have now? Evident throughout history, the belief of the superiority of white males over other genders and ethnic groups, began to shift during the Cold War era in the United States. Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, gender roles and civil rights issues were very prominent in society, which in turn, affected many individuals in relation to their work opportunity and their social life. To start out, for centuries people of color were deemed to be the less superior race due to geographical location and racial bias in the u tied States.
Have you ever wonder how the women’s right and roles have changed or shifted between 1965 to the present? People strongly see the progress and small development of women's roles in family and societies as time changed. History has strongly shown that women were seen as workers of the home who takes care of children, cook, and clean the house while the men were workers of the outside who provides money, food, and work. Even though women were limited in participation in the government and had roles only in the home, overtime this role has evolved and showed a progress of equal rights. There may still need for small improvements in women's equality today like woman and man equal wages, but history has shown a lot of progress on women’s rights
The Feminist Movement 1960s Imagine, you are living in the 1960s as a female. You want to go live your life, you do not want to be stuck in a house with children all day long, but you can not go get a job because you are a woman. You can not go and vote because you are a woman, we could not do much because we are women. Feminism, the Equal Pay Act, and the National Organization of Women (NOW) are all part of why we have freedom today as women in our nation.
During the 1950s, women were highly encouraged to stay at home to focus and care for their families. Women were more like restricted to stay at home and become a “housewife-mother” (Feminine Mystique, 1963). They had no freedom to do anything else other then care for their families; whereas, the husbands could do just about anything they want. Husbands can go to saloons and get flat out drunk, but they are still the head of the house. During the 50s, women felt like they had no purpose in life.
Gradually, Americans came to accept some of the basic goals of the 1960s feminists: equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, an end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child
Women have always had to fight for equal rights from the beginning of the Revolutionary War to present day. Although, women have the right to vote, it doesn’t guarantee women are treated equally. Women are still being paid less than men; “full-time working women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns” ("Did You Know That Women Are Still Paid Less Than Men?"). In the 1960s, women were expected to get married and stay at home taking care of the children. At the time period, jobs for women were limited, “38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs as teacher, nurse, or secretary” ("The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement”).
The need for social change arose when women’s rights were blatantly unequal to that of men’s rights. A paper published in 1968 “Towards a Female Liberation Movement” and the formation of groups such as Redstockings, a radical feminist group, in 1969 were the first vocalized and nationally recognized complaints of the serious political conflict of gender inequality. In the late 60s and early 70s women in the United States were seen as the stereotypical housewives and were not very competitive as they are now with white-collar jobs. The basis of political conflict and need to force change was that men had been controlling all political, economic and cultural institutions and used their power to keep women in an inferior
The women's feminist movement of the 60’s and 70’s was a movement to a “woman’s liberation” movement was to overthrow the patriarchy they’re believed was oppressing women in every way. Politically, through marriage, relationships romantically and business, sexually through the restriction of contraception and abortions, clothing that was socially acceptable, and “typical” gender household roles. This movement utilized several Communication Components to get their message across. They utilized slogans such as “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bike.”
Although the media exposed small parts to the abortion debate, it was the duty of interest groups to spread the word and persuade others to form an opinion. One organization, the National Organization for Women (NOW), was established on June 30, 1966 and has carried out multiple protests throughout the history of abortion, such as the March for Women’s Lives. After the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women, twenty-eight women gathered together to create this group under the leadership of Betty Friedan, “an icon in the women’s rights movement” and author of The Feminine Mystique which questioned whether women enjoyed the duty of homemaker (“Betty Friedan.”) (“When and How…”). Located in Washington, D.C., NOW developed
