Feminism in the 1950's 60's

Feminism In the 1950’s and 60’s

The Feminine Mystique Women’s rights in the 50’s and 60’s were growing increasingly more debated. Many call this period of time the second wave of feminism, and something that started that largely was the publishing of The Feminine Mystique. The Feminine Mystique was a book written

by Betty Friedan. It was published in 1963, and the impact it made on the public was none too shallow.

Betty Friedan was a women’s rights activist and leader. She was inspired to write her book after taking a poll of her Smith classmates and seeing that most of them weren’t happy with the life they were living as a suburban housewife. She conducted research for five more years following this and finally ended with A picture of her book, The Feminine Mystique

the writing of her book. The Feminine Mystique is a book about women shifting away from their role of only being the nanny and housekeeper, to wanting to do more with their lives.

She originally intended for the book to be a short article, but no newspaper would publish it, Many critiqued Friedan’s decision to work with men during the process of writing her book, and for only focusing on white-middle aged women but in the end her book was written and was one of the most influential books written on the topic.

Friedan went on to write more books and articles on the topic throughout her life. She also founded many

Betty Friedan

women's rights organizations, such as the National Organization for Women in 1966, and the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971.

Second-Wave Feminism It is largely said that the beginnings of the second wave of feminism came as a result of The Feminine Mystique- a book written by Betty Friedan. The SecondWave of feminism is a term used to describe the new vigor for women to have equal rights with men, mostly focusing on living treatment instead of legal treatment.

Women protesting for equal pay

Women protesting for liberation

It started in the early 1960’s resulting from the treatment of women after the end of the Second World War. During the war, women took over many jobs usually kept by men, and were largely started to be treated more equal. Once all the men returned and took their jobs back, women were expected to resume their role as a housewife only caring for her husband and children.

During the 50’s and 60’s, women couldn't do a lot of

the things men could. They couldn’t have a share of any of their husbands property and weren’t in control of money or earnings. Women weren’t allowed to have a birth control pill, they couldn’t go to an Ivy League school, and they didn’t have equal rights in the workplace. Women could not even divorce their Betty Friedan at a protest husbands without a fault on the husband’s part to be brought to court.

One of the first main points feminists worked on was to demolish inequality in the workplace. There were many laws in place keeping women from working certain jobs because of supposed restrictions their bodies put on them. The movement grew with legal victories such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court ruling of 1965. In 1966 Friedan joined other women and men to found the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Birth Control In the 1950s and 60s In the 1950’s women married very young. From the 40’s to the 60’s birth rate in America doubled.

Many women used birth control, but some groups such as Roman Catholics did not approve of it.

Families of the girls who used birth control normally were upset if they found out because many people did not support premarital sex. In the 1950’s it was said birth control was no longer a federal crime. With this new pill it gave women much more freedom in their choices and personal life. It also freed women of unwanted pregnancy.

A woman proudly holding a sign saying that she now has a choice

The picture on the left shows people protesting the right for women to be able to take birth control. The use of the pill by unmarried women began to start judgments, and many looked down on the women who used it. This was because it was implying that unmarried women were not only having sex but planning ahead for it.

When this was done by men, it was more normal and not a big deal. When women tried to have the same privileges as men they are seen as lesser and looked down upon by others. There was also the fact that in an unmarried relationship if the women did happen to get pregnant, she was left with the responsibility whereas the man was left with none. When the birth control pill came out women for the first time had the choice to control their pregnancy.

Margaret Sanger In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill.

Two feminists, Katharine McCormick and Margaret Sanger, began researching the effectiveness and safety of birth control. After getting the pill approved, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 and continued to fight for women's rights her entire life.

Once birth control was legalized it changed society. Attitudes towards women Protesters

being sexually active before marriage relaxed and television started pushing boundaries and having new ratings. The “Sexual Revolution� spread across America in mass numbers.

Rosa Parks On December 1st, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, a young African American lady refused to give up her seat to a white person. She was sitting in the proper section, the colored section, but the white section filled up and the bus driver moved the sign, indicating the colored section, behind Rosa, asking her and three others to move back and let the whites sit. Three of them moved but she didn’t. She refused both the bus drivers and the passenger’s orders to Rosa Parks

move. The bus driver asked, “Why don’t you stand up?” Rosa replied, “I don’t think I should stand up”.

The bus driver threatened a call to the police and Rosa responded with, “You do that”. So he did.

She was forcefully removed from the bus and arrested. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I Rosa Parks Mug Shot don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest.” Parks was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code, although technically she had not taken a white-only seat; she had been in a colored section. Edgar Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Pullman Porters Union, and her friend Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the next evening.

