Feminism

Feminist movements in the Americas; reasons for emergence; impact and significance

  • 1st Wave Feminism - 1848 (Seneca Falls Convention) ot 1920 (Amendment) - this is the Women’s Suffrage Movement

  • 2nd Wave Feminism - 1960 - late 1970 - The fight for equality on all fronts: economics, education, health care, legal issues, sports funding, etc… Sometimes also called the Women’s Liberation Movement or “Women’s Lib”

  • Betty Friedan - The Feminine Mystique

    • Published February 1963

    • Widely credited with starting the new wave of feminism in the 60s

    • In it, she describes “the problem with no name” being felt by American housewives in the post-war period (1950s)

    • Friedan describes a general dissatisfaction with these women’s lives - gender roles and expectations extinguished all personal and professional dreams

    • She argues for a renewed movement to empower women towards equal rights (legally, economically) but also toward self-determination

    • “They could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity”

    • Media, and society at large pressured women to become wives at a young age before they could even think to do anything other than that and brainwashed them to the point that they would rather be a real estate agent and work with their house than to be a renowned physicist.

  • The President’s Commission on the Status of Women 

    • Issues Studied?

  1. Employment policies and practices by private employers under federal contracts

  2. Federal social insurance and tax law

  3. Labor protections - including those for pregnant women

  4. Rights: political, civil, property, family

  5. Social and educational services

  6. Employment policies and practices of the federal government itself, including the need for affirmativeaction Impetus for the establishment of the PCSW

  • Recommendations Made?

    • PAID MATERNITY LEAVE by law (we still don’t have this)

    • Minimum wage and overtime laws AND restrictions on work hours

    • Child care tax credits

    • Equal opportunity employment safeguards

    • EQUAL PAY LAWS

    • Change property laws!

    • Widow protection for Social Security

    • Expand unemployment protections

  • The Foundation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) - formed in June, 1966 in Washington, DC by Betty Friedan and close activists

    • Why a separate movement?

      • Friedan and her associates were at an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) meeting where they were told they had no authority to ask the EEOC to end workplace discrimination against women

      • This small group breaks off and forms NOW at the hotel where the conference was taking place

      • The new feminist movement will see recruits from other movements (civil rights, chicano, student left…) who felt alienated from their own movement

      • NOW will be the first organization to exclusively work on issues of sex discrimination

    • Views on race?

      • About ⅔ of African American women workers are in the lowest paid service occupations.

      • African American women are victims of double discrimination of race and sex.

      • NOW will address these issues universally - that this will be a movement to advance the interests of ALL American women

      • In short, this movement will be about intersectionality

    • Role of Government?

      • Historically it is the U.S> government that has been officially holding back women’s progress - legally, economically, educationally, etc…

      • NOW views government as a powerful ally  - founding document mentions “the power of American Law”

      • The PCSW (see above) and state commissions are recommendations that have not been codified in law yet.

    • Demands and/or goals?

      • An all inclusive movement for human rights for ALL American women

      • Sought to end legal discrimination against women in all areas of society

      • To recruit, run, and elect women to all levels of gov.

  • Reproductive Rights - 

    • Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) - SCOTUS overturned a state conviction of a doctor who prescribed contraceptives to married couples. A 7-2 decision based on a right to privacy that the court found in the 9th amendment.

    • Massachusetts v. Baird (1972) - Dr. William Baird appealed his conviction for distributing condoms at his lectures on reproductive rights on college campuses. SCOTUS overturned conviction, ruling that the right to privacy also extended to unmarried women under the 9th amendment - 6-1.

    • Roe v. Wade (1973) - A number of cases with similar circumstances (women who were denied an elective abortion on demand b/c of state law) are combined under the title “Roe”  challenging all state laws that outlaw abortion. SCOTUS decides 7-2 that all state laws banning abortion within the first 3 months of pregnancy are unconstitutional based on the 9th’s privacy protection, AND on the 14th Amendment's EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE

  • Factions within The Movement

    • Radical Feminism

      • Women who did not feel valued in other movements of the time (mainly New Left and Civil Rights) came to work exclusively on feminist issues

      • No real organization centers this faction – driven by protest and public demonstration

      • Staged theater-like events, protesting at beauty pageants like Miss America

      • Mostly young women - baby boom generation

      • Hosted “rap groups” in living rooms designed to get a diversity of opinion 

    • Middle Class (Liberal) Feminism - Fueled by the feminine mystique - this movement sprung up because of Friedan’s book is embodied by the organization NOW. Cause of major advancements

      • adding sex based discrimination to the civil rights act of 1964

      • EO 11246 prohibited gender discrimination in employment holders of federal contracts. 

