Women Fight for Equality

Read Chapter 31-2 in your The Americans online textbook. (begins on page 982).

Directions: As you read about the rise of a new women’s movement, take notes to explain how each of the following helped to create or advance the movement.

1. Experiences in the workplace: this awakened the women to their unequal status because President Kennedy realized that women were being paid much less than men even when doing the same job. So because of that, women were promoted to management positions, regardless of education, experience, and ability.

2. Experiences in social activism: men lead some of the activities while women were assigned lesser roles and when the women tried to talk to them about it, the men would just brush them aside. Because of this, women decided to create small groups to discuss this problem.

3. "Consciousness raising": this helped to create the movement because now women were becoming more aware of the discrimination and actually decided to do something about it.

4. Feminism: was the theory behind the whole women's movementof the 1960s.

5. Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: it opened women's eyes about their problem and made them stand up for their rights along with the African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.

6. Civil Rights Act of 1964: gave the movement strength because it prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, and gender and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to handle discrimination claims, but they weren't really doing that.

7. National Organization for Women (NOW): this organization helped advance the movement because they were still upset that the EEOC didn't really address their grievances. So they pushed for things to be enforced such as, the ban on gender discrimination in hiring, sex-segregated job ads illegal, and employers could no longer refuse to hire women for traditionally male jobs.

8. Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine: in 1971 she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus which encouraged women to seek political office. The Ms. Magazine was designed to treat contemporary issues from a feminist perspective, which let men see what was going on in their minds.

9. Congress: helped by passing a ban on gender discrimination in "any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance," as part of the Higher Education Act. And most all male colleges opened their doors to women. They also expanded the powers of the EEOC and gave working parents a tax break for child-care expenses.

10. Supreme Court: ruled that women have the right to choose an abortion.

11. The Equal rights Amendment would have guaranteed equal rights under the law, regardless of gender. Who opposed this amendment? Why?
Phyllis Schlafly because he felt that the ERA would lead to a parade of horribles such as, drafting of women, end of laws protecting homemakers, end of husband's responsibility to provide for his family, and same-sex marriages.