The Women's Movement
Goals and Strategies
Sandra Day O'Connor
First female Supreme Court Justice
Public Awareness
Feminists made personal issues political
Radical Feminists
Engaged in small-scale consciousness-raising efforts
Demanded equal treatment in the workplace
Black and white women came together
Civil Rights Movement
Taught women ways to get equality
Inspired women to demand gender equality
Feminism
Movement was the second wave of feminism after the right the vote in 1920
Theory and goal of political, social, and economic equality of men and women
Opposition
Phyllis Schlafly
Conservative political activist who denounced women's liberation as a total assault on the family, on marriage, and on children
Wanted to defeat the ERA; said the act would compel women to the military, end sex-segregated bathrooms, and hurt the family
Movement openly challenged and opposed by men and women
Present Day
Feminization of Poverty
The poorest people today are single women because they have lowest paying jobs and the least benefits
"Glass Ceiling"
The advancement of even the most highly educated and skilled women workers is limited
"Pink Collar Ghetto"
Women continue to work in fields that pay less
The average women still makes less than the average man
Organizations/Leaders
Gloria Steinem
Co-founded "Ms.", a feminist magazine
Title protests the identification of women by marital status
Exposed the humiliation women endured working as Playboy bunnies
Tried to change awareness through the mass media
NOW
Priorities to pass the ERA and protect reproductive rights
Attacked stereotypes and called for more balanced marriage
Set out to break barriers in education and the workplace
Dedicated itself to winning full equal rights and balanced partnership of the sexes
National Organization for Women
Betty Friedan
Helped establish NOW
Wrote "The Feminine Mystique"
Inspired women to join the struggle for equal rights
Novel that challenged the housewife stereotype
Legislation
Roe v. Wade
Women assured the right to legal abortion
Equal Credit Opportunity Act
Passed in 1974
Illegal to deny credit to a women due to her gender
Higher Education Act
Title IX
Banned discrimination in education
Commission on the Status of Women
Examined workplace discrimination
Civil Rights Act of 1964
EEOC
Enforced federal prohibition on job discrimination
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Title VII
Women used the Title to challenge discrimination
Outlawed discrimination based on sex
Equal Rights Amendment
Passed in March 1972
Protect reproductive rights; right to an abortion
Guarantee equal rights
