The Feminist Movement in the 20th Century

Following the end of the Civil War, the closing of the 19th century brought along many new technological and social changes. In the article “The New Technology and Women’s Work” by Sheila Rothman tells of the opportunities and struggles that women faced in the college and job market following the new social and technological advances of this period. Rothman tells of advancing opportunities in College, as well as Department stores and offices positions, while also acknowledging the limitations that still existed with women in social workplaces.

During the past hundred years the role of women in society have changed and a major part of this is due to the First World War. During this time women showed that they were capable of doing male jobs. The war opened up new opportunities for women, although they were put into less paying jobs when the war was over they were still grateful for the new opportunities they had been given. In 1914 the population of working women was 23.6% but this number increased to between 37.7% and 46.7% in 1918 (Striking Women, 2012).

Women’s rights have evolved over time; beginning with being homemakers and evolving to obtaining professions, acquiring an education, and gaining the right to vote. The movement that created all these revolutionary changes was called the feminist movement. The feminist movement occurred in the twentieth century. Many people are not aware of the purpose of the feminist movement. The movement was political and social and it sought to set up equality for women. Women’s groups in the United States worked together to win women’s suffrage and later to create and support the Equal Rights Amendment. The economic boom between 1917 and the early 1960s brought many American women into the workplace. As women began to join

The changing roles of women throughout history has been drastic, and none more so than the period during and after World War II. The irrevocable changes that occurred once the war started and women went to work were unprecedented.

For decades, women struggled to gain their suffrage, or right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement started in the decades before the Civil War, and eventually accomplished its goal in the year of 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified into the U.S. Constitution. After the U.S. Civil War, the women’s suffrage movement gained popularity and challenged traditional values and sexism in the country; the increase of progressive social values benefited the women suffragists by allowing them to succeed in passing the 19th Amendment which changed the role of women in society, guaranteed them a voice in politics, and encouraged future generations to struggle for women’s equal rights.

The feminist movement of the 1960’s focused solely on the improvement and well- being of women. The idea of Feminism is a critical theory as it is an analytical examination of social conditions and what tools could be utilized to proactively improve these conditions. Overcoming the consistent barriers women had to endure during this era remains prevalent and continues to have psychological effects. In order to strengthen one’s mindset regarding feminism, we must first refer back and understand the intellectual history of the women’s movement and examine areas of how counseling can assist with overcoming these impediments. The Feminist philosophy is the philosophical dimension of intellectual feminism. Many philosophers understand their intellectual history and the history of the women's movement in terms of three "waves."

Until 1920s things changed quickly, the women was given the right to vote, they began to attend college. The Equal Rights Amendment was proposed in 1923. The World War I was over and men wanted their jobs back. Women, though, who had taken up men’s jobs while they were at war, had proved themselves worthy of men’s jobs, so many organizations and feminist reformers took up the task to encourage gender equality.

During world war two, woman were given many opportunities that they hadn’t had before. While most men were overseas fighting in the war, Women were encouraged to take up jobs that had been vacated by men. This was an unprecedented era which saw more women enter the workforce than any other time in history. Their role during the

America’s involvement in World War II created significant opportunities for American women on the home front. At the same time, it stirred conflict in the gender roles of Women during wartime. One of the main issues that dominated women’s lives during the war was balancing the role at home, with the new pressures placed on them due to the war economy. In most cases, the strides made regarding women’s rights during World War II were misleading, as policy makers used the female workforce for short-term assistance only. American Women faced varying experiences of life during World War II due to factors such as ethnicity and class largely affected the social implications of war. Nevertheless, the advances made by women during this time frame began a movement that would soon give empowerment to women throughout the country, inspiring independence and personal growth through the ways of unions, employment, and a change in traditional gender roles.

Social and economic inequality between men and women is still an issue discussed today. When women were first allowed into ‘men’s’ jobs during World War II its opened social barriers, however the change in gender roles was only temporary, and women faced discrimination. Despite the inequalities they faced, women were able to experience a sense of responsibility outside of the home, and pride for their country. The different gender roles between men and women, and the governments acceptance of women in the workplace created a sense of responsibility for their country during World War II, caused by the reaction of men towards the women who joined the workforce despite the detriments and inequality the women faced the loyalty remained.

The women’s rights movement was a huge turning point for women because they had succeeded in the altering of their status as a group and changing their lives of countless men and women. Gender, Ideology, and Historical Change: Explaining the Women’s Movement was a great chapter because it explained and analyzed the change and causes of the women’s movement. Elaine Tyler May’s essay, Cold War Ideology and the Rise of Feminism and Women’s Liberation and Sixties Radicalism by Alice Echols both gave important but different opinions and ideas about the women’s movement. Also, the primary sources reflect a number of economic, cultural, political, and demographic influences on the women’s movement. This chapter

Throughout the decades of 1930s through the 1960s, there were many changes happening to women. Women today are fighting for abortion, equal wages, jobs in congress, and many more similar rights. The progressive era was when the fight for these rights began. It started with a group of men and women who collaborated in Seneca Falls, New York to fight for women’s rights movement. During this time, no other public meeting had occurred, but the movement continued to grow. Susan B. Anthony, strong and outspoken advocate of women's rights, pushed for the inclusion of women’s and African-American male vote in the 14th amendment. This was the start of a large change through women’s history.

First, The 1920's were the time of change for women. Women began to work during WWII, while the men went to war. “Although this wartime employment of women did not have as dramatic an impact as it later would in World War II, and although most female wartime workers were not able to continue their jobs following demobilization, the phenomenon nevertheless paved the way for a greater acceptance of middle-class, single—and, to a lesser extent, married (but childless)—women working for pay.

As more men entered the armed forces, women needed to replace them. By the war's end, hundreds of thousands of women had entered the workforce, many of them in traditionally masculine occupations such as engineering, munitions, transport, business, and eventually even the military. The war produced a leap in women's employment from twenty-six percent in the workforce in 1914 to thirty-six percent by 1918. One million women worked in munition industries, forty-thousand served as nurses, and twenty-thousand joined the Women's Land Army as agricultural workers (Marwick, 1977). For the young and the middle-class, work outside their homes was indeed a new experience. On the other hand, working-class women were used to paid work, but the type of work was new. Many left low-skill, low-wage jobs, especially in domestic service, for better paying skilled labor in factories and workshops (Kent, 1993).

The women’s movement began in the nineteenth century when groups of women began to speak out against the feeling of separation, inequality, and limits that seemed to be placed on women because of their sex (Debois 18). By combining two aspects of the past, ante-bellum reform politics and the anti-slavery movement, women were able to gain knowledge of leadership on how to deal with the Women’s Right Movement and with this knowledge led the way to transform women’s social standing (Dubois 23). Similarly, the movement that made the largest impact on American societies of the 1960’s and 1970’s was the Civil Right Movement, which in turn affected the women’s movement (Freeman 513). According to