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Women's Movement In The 1960s

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The Women’s Movement

The Women’s movement in the 1960s or the “Second wave of feminism” stemmed from every women’s limitations in almost every aspect of life. After the first wave feminism which focussed solely on gaining women’s suffrage, the second wave moved on to different every day discriminations. From family to work, a woman lived by her expectations. She was to marry in her early 20s, so that she could start a family early and devote her life to being a housewife, no chance at a career, that was considered a mans job. It was rare for an American woman living in this era to be in the workforce, and those that did work were very limited as to the jobs they could do, whether they be a teacher, nurse or office assistant/secretary. …show more content…

The feminist movement was not led by any particular figure and was completely non-hierarchal, and was run as a collective. Although there were no specific leaders, there were key figures such as Betty Friedan who was an American writer and Women’s right activist. In 1963 Friedan published “The Feminine Mystique” which was an exploration beyond Women’s traditional roles in society, and it quickly took off to create a social revolt by eliminating the myth that Women wanted to be housewives and homemakers, for Friedan the book marked the beginning of her significant role in the second wave of feminism. Friedan’s role in the overall movement was very much to inspire other women to get behind it and while doing so, Friedan also made sure that those she inspired, never resented men, for her it wasn’t about that “Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow …show more content…

Early on in the movement, activists were known for their aggressive approach in their protests. Protests against sexism in the media started as stickers that read “sexist” on sexist and offensive advertisements, then moved on to holding ‘sit ins’ at media outlets to the extremity of sabotaging newspaper offices. The feminists also held protests at beauty pageants with provocative signs claiming they objectified women, the main gain from their aggressive protests was the immense media coverage they received. With this new found media attention, they moved onto new issues of family life, education, sex and abortions, and begun campaigning for the legalisation of abortions, where they held public ‘speak outs’ where they allowed women to admit to illegal abortions and their reasoning behind it so it "brought abortion out of the closet where it had been hidden in secrecy and shame. It informed the public that most women were having abortions anyway.” Another big campaign topic was against sexual harassment, which was eventually defined as a violation of Women’t rights in 1980, and with this they were able to redefine ‘spousal abuse’ as crime rather than

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By the 1960s women were fed up with their conditions, they felt like they were treated as second class citizens because wages were going up, unemployment rates were going down, but women were still considered lesser to men (Bellamy, Liz, and Kate Moorse, 73) and therefore started the second wave of feminism or the Women's Liberation Movement (Hundey and Margarry, 277-278). Women finally had the resources to strongly campaign for gender equality: they had the media, television, radio as well as constantly increasing literacy and education rates for women (Bellamy, Liz, and Kate Moorse, 73). The second wave of feminism would be the final push needed to seal the deal with gender equality. In response, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women was created in order to recommend steps towards women's equality (Hundey and Margarry, 341) and was important because it gave a layout as to how the Charter of Rights and freedoms would be altered in the upcoming years. The Royal Commission made sure that in the 1970s discriminatory employment on the basis of gender was illegal and it gave recommendations towards how gender equality would be achieved (Anderson).

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Women had been never been treated with respect in the 1960’s because men were the dominants. During the 1960’s, women had started a movement to stress equality to men in their lives. When women had started working more in the 1960’s divorces started happening more frequently. This had resulted in women working and also taking care of there kids at the same time.

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The changing role of women in the 1960s, spurred on by women’s movement, was a decade of great transformation for the American family. The women’s movement focused on equal rights and opportunities for women including their power over and role in their “family, sexuality, and work” (Burkett, 2015). Family roles began to change with the drastic increase in female workforce participation seen in in this era (Coontz, 1992 as cited in Wiseman, 2008, p. 45). No longer were women relegated to the position of housewife; they felt liberated to pursue careers. This workplace involvement and subsequent second paycheck began to play an increasingly critical role in supporting the ideals of the middle class family during that time (Tavaana.org, n.d.).

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