Women's Rights Movement Between 1960 And 1980

The Women’s Rights Movement took place between 1960 and 1980. The movement was largely based here, in the United States. It is a fight for equal rights, opportunities, and personal freedom for women. It started in the aftermath of World War II, when the lives of women were drastically changed. A total of 76 million children were born, this was called the Baby Boom. But sexual inequalities were still enforced by legal precedents. A fluent account of the effects of notions of femininity appeared in Le Deuxieme sexe (The Second Sex), by Simone de Beauvoir. It was a worldwide bestseller and raised feminist awareness. It stressed that liberation for women was liberation for men too. The first public indication that change was fast approaching came

By June of 1966 they had concluded that polite requests were insufficient. They needed their own national pressure group, a women’s equivalent to the NAACP. With this, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created. It was not an instant success, but by the end of the second year, NOW had just 1,035 members. When the group wrote a “Bill of Rights” for women, it had a general agreement on 6 measures essential to ensuring the rights of women. They included: enforcement of laws banning job discrimination, maternity leave rights, child-care centers that would let mothers work, tax deduction for child-care expenses, equal and unsegregated education, and equal job training opportunities for the impoverished women. But two other measures stirred up a large amount of controversy. One demanded the immediate passage of the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) to the U.S. Constitution, and the other demanded better access to forms of contraceptives and abortions. When NOW threw its support behind ERA, the UAW (United Auto Workers), which had been providing NOW with office space, withdrew its

Over the next 2 years, NOW struggled to establish itself as a national organization. More women’s groups were formed by female anti-war, civil rights, and activists who had grown disgusted with the New Left’s refusal to address women’s concerns. Sexist attitudes had pervaded the 1960s, with women being treated unequally within this movement. In 1964, when a woman’s pledge was brought up at the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) conference, Stokely Carmichael carefreely cut off all debate. “The only position for women in SNCC is prone.” While NOW focussed on the issues of women’s rights, the more reforming groups pursued the broader themes of women’s liberation. The women’s liberation movement is everywhere. In September 1968 activists joined together in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest the image of womanhood which was brought by the Miss America Pageant. They held rap sessions to unravel how sexism could have coloured their lives. The Redstocking held speak outs on rape to focus on the national attention on the problem of violence against women like domestic