Notes on Second-Wave Feminism: Rights, Theories, and Advertising Analyses (Transcript)

Key Rights Fought by Second-Wave Feminists (1960s–1980s)

• Equal pay for equal work

• Penalties for rape and sexual assaults

• The right to work

• The right to remain at work during pregnancy or marriage (not having to leave work)

• Anti-discrimination (in workplaces and beyond; pregnancy status, marital status, etc.)

• Bodily autonomy: access to birth control and abortion rights

• Access to reproductive health care more broadly

• Anti-violence efforts and criminalization of domestic violence

• Maternity leave

• Freedom from workplace sexual harassment and intimate rights

• Access to public places (e.g., the right to drink in a pub)

• Broader rights around occupational and social participation in public life

• Recognition that these rights intersect with class, race, and other identities (implicit in the discussion of later readings)

• Note on how these points were framed in class: these rights are presented as a broad agenda that defined second-wave feminist aims, with in-class references to working rights as a central umbrella category and expanding into anti-discrimination and bodily autonomy.

In-Class Discussion: Student Impressions on Second-Wave Goals

• Focus: what second-wave feminists were fighting for (not necessarily Australian-specific):
  • Equal pay for equal work
  • Penalties for rape and sexual assaults
  • Right to work
  • Workplace rights around pregnancy and marriage
  • Anti-discrimination in the workplace
  • Bodily autonomy: birth control and abortion rights
  • Reproductive health care access
  • Domestic violence criminalization
  • Maternity leave
  • Freedom from workplace sexual harassment
  • Access to public spaces (e.g., pubs)
• Student examples given in discussion:
  • Sheree and peers: equal pay, work rights, and anti-discrimination
  • The role of pregnancy and marital status in keeping a job
  • Early identification of reproductive rights as part of the larger package
  • Bodily autonomy as a central component (birth control, abortion rights)
• Mixed responses noted: some students highlighted overall gains; others emphasized ongoing issues and limitations in implementation.

Video Segment 1961: University Students Discuss Roles in Society

• General stance observed: discussion centers on balancing work and motherhood; children and professional life as compatible but challenging
• Key points and quotes (paraphrased where direct quotes were provided):
  • "One working, the other bringing up your children" – tension between professional work and motherhood
  • Debate on pay equity: "Women get the same money" in principle; need for equal pay for equal work in practice
  • Concerns about women in medicine: some believed women could contribute uniquely but pay equity remains essential
  • Many interviewees argued for education for women and coeducational schooling
  • A recurring line: women’s careers interrupted by family responsibilities; some suggested that pursuing higher degrees while managing family life is challenging
  • Perceptions of women pursuing high-level careers (e.g., PhDs) sometimes dismissed as incompatible with family duties
  • Mixed views on women’s cabinet-level political roles: some believed there were no female cabinet ministers because women themselves failed to push for such positions
  • A notable line: one respondent suggested that the only thing in which women should be spoken about by men is unclear in exact phrasing, indicating ambivalence or misinterpretation of women’s voices in leadership
• Observations from facilitator: these quotes reveal a snapshot of attitudes toward women’s professional roles, pay equity, leadership, and education in 1961
• Notable themes: balance of work and family, pay equity as a priority, gendered expectations about leadership and professional advancement

Video Segment 1976: Street Interviews on Women’s Liberation (International Year of the Woman context)

• Core sentiment: broad skepticism or ambivalence toward women’s liberation

• Common responses include:

  • Some respondents dismiss the movement as irrelevant to their own lives: "Nothing. Nothing at all." and similar sentiments
  • Others express traditional views: "Man should wear the pants" or that the man should be the breadwinner; some acknowledge the need for equal job opportunity and pay but resist broader liberation activism
  • Mixed attitudes from older interviewees: some see liberation as unnecessary or unconvincing; others show reluctance due to perceived threats to traditional family roles

• Key interpretive points: by the mid-1970s, public opinion included a spectrum from active support to outright opposition to “women’s liberation,” with concerns about family dynamics and traditional gender roles

• Facilitative note: facilitator highlights that many responses reflect generational divides and differing experiences of gender roles in Australia in the 1970s

• Cross-cutting observations from the two VoxPop videos:

  • Despite evolving rights rhetoric (reproductive rights, equal pay, anti-discrimination), there remained significant resistance in everyday public discourse
  • The interviews illustrate the persistence of traditional gender norms alongside emerging feminist ideas

Bendrick Reading: Critiques of Second-Wave Achievements and Aboriginal Women’s Rights

