Text Book Vs Spielvogal's Essay

The book introduced the topic of women’s and gender studies and what this course entails. It is defined by the book as; an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning women, gender, and feminism. It delves further into the history WGS of how to originated and the progress it has made through to today. WGS has now been integrated into most college curriculums and can even be chosen as a major. The feminist movement has been divided into separate “waves” where specific times of feminism are grouped together. Women’s studies originated during the 2nd wave. Feminism is usually associated with WGS, which is a word that comes with copious baggage, although it is a movement for equality and social justice for all. They further describe the myths associated with feminism like they are men-haters and lesbians causing many people to shy away from calling themselves a feminist, although they may agree with many feminist views. The book concludes by stating that there is still much work to be done regarding the rights and equality of women.

Women have been active since the beginning of the early 1800’s and struggle until today’s day, to fight for equality. There were two women movement waves. The first wave was focused on the equality of the women by working on voting rights. The second wave from 1963 to 1982 concentrated on social issues. As in “Collective Action for Social Change”, Aaron Schutz and Marie Sandy stated in their book “women were tired of being second class citizens”. The civil rights movement spillover inspired women to create social movements by acting and building organizations focused on the issues that affected the women. The social issues were child care, domestic violence, contraception, and women’s health. One of the major topics that the feminists focused on was domestic violence that still exists in today’s day worldwide.

The second-wave feminism has been the driving force behind the Women’s Liberation Movement, which is synonymous within the twenty years in the later part of the twentieth century, beginning in 1960 and ending in 1980. The movement, in the past, had an impact on various aspects of social life to men and women; and this impact is still showcased in areas including, but not limited to; women’s health, fertility trends, laws and legislations, personal believes and religious discussions, interpersonal relationships and family roles, feminist issues, and gender relations.

Maggie Humm and Rebecca walker divided the history of feminism into three waves. The first wave focused on the promotion of equality in property and family law. It begins in the early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and in the united states. The second wave feminism comes as a continuation of the first wave to fight against the social and cultural inequalities like political inequalities.

Kerber, Linda K., Jane Sherron De Hart, Cornelia Hughes Dayton, and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. Women's America: Refocusing the Past: Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, “The Women’s Liberation Movement”. 8th ed. NY, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016.

In this assignment I will evaluate and consider the arguments of the women’s right movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s by critically analyzing the differences and similarities between the liberal and radical feminists, the Equal Rights Act, similarities and differences between those who supported and opposed the Equal Rights Act, working class women who opposed and also surged the feminist movement, different key events such as the National Organization of Women that influenced the development of a women’s right movement, and the long range consequences of the modern women’s right movement.

The feminist movement has been developing its method of solving social and economical issues in three consecutive waves, from the end of the 19th century till present. Each stage had its benchmarks and significant shifts in the treatment of women - from viewing them as objects and commodity to perceiving them as citizens in full rights and creators of their own destiny. Gradually, together with the growth of self-consciousness and demand for more rights and freedoms, suffragists and later feminists managed to secure more legal precedents and norms manifesting and consolidating their achievements, including the right to vote, to own property and participate in public life.

Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Women’s rights shifted constantly. The years after the war, in which included the time between 1950 and 1960, were the defining moments that would eventually lead to increased Women’s rights in America. Immediately after the end World War two in 1945, men returning from war were interested in securing their past jobs. Because of this landmark decision, millions of women, who had been doing the men's work while they were at war, now were left penniless. the transformation of 1950’s women into feminists who looked for female self government; The most important points of the change in women’s rights between 1950 and 1960 is to understand how these housewives said no to all that was supposedly ideal and perfect, and started the fight for a better future, for a society that accepts women that live for their emancipation and individuality.

The Women’s Rights Movement in the 1960s and the 1970s grew out of the turbulent social disruption that characterized those decades of American history. This movement also known as “second wave feminism”, progressed from the suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Feminists pursued equality for women by challenging unfair labor practices and discriminatory laws. Many women of all ages, social class, and educational background founded organizations that provided other women with educational material about sex and reproduction, and fought to legalize all forms of birth control. In addition, they provided women with hope to gain their freedom in order to motivate them to fight for their rights.

Through countless decades women have been struggling to be equal to men, both at home, politics and the work place. Starting back from the 1800s to mid-1900s, numerous women took time out of their day to step out and fight for what they believed in and that was women’s rights.  Women were gaining incredible ground amid the 1840s and 50s. They were currently permitted to make legal agreements, own property, control legitimate profit and have joint authority of kids. New laws supported widowed, forsook, and abused ladies. Women additionally framed numerous gatherings, which were the start of womens ' rights development. Women’s occupation by the mid-1950s, surpassed the peek accomplished in War World II.  Taking after this development of women’s ' work, a capable women 's activist development ascended in the 1960s and 1970s. The contemporary women 's activist development looked for and won more noteworthy lawful insurance for equivalent pay, more prominent assurance from abusive behavior at home, and a lawful acknowledgment of the privilege to a premature birth. Sexual standards casual as sexuality was all the more transparently communicated in film and famous entertainment. Linda K. Kerber (1988) quotes, “the ideology of republican womanhood recognized that women’s choices and women’s work did serve large social and political

Before Civil War a new wave of feminism is raised in America and soon spread out all over the world because in that time women of America was self-employed and they did jobs, face different problems. Therefore, we say the next wave of feminism is the feminism’s second wave.In this wave, they raised topics according to situation of that time but we see it is co incident that these are the same issues that world faced in todays too. These issues are sexuality regarding family and workplace environment, rights of reproduction, inequalities whether it belongs to de facto sideor from official or from legal side (Jacobs, 1861).

While Western Civilization: Volume 2: Since 1500 by Jackson J. Spielvogal and Wikipedia overlap at certain points, Spielvogal’s book provides a large overview of the feminist movement in the 1960s to 1980s. Compared to Spielvogal, Wikipedia goes more in-depth with the people involved, the issues they were fighting for, and the laws they were able to get passed. But even though they have their differences, both are informative and give the reader an acceptable idea as to the feminist movement of the 1960s to 1980s.

After studying the first unit of the class, I learned about different feminisms. I now know about liberal feminists, who “campaigned for equal rights of citizenship and for the end of discrimination,” (); socialist feminists, who “attributed women’s oppression to capitalism and focused on women’s economic exploitation,” (); and radical feminists, who “identified male power or patriarchy as the source of female subordination,” (). These forms of feminism developed new attitudes and goals throughout the different waves of feminism in the past two centuries.

“First wave” of feminism in 1920 advocated women’s suffrage, whereas the “Second wave” targets the societal issues that women in the 21st century are facing. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminists Mystique after World War II exposing female repression and later founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) which ignited the second wave of the feminist movement. Consequently, it became noticeable that women were in multiple wars, as a result branches of feminists were formed (i.e. Liberalist, Marxist, and Socialist). Misogyny’s evolution has its own significant role in the feminist movement, stirring conversations today that affect feminist ideologies. However, in order to fully comprehend what affects second wave feminism along with the tactics utilized by feminists, one must first become acquainted with the many forms.

An important leader during this time was Alice Paul. She was a women’s right activist and helped strategize events such as Silent Sentinels. The Second-Wave of feminism took place during the 1960’s through the 1980’s. This push was to get more social rights such as reproductive rights, birth-control, daycares, family and domestic violence, etc,.