The Women's Liberation Movement In The United States

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.

Over a hundred years ago, one event created chaos among gender roles and here are some of the initial factors of how rights for women started as a predicament which later began to evolve into a much larger problem that involved many people around the nations. Over the course of history, many issues had change the world to what it has become today. Many problems led to social, economic, and other changes. One small event is able to cause more obstacles, which eventually leads to larger complications. Even though society had tried to resolve these issues, they still encountered many hardships that were disruptive to their own perspectives as also for other people within the community. Thus, this was an important issue because it had changed

With the advancement of suffrage to equal pay, over the last century, women’s rights have progressed immensely. Through historic marches and demonstrations across the United States, women protested for their equal place in politics and social progress. Despite the fear-mongering components used in achieving these rights, women’s rights are still thoroughly debated within society today. Over the last century, incredible and unreachable goals have been fulfilled for women, such as the right to vote and a sense of equal state in the “Free World,” and can only improve in the years to come.

The women’s liberation movement (or feminism as it is now known) of the 1960s and 1970s touched every home, business, and school (WA, 705). The movement even touched the sports and entertainment industries, in fact, “There are few areas of contemporary life untouched by feminism” (WA, 717). The word feminism in the early 1960’s wasn’t often used and when it was it was used with condescension or hatred. However, in the late sixties that changed thanks to a new group of women. This new diverse group of women included the: young, old, heterosexual, lesbians, working class, and even the privileged. This diverse group came together and collectively created the second wave of feminism.

The period 1940-1975 represented a time of trouble within the United States and overseas. As World War II ended in 1945, many Cold war conflicts erupted shortly after that, increasing social controversy among teenagers, minorities and especially women. During this time period, gender inequality was ongoing in many aspects of life. Women were tired of constantly staying home engaging in domestic activities and were dissatisfied in their roles as “housewives”. The rise of the women’s rights movement was spurred by the growth of women joining the workforce, resentment of being treated as inferior to men, and the rise of unity among women.

Reforms, they once spread across the growing America and tried to change things that people deemed wrong, or outdated. Reforms were movements, typically radical ones in nature, that aimed to create new rights for people that did not currently have any. They spanned centuries and many came into effect. Women's suffrage, the labor reform, and the immigration reform are three movements that still affect people today and have tremendously changed America from what it could have been.

Women were expected to marry at very early ages, usually between 17 and 20 and they were still to slave at home for their husbands and children. Women previously had fought for higher education, but suddenly they were going to college to meet a husband, or they were not going to college at all, as they feared higher education would make marriage more difficult (Friedan, 1963). Women were gladly conforming to these expectations as they all aimed to have four or five kids, live in a suburban neighborhood where they could kiss their husband goodbye as they left for work and they could cook and clean while their children were at school. Many women even turned down job opportunities and claimed it was because all they ever wanted was to be a housewife (Friedan, 1963). However, women slowly began to realize their conformity was not what they wanted for themselves at all. In the 1960’s, many housewives reported that they had felt there was no point in their day to day routines, they had felt depressed in their own homes without a clue why, and getting so angry with their children it scared them. These women were afraid to admit that they wanted more for themselves besides their husband and children (Friedan, 1963). However, women were able to fight this expectation through the sexual liberation movement. The women were empowered by this movement because it gave them more freedom to do what they wanted to

The major issues of the movement included the formation of antifeminist organizations, teenage pregnancy, and the legalization of abortion. Antifeminist organizations like the development of Happiness for Women (HOW) in 1971 believed in preserving traditional values of the family where the men were the provider, and the women were to be the housewife, mother, and homemaker. These members also believed in “God’s divine plan… removal of radical elements of Women’s Liberation Movement teachings from the schools… return to patriotism, and the election to government of men and women dedicated to God, Family, and the Country” (Day & Schiele, 2013, p. 351).

Over five decades have passed since the passage of the famous 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the end of institutionalized discrimination and racism. The Civil Rights Movement, in many ways was a great success for all African Americans and other “minorities” in the United States and around the world. Yet, when asked about this tremendously important period, most people – black and white of all academic backgrounds – will know only little about it. Most definitely, however, the people asked will know one name: Martin Luther King, Jr. Generally, as Fred Powledge puts it, “in the minds of untold numbers of Americans, for example, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the civil rights movement. Thought it up, led

The Women’s Rights Movement inspires me to write because it was a very memorable part of history that effected a large portion of the population. I feel very passionate that we have the partial equality now and even though this event happened from1848 to 1920 we are still struggling with some of the same equalities and stereotypes in today’s age. Not many people believe that even in the 21st century there are still women who only believe the women’s job is to cook and clean for the husband all day but they are. Since America has a lot of immigrants many of these women come to America and barley know anything of the culture here. When women can be independent from their husbands they learn that they do not need to remain in a loveless marriage

Since the mid-1800's, women in the United States and around the world have organized political movements to obtain the same social, economic, and political rights that men have traditionally enjoyed. These feminist movements have sought to change the laws to prevent discrimination against women and to provide them with equal opportunities in all aspects of life, including education, employment, and government representation.

Women's rights movement also flourished because of women's roles in industry supporting the united states during the war. Women began to move to industrial jobs making tanks, guns and other resources that helped the United States win the war. This in turn helped the women's right movement by increasing those who viewed women as part of society. These jobs had a range of options from coal mining (which was physically exerting) to chemists (a mentally challenging job).  In a glucose factory women would be expected to make the glucose and also go back to that lab, this job was both mental and physical.

Throughout history, Canada’s identity has changed in many ways and there have been many historical events that have greatly shaped and impacted Canada’s history and identity. The Women’s Movement and women’s contribution in the past and throughout history has had the greatest impact on shaping Canada into what it is today. Among many identifying qualities like being multicultural, bilingual, and world leaders, Canada is also country that has changed immensely in the way of becoming a country that has learned to accept women, move towards providing them with equal opportunities and treating them equally. Through economic, social and political movements and actions, the contribution from women and the women’s movement have increased, changed and improved women’s rights and equality greatly. Women worked to create independence and equality economically through their contributions to war on the homefront in WWI resulting in greater workplace equality, socially through the actions of the Flappers in the 1920’s giving women currently, the confidence and strength that they need to speak up, and politically, through the work of the Suffragists including the Famous 5 to allow women to have the same political rights as men.

Marxist feminism is a sub-category of the larger feminist theory; this kind of feminism is primarily attentive to explaining how women are oppressed through capitalist systems and the emergence of the concept of private property. According to Marxist feminists, women's true emancipation, all over the world, can only be achieved through a fundamental reorganization of the capitalist economy that does not fairly compensate women's labor. Additionally, Marxist feminists do criticize Marx for what they think was his partial analysis of sexism under capitalism and total indifference to gender imbalance. However, they do not dismiss the basic Marxist fundamentals.

The Women’s Liberation Movement greatly impacted Australia and the United States throughout the 60’s and 70’s carrying on to the 90’s. Without the Women’s Liberation Movement women wouldn’t have received changes in laws primarily regarding employment impacting on them moving forward in terms of equal opportunities. However there is still a there is still process to be made concerning employment and social roles for women to have equal rights as men. The Women’s Liberation Movement started in the 60’s during the second wave of feminism. Even though the 70’s were a time of change, both Australia and the United States saw women remaining in low status roles and staying primarily in the domestic sphere. The 90’s however saw a dramatic change in the amount of women employed and working more so in the domestic sphere.