Essay about Women's Movement of 1960's

The first meeting to discuss women's rights took place in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. It was there that Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed equal suffrage for women. At that meeting, they drafted the Declaration of Sentiments which illustrated the oppression American women were facing. Although countless, courageous women would sustain this fight, it would be 1920, 72 years later, before Congress ratified the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote (Timeline of Women's Suffrage). The defining moment in this long battle occurred in 1917 when Carrie C. Catt gave her magnificent speech on women’s suffrage to Congress. Catt’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos, helped persuade Congress to pass the 19th amendment.

During the 1960s women were confined to one lifestyle, they were not acceptable in the public eye and were limited in their family lifestyle as well as the workplace. Women were expected to marry the traditional young marriage and then devote their time to raise the family and take care of their husband. Due to restriction women became activist and voiced their opinion to become equal in the workplace.

In her essay “The Importance of Work,” from The Feminine Mystique published in 1963, Betty Friedan confronts American women’s search for identity. Throughout the novel, Betty Friedan broke new ground by seeking the idea of women discovering personal fulfillment away from their original roles. She ponders on the idea of the Feminine Mystique as the cause for the majority of women during that time period to feel confined by their occupations around the house, restricting them from discovering who they are as women. Friedan’s novel is well known for creating a different kind of feminism and rousing various women across the nation.

The American women’s rights movement started in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention when 100 people, 32 male and 68 female signed the Declaration of Sentiments. The inequality was no longer acceptable. During the civil war, women began to fill the work, mainly

The Women's Rights Movement was a significant crusade for women that began in the late nineteenth century and flourished throughout Europe and the United States for the rest of the twentieth century. Advocates for women's rights initiated this movement as they yearned for equality and equal participation and representation in society. Throughout all of history, the jobs of women ranged from housewives to factory workers, yet oppression by society, particularly men, accompanied them in their everyday lives. Not until the end of the nineteenth century did women begin to voice their frustrations about the inequalities among men and women, and these new proclamations would be the basis for a society with opportunities starting to open for

Females across the nation started speaking out against gender inequality. Discrimination in areas such as the workplace, marriage, and government had become overwhelmingly obvious and women started fighting back (Banks 207). This uprising coincided with the Civil Rights Movement. During the same time, African-Americans were standing up against segregation and for racial equality. These two movements went hand-in-hand, as they both had similar motives. Both women and blacks were fighting against oppression in their own country, and they benefitted from each other’s successes. But it wasn’t strictly these two minority groups standing up for themselves during this time, as Mexicans and Native Americans joined the cause too. They also spoke out against inequality by hosting similar protests and demonstrations as the black and women’s rallies. This showed how the 1960’s were a popular time for minority groups to take a stand and make their voices heard, and women were only one of the many groups of people who rallied for change during that time.

The timeline of women’s suffrage is a one that spans from 1848 to 1920. The women’s rights movement in the United States started in the year 1848 with the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. During this convention the ‘Declaration of sentiments’ was signed by 68 women who agreed that women deserved their own political identities. This document set forward the agenda for the women’s rights movement. In the year 1869, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Women’s suffrage Association which demanded that the 15th amendment be changed to include women right to vote. In the year 1890, The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merged to form National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Colorado was the first state to grant women the right to vote in the year 1893, followed by Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New York, Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma. The National Association of Colored Women was formed in the year 1896 to promote the civil rights of colored women. The National Women’s Trade Union League was established in the year 1903 in order to improve the working condition for women and also to bring their wages in par with that of men.

During the American Revolutionary Era, women played essential roles in the defiance against Great Britain by boycotting British products and joining the non-consumption organization. During the American Revolution, women served as nurses, cooks, maids, seamstresses, some even secretly enlisted in the Continental Army. From 1825 to 1850, women were fighting for equal opportunities as men and women’s right to vote, the Reform Period. Women’s roles were similar during the American Revolutionary Era and the Reform Movement because during both periods, women contributed to the movements, by joining political protest. Their roles differed during the periods because women during the reform movements, created conventions geared towards women, exacting

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

Tuesday, November 2, 1920, the day women voted for the first time. The New York Times called it, “The greatest voting day in the city’s history.” It was a wonderful day for women all across the country. All of their hard work had finally paid off. The Women’s Rights Movement changed the way women were seen. Before the passage of the 19th Amendment, women in many states were not given the right to vote. The Women’s Rights movement was caused by many factors, greatly impacted the society of the early 1900s and changed American society forever.

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

Before the 1960s, American women were contained within a rut that hindered them from living equally among American men. According to Dixon (1977), women had been without a voice to articulate the injustice and brutality of women’s place and without instrumentality to fight against their exploitation and oppression for nearly forty years. However, “[from] the late 1960s into the 1980s there was a vibrant women’s movement in the United States” (Epstein, 2001). This movement, fueled by feminism, promised drastic improvement in the lives of American women and also promised to “[…] equalize the status of all women” (Dixon, 1977). Due to the uplifting wave of the 1970s women’s movement, females in America anxiously awaited the freedom to live as

In the beginning of the women’s movement, there were people who supported and who rejected. Narrated by Weatherford, on the 14th of July, 1848, the first convention about women’s rights was held in New York. This convention was made by a simple announcement to discuss “the social, civil, and religious rights of women.” Moreover, the women’s movement was started by a few farm women. The movement had faced a lot of difficulties because of opposing males and females as well. Also, some women had gathered Sundays morning to write the documents to form the agenda for American women. It took them seven decades to turn down and set those agendas (Weatherford, 1998, p. 1-26). Seventy years just to write the agenda for American women was a journey that

In ‘The Feminine Mystique’, Betty Friedan for the first time in history describes ‘the problem that has no name’ for American women in the 1950s to 1960s. It was the time just after World War II and men went back form the war frontier to their working positions, most of the American women went back to the kitchen rather than going out to work as they had during the war. They were identified by Friedan as ‘suburban housewives’ (Friedan, 1963:18), suffered from a common dissatisfaction of their lives, which is called ‘the problem that has no name’ or the ‘nameless aching dissatisfaction’ in the book. By analysing the essence of the problem combined with a quantity of real-life example and previous theories, the author defines the feminine mystique as the convention that women should become an ideal patriarchal woman in the society where men create women as capable housewives as well as gentle mothers. (Friedan, 1963:15-28)

Betty Friedan the author of the documentary article The Problem That Has No Name (1963), is a female author that discusses the way women feel trapped as housewives. Betty did many interviews about women and the problems they faced. Betty would interview many doctors and psychiatrists to support her evidence about the female role in society. Fifteen years after World War II, in the1950’s and 1960’s, women were taught by society and ads that they needed to be at home tending to the family and house. The age of women marrying got younger toward the end of the 1950’s, and even teens were starting to marry. Women would go to college to find their husbands, not wanting too much education, women would find side jobs to help fund putting their husbands through college. Planned Parenthood helped women to not have as many children as past generations. Women stayed at home cooking, cleaning, and taking the children to their activities. Being a suburban housewife was what young girls would dream about, but it wasn’t all fabulous and glam. Women would ask themselves is this all my life is? Not having satisfaction from the same day to day task got women thinking and wondering if they were to do more, be more, and were they able to have self-satisfaction. Women would visit psychologist thinking something was wrong with them when they were depressed and bored with the same task day in and day out. Women needed to listen to their inner voices and have fulfillment within themselves. (Friedan,