      • supported federally financed child care providers

      • documented sexism in children’s books and programs - published its findings so parents and teachers could make better informed decisions of what media they should give to their children.

      •  with other groups pushed for reforms in credit and banking for women

      • enlarged equity in sports so that though still inequitable, they had greater opportunities in sports (Title IX)

      • In 1971 formed the National Women’s Political Caucus, to support women going for political office.

    • Separatists - 

      • Believed that biological differences between men and women mean that women could NEVER reform male-dominated  society

      • Their answer was to create a new, separate society populated exclusively by women

      • A fairly extreme faction that is small and short-lived

    • Structuralists -

      • Thought that traditional roles of women in society were REAL feminism

      • Society should recognize this and stop trying to tear down the legal distinctions between the sexes.

      • Viewed the progress of other feminist factions as actually HARMFUL to women

      • Phyllis Schlafly leads this faction in a successful effort to stop the Equal Rights Amendment - citing laws about public restrooms and the MILITARY DRAFT

    • Lesbian Feminists - 

      • True freedom was to be achieved by not orienting their lives around men

      • Fought against job discrimination (got that question removed from employment applications)

      • Key emphasis: privacy rights - to be left alone by society and not have them focus solely on their sexuality as the only defining characteristic

      • Initially shunned by the larger movement, but accepted by the end of the 1970s as part of the larger feminist movement

    • Revalorists - 

      • Aimed to “re-value” traditional feminine values

      • Society should recognize and celebrate traditional roles: childbearing, child-rearing, etc…

      • To be valued equally with men without adopting masculine roles

      • Emphasized women’s contributions to society and history

      • No organized group to speak of - a minor faction

    • Womanists - 

      • Recognizing the racism of previous feminism - it was largely a hite, middle-class movement to this point

      • African-American were more likely to be single/widowed, have more children, have less education, and struggled more economically

      • Did not oppose mainstream feminism, they just sought to include their own issues through what we now call intersectionality.

    • Ecofeminists - 

      • Highlighted the connection between the patriarchy and the domination of nature

      • To get people to realize this connection through femininity / nurturing aspect

      • Key aspect of emerging environmentalism

  • CANADA!

    • Terminology / Links to other movements

      • Much more intertwined with activism of the “New Left” - part of the “Liberation Decade”

      • Also lots of overlap with the anti-war / peace / disarmament movement, AND the emerging environmental protection movement

    • Groups / Individuals

      • Voice of Women (VOW) is the main feminist group during this time

        • famous for bringing in baby teeth with elevated radiation levels to argue for an end to nuclear testing, and for crocheting / knitting baby clothes for the children made homeless by America’s war in Vietnam.

        • campaigned for nuclear disarmament and peace

      • Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF)

        • A nonprofit specifically to support victims of violence and discrimination both in the home and the workplace

        • With Québec’s Quiet Revolution, Québécoise feminists reaffirmed an autonomous movement, and loyalties divided between federalism and sovereignty. Just as during the suffrage campaigns, there were “new women” and “new men,” now associated with the “counterculture”

      • Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

        • Fought for the above mentioned issues of disarmament and world peace

      • Front de libération des femmes du Québec (FLF) (Quebec Women’s Liberation Front)

    • Education / Employment

      • Canadian women generally worked in lower paying service sector jobs like domestic housekeeping

      • A concerted effort to change education curricula / staffing of schools

      • By the 1980s, women made up about a third of the membership of industrial unions - using strikes and boycotts that earned them better wages and working conditions

      • The Royal Commission on the Status of Women issues a report in 1970 making several recommendations about equality and discrimination across the full spectrum of Canadian society - 167 recommendations in all, including Equal Pay, Maternity leave, Abortion Rights, Contraception, etc…

    • Legislation

      • 1969 - law granting universal access to various methods of contraception (removed it from the criminal code)

      • 1982 - THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS (The Charter) enshrines equal protection under the law for ALL Canadians - race, sex, and disability are all named specifically

      • 1983 - becomes illegal for a man to rape his wife

      • Equal Pay, Maternity Leave, access to birth control, and abortion all are enshrined in law after “The Charter” is ratified

    • Court Cases

      • 1988 - SCOC (supreme court of canada) strikes down all provincial laws prohibiting elective abortion within the first trimester