Feminism And The Second Wave Feminism

Looking back with a historical lens, it’s evident that the fight for women’s rights has progressed in a step wise process. The nineteenth amendment opened a new door of opportunities for women to take advantage of. In modern times, the continued push for equal rights is evident through the fight for reproductive rights and equal pay. Even with the right to vote, women are still being under represented and out of control when it comes to their reproductive rights and in the workplace. Opposing beliefs regarding feminism have prevented the progression of more gender equality in the United States. What originally started as a plea for a political voice helped to shape the history of the nation. Women’s suffrage paved the way for countless groups and further feminist

The progress that lead to the ratification process of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), in 1972, began over a century earlier. The advocates for women’s rights began their efforts in 1848 at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York , where a meeting of 300 men and women was held which called for justice for women in a society that limited their privileges. By 1900, women had gained the right to keep their earnings and own property. By 1920, they had gained the right to vote. By 1963, women were paid equally to men for completing the same work. In 1964, the Civil Rights Amendment was passed and outlawed discrimination based on gender, religion, and race. In 1972, Title IX

This essay will explore the reasons why the anti-Equal Rights Amendment of the 1970s was successful in keeping the proposed amendment from being added to the Constitution. It starts with a discussion of the process in congress and what it took for the amendment to even reach the states for a vote, and the exact literature of the amendment. It continues by analyzing what caused the movement for the ERA, successes of the feminist movement in the 1970s and leaders in the pro ERA movement. The rest of the essay will discuss the Stop ERA campaign, its arguments against the amendment and how it succeeded in garnering enough support to prevent passage of the amendment. This subject is particularly important to discuss because our society continues to be riddled with gender inequality and sexual discrimination. Though legislative change does not guarantee societal change, it is certainly a necessary step, and the lack of an Equal Rights Amendment has put the issue of sexism in the United States on the backburner. It is necessary to examine the origins of the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment in order to fully understand what is holding the United States back as a country and what can be done to move forward and make meaningful changes in how we perceive gender and sexuality.

This article explains the history of ERA and all the consequences and effects that it had on the genders and their equalities. This article goes over the struggles with women’s rights throughout the 19th century, leading towards the victory for woman suffrage. Afterwards, the article transits to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and goes into depth as it describes how gender equality was nationally accepted more as time went by. This source maintains on the objective side, as it uses only facts that are acquired through the history of the ERA and just goes on describing how it affected the gender roles. This source is different from the rest of the articles because this article has good solid facts over one topic in history while some other articles are focused on the present statistics. I learned a good amount of history behind the whole ERA and the causes and effects of this amendment that soon impacted the nation.

Decades after the National Women’s Party pushed for the passage of their proposed Equal Rights Amendment, feminists of the 1960s and 70s rallied once again for this change in the Constitution. The amendment, simply stating that, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex,” quickly gained popularity among activists in the 1970s. This support was not surprising, as this decade was a time of great change and protest. Feminist felt that just as African Americans were gaining civil rights, women, too, should be considered as equals to their counterparts. Women Right’s leaders such as Alice Paul and Gloria Steinem pushed for the passage of such major legislation. With support from Women’s Right’s groups such as the National Organization of Women, the amendment quickly made its’ way to Congress.

Women have fought to have equal rights since the beginning of Americans history. We have fought for equal rights in Congress and still currently are. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was proposed to Congress by Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party. This amendment would discourage any legal distinctions “on account of sex”. Women wanted to be provided full access to employment, education, and all the other opportunities of citizens. The campaign was a failure and the only law from the Amendment that passed was the prohibition of child labor. However, in the 1970’s the concept of family values shifted to conservative politics impacted the fight for ERA. Resulting in, the ERA being approved started to be sent to states for ratification.

Other than the obvious time differences between first and second wave feminism, the real contrasts are found in what it was the women, and men in some cases, were fighting for. First-Wave feminists mainly fought for suffrage, while their Second-Wave sisters fought for a wider range of women’s rights.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, feminist women in America faced an underlying conflict to find their purpose and true meaning in life. “Is this all?” was often a question whose answer was sought after by numerous women reaching deeper into their minds and souls to find what was missing from their life. The ideal second-wave feminist was defined as a women who puts all of her time into cleaning her home, loving her husband, and caring for her children, but such a belief caused these women to not only lose their identity within her family but society as well. The emotions that feminist women were feeling at this time was the internal conflict that caused for social steps to be taken in hopes of

at the time. Friedan sparked a fervor in women that is unparalleled in the realm of women’s rights. In a society dominated by men and their age old ideals, Friedan was their voice, campaigning for women to stop

“You cannot be a humanist unless you are a feminist. You either advocate equality for all or you are a misanthrope” (Michael A. Sherlock). From women’s suffrage to abortion laws feminism has evolved with contemporary battles and a variety of approaches. The

The end of the third-wave brings post-feminist, which describes a range of reactions to feminism. Post-feminism is not “anti-feminism”, post-feminists believe that women have achieved their goals during the second-wave; and were being critical during the third-wave. The terms post-feminism was first used in the 1980s to describe the backlash against second-wave feminism. From this point on there has been a huge debate on whether or not feminism is still needed during our modern times. To draw a conclusion on whether feminism is still needed in Canada please see Appendix one. This graph shows average hourly wages for both men and women during November 2014 and November of 2015. During the year 2014 women were being paid on average $22.88 an

Feminism by definition means the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men. But many a time’s people restrict the boundary of these forgetting the very important element of diversity of women living in different places and in varied situations.

When referring to the history of feminism in the manner of the first, second, or third wave, one is undermining the experiences that were ongoing during, in middle of, and before those waves that history defines. What ideologies of oppression were being spoken of to raise awareness and whose experience was being excluded/diminished? The articulation of feminism in using the metaphor of waves to describe how the ideologies peaked and rescinded, is incorrect because it focuses only on the voices of those who were able to bring their problems to the surface and excludes those who had a different experience or may have brought awareness in a quieter manner. There are many feminisms and each interpretation is defined by the collective oppression, rather than looking at the situation in an individual perception, which is what creates disagreements and division between feminists. Many definitions of feminism, feminisms, exist simultaneously because it is evolving as fast (or, well, as slow) as the world is changing and if one group of people are to speak of others experience of oppression (or lack of) in place of them, the result can be the glossing over of experiences and therefore, undermine experiences of others.

The idea of women being equal to men has been debated for a very long time. Even when civilizations were just starting, most women were treated very differently from men. When women started fighting against this oppression they were called feminists. Feminism can be separated into three waves. The first wave of feminism was from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. The second wave was from the 1960s to the 1980s. The third wave of feminism started in the 1990s, but its end is unclear. Some people believe it has ended and the fourth wave of feminism has started, but others believe it continues today. The different waves have been very different in some aspects, but very similar in others. The main differences between the first and third wave of feminism are what they fought for, how they protested, and society’s reaction to their cause.

In 1776, the then First Lady of the United States was the first to raise her about women’s rights, telling her husband to “remember the ladies” in his drafting of new laws, yet it took more than 100 years for men like John Adams to actually do so. With the help of half a dozen determined, and in this case white upper-middle-class, women the first-wave feminism, which spans from the 19th century to the early 20th century, finally led to their goal after 72 years of protesting. The Nineteenth Amendment, which secured the rights for women to vote finally passed in 1920. This grand victory brought other reforms along, including reforms in the educational system,