Women, 1940-1980



Women, 1940-1980

KEY THEMES & ISSUES

1. The Impact of World War Two

2. The Conservative 1950’s?

“Feminine Mystique”

3. The Radical 1960s & 70s?

Women’s Movement

World War Two

War Industries

“Rosie the Riveter”

Non-traditional jobs

Armed Forces

Non-combatants

traditional female roles

Unlike post-WW1,

women did not leave the

workplace post-WW2

An Age of Conformity?: 1945-60

Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan, 1963)

Suburban ideals of domesticity:

nuclear, dual-headed family: Cold War context

motherhood & child-rearing as key to female fulfillment

(Benjamin Spock, Baby & Child Care, 1946)

Tupperware; I Love Lucy (1951-5); Father Knows Best (1954-62); Leave it to Beaver (1957-62)

Other Perspectives on the 1950s, 1

Women’s activism

American Friends Services Committee; YWCA; NAACP

Peace, Race & Social Work

Women at work

Married women (housewives & workers)

Other Perspectives on the 1950s, 2

Sexuality

Alfred Kinsey, Sexual

Behavior in the Human Male

(1948); & Female (1953)

“Threat” to traditional family/gender ideals?

Hugh Heffner, Playboy, 1953

Birth Control Pill approved, 1960

The Women’s Movement , 1

Presidential Commission

on the Status of Women, 1961-3 (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Equal Pay Act, 1963

Civil Rights Act, 1964

Roots in CRM & Students for a Democratic Society

Sisterhood & Sexism in SNCC & SDS

Mary King & Casey Hayden,

“Women in the Movement”

The Personal is Political

The Women’s Movement, 2

National Organization of Women, 1966

Betty Friedan; Marguerite Rawalt

1966-8 mostly concerned with “public” issues

1968: “Bill of Rights For Women” campaign “private” issues (child care; reproduction)

NOW splits on abortion issue

conservative Women’s Equity League

Mostly white, middle-class, professional agenda

Legislative approach to change

Most African American Women prioritize struggle for racial justice over struggle for women’s rights

The Women’s Liberation Movement

Radicalization, 1968-74

frustration at pace of change &

with NOW’s white, middle class,

heterosexual bias

Combahee River Collective

Redstockings (Manifesto, 1969)

Direct Action Campaigns

1968 Miss America demo

Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell

Affirmative Action Campaigns

Women & the New Conservatism, 1

Equal Rights Amendment

Introduced into Congress, 1923; passed in 1973, but not ratified by enough states; died in 1982.

Defeated by New Right/Moral Majority

Phyllis Schlafly’s STOP ERA campaign

Women & the New Conservatism, 2

Reproduction Rights

Roe vs Wade, 1973

Right to chose or abortion on demand?

polarizes opinion on

religious, ethical &

political grounds

Conservative attacks on

Roe, 1973-pres.

eg: Hyde Amendment, 1980

(restricts medicaid for abortions)

Conclusions

1. From World War 2 there was an unprecedented increase in the number & diversity of women in work.

2. The “Feminine Mystique” dominated the popular culture of the ‘50s, but there was female activity in many ‘public’ arenas; this greatly expanded in the ‘60s & ‘70s.

3. Sexual & domestic arrangements were more diverse in the ‘50s than the “feminine mystique” suggests; that diversity also increased in the ’60s & ’70s.

4. The organized women’s movement drew heavily on the CRM and underwent a similar radicalization in the late ‘60s.

5. The New Conservatism of the late-1960s & ’70s threatened to undermine many of the gains made.

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