Prologue to a social movement
In the aftermath of
World War II
, the lives of women in developed countries changed dramatically. Household technology eased the burdens of homemaking, life expectancies increased dramatically, and the growth of the
service sector
opened up thousands of jobs not dependent on physical strength. Despite these socioeconomic transformations, cultural attitudes (especially concerning women’s work) and legal precedents still reinforced sexual inequalities. An
articulate
account of the oppressive effects of prevailing notions of femininity appeared in
Le Deuxieme Sexe
(1949;
The Second Sex
), by the French writer and philosopher
Simone de Beauvoir
. It became a worldwide
best seller
and raised feminist
consciousness
by stressing that liberation for women was liberation for men too.
The first public indication that change was
imminent
came with women’s reaction to the 1963 publication of
Betty Friedan
’s
The Feminine Mystique
. Friedan spoke of the problem that “lay buried, unspoken” in the mind of the suburban housewife: utter boredom and lack of fulfillment. Women who had been told that they had it all?nice houses, lovely children, responsible husbands?were deadened by domesticity, she said, and they were too socially conditioned to recognize their own desperation.
The Feminine Mystique
was an immediate best seller. Friedan had struck a chord.
Reformers and revolutionaries
Initially, women energized by Friedan’s book joined with government leaders and union representatives who had been lobbying the federal government for equal pay and for protection against employment
discrimination
. By June 1966 they had concluded that polite requests were insufficient. They would need their own national pressure group?a women’s equivalent of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). With this, the
National Organization for Women
(NOW) was born.
The organization was not an instant success. By the end of its second year, NOW had just 1,035 members and was racked by ideological divisions. When the group tried to write a Bill of Rights for Women, it found
consensus
on six measures essential to ensuring women’s equality: enforcement of laws banning employment discrimination; maternity leave rights; child-care centres that could enable mothers to work; tax deductions for child-care expenses; equal and unsegregated education; and equal job-training opportunities for poor women.
Two other measures stirred enormous controversy: one demanded immediate passage of the
Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA) to the
U.S. Constitution
(to ensure equality of rights, regardless of sex), and the other demanded greater access to
contraception
and
abortion
. When NOW threw its support behind passage of the ERA, the
United Auto Workers
union?which had been providing NOW with office space?withdrew its support, because the ERA would effectively prohibit protective labour legislation for women. When some NOW members called for
repeal
of all abortion laws, other members left the fledgling organization, convinced that this latest action would undermine their struggles against economic and legal discrimination.
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NOW’s membership was also siphoned off from the left. Impatient with a top-heavy traditional organization, activists in New York City, where half of NOW’s membership was located, walked out. Over the next two years, as NOW struggled to establish itself as a national organization, more radical women’s groups were formed by female antiwar,
civil rights
, and leftist activists who had grown disgusted by the
New Left
’s refusal to address women’s concerns. Ironically, sexist attitudes had pervaded 1960s radical politics, with some women being exploited or treated unequally within those movements. In 1964, for example, when a woman’s resolution was brought up at a Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) conference,
Stokely Carmichael
flippantly cut off all debate: “The only position for women in SNCC is prone.”
While NOW focused on issues of women’s rights, the more radical groups pursued the broader themes of women’s liberation. Although they lacked the kind of
coherent
national structure NOW had formed, liberation groups sprang up in Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, Detroit, and elsewhere. Suddenly, the women’s liberation movement was everywhere?and nowhere. It had no officers, no mailing address, no printed agenda. What it did have was attitude. In September 1968 activists converged on
Atlantic City
,
New Jersey
, to protest the image of womanhood conveyed by the
Miss America Pageant
. In February 1969 one of the most radical liberation groups, the
Redstockings, published its principles as “The Bitch Manifesto.” Based in
New York City
, the Redstockings penned the movement’s first analysis of the politics of housework, held the first public speak-out on abortion, and helped to develop the
concept
of “consciousness-raising” groups?rap sessions to unravel how
sexism
might have coloured their lives. The Redstockings also held speak-outs on
rape
to focus national attention on the problem of violence against women, including
domestic violence
.
Responding to these diverse interests, NOW called the Congress to Unite Women, which drew more than 500 feminists to New York City in November 1969. The meeting was meant to establish common ground between the radical and moderate wings of the women’s rights movement, but it was an impossible task. Well-dressed professionals convinced that women needed to reason with men could not unite with wild-haired radicals whose New Left experience had soured them on polite discourse with “the enemy.” NOW’s leadership seemed more comfortable lobbying politicians in Washington or corresponding with
NASA
about the exclusion of women from the astronaut program, while the young upstarts preferred disrupting legislative committee hearings. NOW leaders were looking for reform. The more radical women were plotting a revolution.