Women Fight for Equality

Directions: As you read about the rise of a new women’s movement, take notes to explain how each of the following helped to create or advance the movement.

1. Experiences in the workplace: By 1960 women the percentage of women working for wages increased by 40 percent. But still during the time certain jobs were considered "mens jobs" therefore women were shut out. The country largely ignored this discrimination until finally President Kennedy appointed the Presidential Commission on the status of women in 1961. Because of this women were seldom promoted to management positions, regardless of their education, experience, and ability. These newly publicized facts awakened women of their unequal status in their country.

2. Experiences in social activism: These experiences led women to organize small groups to discuss their concerns. These discussions led to "consciousness raising."

3. "Consciousness raising": During these sessions women shared their lives together and discovered that their experiences were not unique. They reflected a much larger pattern of sexism. Thus raising the awareness of the problem and causing more females to realize just how serious and common the issue is.

4. Feminism: The belief that women should have economic, political, and social equality with men. Feminism was the spark to the women's movement and was the theory behind it. Therefore it was of a huge importance to the women's movement, since it had created it.

5. Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Betty Friedan wrote the book "The Feminine Mystique." This book captured the very discontent that many women were feeling, and quickly became a best seller and helped galvanize many women across the country. Betty Friedan and her book had been one of the very reasons why women started to gain more interest in the problem and how to cause it, since by the late 1960's women had been working together for change.

6. Civil Rights Act of 1964: The civil rights act of 1964 had caused women to gain strength with the passage of the act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, and gender. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to handle discrimination claims. This helped advance the movement because it had helped women gain the strength they needed to fulfill the movement.

7. National Organization for Women (NOW): The Organization was created to pursue women's goals. NOW members pushed for the creation of child-care-facilities that would enable mothers to pursue jobs and education. It also pressured the EEOC to enforce more vigorously the ban on gender discrimination in hiring. NOW's efforts had prompted the EEOC to declare sex-segregated job ads illegal and to issue guidelines to employers, stating that they could no longer refuse to hire women for traditionally male jobs. Therefore the National Organization for Women advanced the movement tremendously by enforcing the ban on gender discrimination.

8. Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine: Gloria Steinem was one of the most important prominent figures in the movement after she and a few other women founded Ms. Magazine, which treated contemporary issues from a feminist perspective. She also helped founded the National Women's Political Caucus, which encouraged women to seek political office. Her actions were advanced the movement by this.

9. Congress: Congress passed a ban on gender discrimination in "any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." This was a huge advance to the movement because after Congress's actions several all-male colleges opened their doors to women. Also, that same year Congress had expanded the powers of the EEOC and gave working parents a tax break for child care expenses which was a huge help.

10. Supreme Court: The Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs Wade, one of the more controversial positions that NOW and other feminist groups supported. (Women do have the right to abortion during the first three months of pregnancy) However the issue still divides Americans today, although it shows the Supreme Court making an effort to support women in their movement.

11. The Equal rights Amendment would have guaranteed equal rights under the law, regardless of gender. Who opposed this amendment? Why? Phyllis Schlafy, along with conservative religious groups, were against the amendment because they were scared that it would lead to "a parade of horribles." Such as the drafting of women, the end of laws protecting homemakers, the end of a husband's responsibility to provide for his family, and same-sex marriages. Schlafy had claimed that radical feminists "hate men, marriage, and children" and were oppressed "only in their distorted minds."