Civil Rights and Women's Rights Lecture Notes

This set covers the history of the women's rights movement, the ERA, feminist themes, equal pay, and legal frameworks for maternity and men's rights.

Women's Rights Movement

A diverse social movement that has sought equal rights and opportunities for women throughout history, featuring figures such as Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone.

Suffrage

The legal right to vote, which was the early focus of the first wave of the women's rights movement.

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)

Also known as the suffragist movement, it represented the first wave of the women's rights movement.

Seneca Falls Convention

The first women's rights convention in the United States, held in Seneca Falls, New York on July $19$–$20$, $1848$, which endorsed women's suffrage.

Declaration of Sentiments

A document drafted at the Seneca Falls Convention modeled after the Declaration of Independence that outlined women's inferior status and demanded suffrage.

19th Amendment

Passed by Congress on June $4$, $1919$, and ratified on August $18$, $1920$; it followed decades of protest including hunger strikes and silent vigils.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

A constitutional amendment passed by Congress but never ratified that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender in areas like employment and reproductive rights.

Lucretia Mott Amendment

The original version of the Equal Rights Amendment as first proposed in $1923$ by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman.

Alice Paul Amendment

The rewritten version of the Equal Rights Amendment dating from $1943$.

Feminism

A collection of political, social, and economic movements from the $1960s$ and $1970s$ (second wave) based on the belief that all genders should have equal rights and opportunities.

Patriarchy

A social system that gives men a disproportionate amount of power and privilege based on the idea that men are superior to women.

Objectification

A form of sexism that demeans women by treating them as sexual objects for male pleasure.

Gender bias

Systemic ways of treating women differently to their detriment.

Stereotypes

Assumptions about other people based on their race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

Reproductive autonomy

A pillar of the women's rights movement defined as the freedom to reproduce when one chooses to do so.

Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963

A law requiring that men and women in the same workplace receive equal pay for jobs that are substantially equal.

Gender pay gap

The average difference in pay between employed men and women; in $2023$, women earned $84\%$ of what men earned.

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Prize Pool

$110$ million dollars, which is approximately a quarter of the $2022$ Men's World Cup prize pool.

Maternity leave

A type of leave that allows employees to care for a newborn child.

Federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Provides up to $12$ weeks of unpaid leave per year for the birth of a child, adoption, foster care, or caring for a family member with a serious health condition.