“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I Rosa Parks on the bus

was, was tired of giving in”, said Parks in her autobiography. Her movement was known as “The Mother of Civil Rights movements”. There were others that also were arrested for not giving up their seat, but the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) believed she was the best one to go to court. In her final years, she suffered from dementia. Parks received national recognition, including the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall.

The Little Rock Nine

Little Rock Nine going to school

In 1957 a group of African American students were enrolled in a previously all-white school, Little Rock Central High School. The group consisted of nine students, Ernest Green, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beal. The idea of desegregating

schools was originally proposed by a school superintendent, Virgil Blossom. The original proposal was an attempt to quickly merge all the students in all grades, that idea was scraped. It was replaced with another that would integrate one school, that obviously being Little Rock Central. If that went well they would progressively open the opportunity to other schools and Junior Highs. The plan caught the attention of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) but there were some alterations that the school board thought would be better. They said; there were boundaries between the districts. The African Americans that lived closer to Central would be placed in a farther away school, Horace Mann High, so they could keep the impact of the desegregation to a minimal. The alterations didn’t set well with the NAACP and they filed a lawsuit in 1956.

In 1957 the NAACP enrolled a group of specifically selected students to enroll at

Arkansas National Guard making path for students

Little Rock Central. They were selected by excellent grades and attendance in their previous years. The nine were warned of the segregation and harm, both physical and mental, they could possibly receive. The enrollment of them didn’t set well for others and they tried to block the students from getting into the school. The Arkansas National Guard was deployed to make a path for students. They were in danger and members of the 101st Airborne Division were sent out by President Eisenhower. They protected the students and were their escort. The students had a hard time but they made it through the tough couple of years. Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate high school. The entirety of the Little Rock nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Metal

by President Bill Clinton.

Women’s Involvement in Music Lesley Gore was only a teenager when she hit #2 on the billboards with her feminist anthem, “You Don’t Own Me.” Today, the song is credited as one of the factors sparking the 2nd wave feminist movement that occurred during the 1960s.

“As I got older, feminism became more a part of my life and more a part of our whole awareness, and I could see why people would use it as a feminist anthem. I don’t care what age you are — whether you’re 16 or 116 — there’s nothing more wonderful than standing on the stage and shaking your finger and singing, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ ” (x) Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me As rock & roll exploded in the 1950s, women’s success in music declined. Previously, ballad singing was popular for women but soon became outdated as acts like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry hit the stage. Between 1940 and 1955, nine female musicians and groups were featured on the Billboard Top 40 (such as Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney) but that number soon declined to only six in the following times (including Aretha Franklin, Brenda Lee, and the Supremes). (x)

African American Women in Music While women’s opportunities and fame as a whole declined in music, the opportunities given to African American women in music grew much greater. Before 1955, all of those women in Billboard’s Top 40 were white. This later changed with the popularity of music like

that of Aretha Franklin and the Supremes. Even female gospel and blues singers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe grew in popularity. (x)

Aretha herself became a symbol for civil rights and second wave feminism in the 1960s with her mega-hits like Respect (1967) and Chain of Fools (1968). (x) Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools

Sister Rosetta Tharpe Sister Rosetta Tharpe - That's All

Gloria Steinem Gloria Steinem is a radical feminist well known for her work for making women’s rights equal to men. She was a spokeswoman for the feminist movement during the 1950s and 1960s. She was a part of the second-wave feminism movement which focused on sexuality, the workplace, office inequalities, whereas the first-wave feminism movement focused on gender equalities with the law.

In 1969 Steinem published the article “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” which brought her to a national level of fame.

“After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” is an article about how Gloria Steinem women are fighting for their equality just as much as black people did.

In her article she talks about a student run Liberation School that offered a course about women being an oppressed class. In this course, discussions were shared about the similar myths about women and black people, including how they both have smaller brains than white men, childlike natures, etc. This information is important because it shows how they were both looked down upon.

Early on in her journalism career, Steinem auditioned to be a playboy bunny for an article she was writing. In this article she talked about the not-so glamourous life of

being a ‘Bunny’ and the demands that were put on them. In an interview she explains how this slowed down her career because she was a ‘Bunny’ and it didn’t matter the quality of her work. She also states that she is proud that she exploited the working conditions of Playboy Bunnies.

Protesters

Steinem also campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment. In her testimony she stated why the Equal Rights Amendment is needed.

She talked about the injustices committed against women, and she named a few examples she has experienced, including being turned again from apartment rentals, being refused service in public restaurants, and told to leave at public gathering places just because she is a women. Among other things, this isn’t the worst of what many women had to deal with. She also talked about how women excel in careers that are not dominated by men, and also how women do not excel in careers when men have the higher authority. Steinem was a key role in women’s civil rights during the 1950s and 60s.

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