• Central claim: feminists were not only fighting for broad rights but also navigating the rights and realities of Aboriginal women in Australia
• Key contrasts highlighted:
  • Aboriginal women faced forced sterilization and removal of children; different reproductive rights landscape compared to white women
  • Aboration and contraception rights fought by white women, while Aboriginal women faced coercive state control over reproduction
  • Rape and sexual assault experiences differed across communities; the intersection with race shaped women’s experiences of violence and justice
• Notable line from Bendrick: white women were fighting for the right to say yes to abortion/sexual autonomy, while Aboriginal women were fighting for the right to say no to coercive control and sterilization
• The lecture notes emphasize that reproductive rights movements were not monolithic and that intersectionality mattered in understanding who benefited and who was further marginalized
• Additional conceptual point: Bendrick uses a diagram to illustrate power hierarchies (e.g., white women vs. black women; white Australia vs. black Australia) and discusses how migrants complicate these hierarchies
• Important nuance: the term intersectionality did not appear in Bendrick’s 1993 discussion; it originated in 1989 and has since become central to feminist analysis
• Practical implication: when examining historical rights, researchers must consider race, colonization, Indigenous status, and migratory status to understand differential impacts

Diagrammatic Analyses: Oppression, Race, and Gender (Intersections in Visual Models)

• Diagram concept described in class: a visual representation of how oppression is distributed across race and gender
  • One diagram discussed: white women under white Australia, black women under black Australia, etc., highlighting the different experiences of oppression
  • A second diagram raises questions about inclusivity, asking where migrants fit into these categories; highlights limitations of simple visuospatial models
• Caution about the diagrams:
  • They are useful for illustration but do not fully capture intersectionality or the nuanced experiences of diverse groups (e.g., migrants, Indigenous women, etc.)
  • Historical limitations: intersectionality as a concept was not yet widely used when the original diagrams were created
• Pedagogical takeaway: diagrams are helpful starting points, but must be used with critical attention to race, class, immigration status, and Indigenous status

Anne Curthwais: Four Readings of Feminism (Marxism, Post-Structuralism, Humanism, Liberalism)

• Purpose: to outline four theoretical frameworks used to analyze feminism and to apply them to cultural artifacts (advertisements) in class
• Marxism
  • Core idea: oppression through class divisions and labor; focus on who benefits from capital and who labors
  • Feminist Marxists argue the lens is inadequate if applied to gender without considering class; many Marxist feminists argued Marxism is gender-blind or male-centered
  • Relevance to feminism: helps explain economic exploitation and labor within the family/workplace, but may underplay gendered experiences unless combined with gender analysis
  • Bottom line: useful but not sufficient alone; many socialist/Marxist feminists moved toward more intersectional approaches
• Post-Structuralism
  • Core idea: power operates on the body; there are no neutral bodies; gender and sexuality are produced through discourse and institutions
  • Key phrases from Foucault: gender is not the issue; sexual difference is; power is exercised through disciplinary practices that shape bodies and identities
  • Implication for feminism: challenges universal female experience; emphasizes bodily difference and social construction of gender identities
  • Caution: can be abstract and hard to translate into concrete political programs
• Humanism
  • Core idea: universal human rights; Enlightenment-era citizenship with equal rights under the law
  • Feminist humanism seeks to include women within the universal framework but often focuses on legal equality rather than cultural transformation
  • Limitation: may neglect culturally shaped gender norms and fail to address gendered power in social institutions beyond the law
• Liberalism
  • Core idea: individual rights and equal political status within a social contract; gendered analysis within this frame highlights exclusion from citizenship or legal rights
  • Tends to emphasize legal/political change and individual autonomy rather than broad cultural shifts
  • Overlaps with humanism but with a stronger emphasis on institutional reform and rights-based approaches
• Relationship among the four theories
  • Each provides a different lens (economic, biological/disciplinary power, universal rights, and individual rights)
  • They often critique or complement each other; combining them helps analyze complex feminist issues but can lead to tensions (e.g., Marxism vs. liberalism, gendered focus vs. class focus)
• Practical takeaway for coursework: use these four lenses to analyze media, policy, and social practices, recognizing their strengths, limits, and historical context

Advertising Analysis Exercise: Applying Theoretical Frameworks to TV/Print Ads

• Case study: Hill’s Hoist advertisement (1960s Australia)
  • Described product: a clothes-drying system described as a Christmas gift; features a folding laundry pram for the mother and a folding chair for the father
  • Visual layout and implied roles: mother actively hanging clothes; father relaxed in a chair; child present in the scene
  • Marxism (class and labor):
  • Portrays a middle-class, heterosexual nuclear family; emphasizes women’s labor in domestic tasks
  • Highlights unequal distribution of labor (women doing the work; men passively observing) in a way that reinforces gendered division of labor
  • Discussion point: does the ad normalize a specific class position and labor arrangement while masking alternative labor arrangements?
  • Post-structuralism (power on bodies/disciplines):
  • Bodies are positioned in a way that disciplines women to perform domestic labor with pride/enthusiasm (the “thrill” of housework)
  • The male body is positioned as passive and comfortable, while the female body is energetic and productive
  • The ad suggests a disciplinary regime that naturalizes gendered labor and the domestic sphere as fulfilling
  • Humanism: universal citizenship lens appears in the sense that a “good family” and “happy home” are framed as social goods that contribute to societal harmony
  • Liberalism: depicts the individual family unit as a norm; the ad invites viewers to imagine themselves within this aspirational, individual family model
• Case study: Keep Australia Beautiful, Body Beautiful bar (recent/late 2000s framing)
  • Core message: consumer product tied to women’s bodies and beauty standards; marks a shift from domestic labor to self-surveillance and body image
  • Marxism analysis:
  • The product markets body-image insecurities to sell a snack/bar; reinforces consumer capitalism around women’s bodies
  • Examines how class and consumption patterns intersect with beauty standards
  • Post-structuralism analysis:
  • Visual strategy uses a headless or decontextualized female body to objectify and normalize beauty as a disciplinary target
  • The message relies on body normalization to align with beauty ideals; body becomes a site of political and social control
  • Humanism analysis:
  • Frames women as universal consumers with agency within a liberal-capitalist system; implies common aims of health and fitness but through commodified goods
  • Liberalism analysis:
  • Emphasizes individual choice and personal responsibility in beauty/fitness investments; individual decision to purchase is framed as a liberal choice within market culture
• Other ad reference: general discussions of body-image campaigns and their alignment with national branding
  • The facilitator notes about the use of women’s bodies in tourism imagery (e.g., white Australian female bodies positioned to represent landscape and national identity)
  • Connection to ecofeminism and critiques of how body-image campaigns intersect with cultural and environmental discourses
• Takeaways from applying the four theories to ads:
  • Ads encode gendered labor, body norms, and consumerist rhetoric that reinforce or challenge social power arrangements
  • The same ad can be read differently depending on the lens used (e.g., class-focused vs. body politics-focused vs. rights-focused)
  • Media literacy: recognizing the ideology embedded in ads helps reveal how cultural products shape and reflect social hierarchies

Cross-Cutting Themes: Intersections, Race, and Indigenous Perspectives

• Intersectionality and race in second-wave feminism
  • Bendrick’s analysis foregrounds how Aboriginal women experienced reproductive coercion, sterilization, and child removal in ways not mirrored by white feminists’ campaigns for contraception/abortion rights
  • The phrase from Bendrick: white women fought for the right to say yes; Aboriginal/Black women fought for the right to say no
• The Native/Indigenous perspective as a crucial axis of analysis
  • The class discussion points to the need to include First Nations women when analyzing feminist movements and reproductive rights
  • The diagrams used to illustrate oppression may misrepresent or oversimplify the experiences of Indigenous and migrant women
• The concept of the “oppression Olympics” and its limitations
  • Visual diagrams spark important critique but may downplay intersectional complexities and migrant experiences
• The emergence of intersectionality as a critical analytic framework (historical timeline)
  • Intersectionality as a term did not appear in Bendrick’s 1993 discussion; coined in 1989 and widely developed since
• Real-world relevance
  • Reproductive rights, domestic violence, and workplace rights must be understood in context of race, colonization, and migration status
  • Contemporary debates on feminism still grapple with inclusive representation and the differential effects of policy changes across communities

Summary of Key Connections and Implications for the Exam

• Second-wave feminism comprised a broad rights agenda (equal pay, reproductive rights, anti-discrimination, bodily autonomy, workplace protections) but existed within varying social contexts that affected different groups unevenly
• Contemporary analysis benefits from multiple theoretical lenses (Marxism, post-structuralism, humanism, liberalism) to understand economic, cultural, legal, and individual dimensions of gender oppression
• Intersectionality is essential for analyzing how race, Indigenous status, and migration shape feminist outcomes; the experiences of Aboriginal and other marginalized groups reveal tensions and gaps in the universalist claims of some feminist projects
• Advertising and media provide a rich site to explore how power operates through bodies, labor, and consumer culture, illustrating how gender norms are reinforced or resisted in everyday life
• For exam preparation, be able to:
  • List the core rights associated with second-wave feminism and explain their significance
  • Describe how Bendrick critiques second-wave feminism for its treatment of Aboriginal women and the role of race in reproductive rights
  • Explain the four theoretical frameworks (Marxism, post-structuralism, humanism, liberalism) and how each would analyze a given cultural artifact
  • Analyze ads for gendered labor, body politics, and consumerism using at least two of the four theoretical lenses
  • Discuss limitations of diagrams and the importance of considering intersectionality and migrants when discussing oppression and rights