The impact of the 1960s on the women's liberation in the US (original) (raw)

The paper analyzes the impact of the crucial events that occurred in the 1960s in the US on the liberation of American women. First, the situation of women after the Second World War in the US and the revolutionary climate of the 1960.s are described briefly as a background to the discussion of the events that triggered the significant improvement in the position of women. The essay deals with the publishing of "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan, changes in law, public activity of American women, introduction of birth control pill, highlighting their influence on women's emancipation in the US. Finally, conclusions are drawn that the Second Wave Feminism, as this period in fight for women's rights is called, brought actual freedom to American women and further changes in the mentality which we experience till today.

Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique (1963): a Feminist Political Debate

This contribution wants to retrace American feminist Betty Friedan’s fascinating biography and controversial reflection, adopting as focal point the book which allowed her to become a strong reference for the Liberal Women's Rights Movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and at the same time made her an extremely discussed and criticized public figure within the new Radical Feminist Reflection: The Feminine Mystique (1964). This brilliant work was able to bring to light the famous “problem that has no name”, the sense of frustration and incompleteness lived in ‘50s by many American middle-class women, placed in name of their docile and uncompetitive femininity within the domestic sphere of suburban reality, in order to ensure political and social stability to the so-called “American way of life”. Can we really affirm that Betty Friedan has consciously removed part of her young radical engagement – as historian Daniel Horowitz affirmed in his Friedan’s provocative biography of 1998 – to embrace a more comfortable liberal feminist discourse? Can we actually consider The Feminine Mystique «the revolutionary manifesto of women's liberation», as it was by many defined? Is Friedan’s liberal analysis – aimed to examine the status of white heterosexual middle-class and educated American women – based on a primary exclusion according to class, race and sexual orientation? I will move from these still open questions to reconstruct the political debate which arose around Friedan’s work and her later commitment within the National Organization for Women (NOW), with a particular emphasis on the main criticisms to the structural limits of her political vision.

Feminist History of Periods of "Stagnation": Women's Movement in the 1950s

This paper will focus on a period of women's movement that is generally regarded as a period of silence, stagnancy if not regression by feminist historians in Turkey; the 1950s. 1935 is taken as the beginning date of the period of stagnation as the young Republic forced the Turkish Women's Union to close down in that year. The period from 1935 to 1980s-when " second wave " feminism emerged-is usually discussed in one or two paragraphs and characterized with compromise, defeat and silence. Although cannot be characterized as a period of feminist heroism, the 1950s has been a lively period for women's movement. With the relative democratization brought by the multi-party system, women started to form new associations and struggled for their rights although in more compromising ways. They struggled for more representation at the parliamentarian level, struggled for the rights of working women, raised their voices against discrimination and violence. While doing these they reproduced a discourse of " true womanhood " who would be a hardworking patriotic mother. The paper deals with the question of what we seek in feminist history. If we stop looking for heroic grandmothers, we will start seeing the ruptures as well as continuities of women's movements in different periods whether they are regarded as feminist waves or periods of silence. We aim to reconsider the 1950s with this perspective.

Reflections on Twentieth-Century American Women's History (1)

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Vol-II * Issue-XII* Women Empowerment and the Rise of Feminism

2016

Feminism is an ideology which seeks not only to understand the world but to change it to the advantages of women. It aims at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women. Feminism focuses on the marginalisation of women and how they are being relegated to a secondary position. Most feminists believe that our culture is a patriarchal culture and it is organised in favour of the interests of men. Feminist literary critics try to explain how power imbalances due to gender in a given culture are reflected in or challenged by literary texts. Feminism is a movement for the empowerment of women. It is a social movement which redresses the gender imbalance in society. Aim of the Study The aim of the study is to find a connection between women empowerment and the movement of feminism. Being popularised in the early twentieth century, feminism struggles for securing women"s suffrage and the later socio-political movement for women"s eman...

THE ADVENT OF FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN EUROPE AND AMERICA AND ITS IMPACTS ON THE FEMINIST SOCIETY 19th 20th 21st century

Academia.edu, 2024

Feminism as the name indicates is a feminine issue which has being on the day to day discussed in the international scene. This movement generated from a lot of bend down grudges coming from the female gender over time and space relating to the kind of treatment they face in the society from the opposite sex either in the social domain, political or economic domain they have posed their enormous grievances in all of the above mention domains. Note should however be taken that as a woman movement it has gone across international boundaries seeking to create influence in the world at large and to a greater extend it has built good foundations to fight for the rights of women. One of the first and most dedicated feminist was Mary Wollstonecraft from the United Kingdom who wrote her book the "vindication of the rights of women" in which she immensely argued for the right of a girl child or women to education in 1792. This study therefore seeks to investigate the different waves starting from the background feminism and moving forward to the feminist movement in the world with specificity on the United States of America and United Kingdom. Not forgetting to take a look at the impacts of this movement to the feminist society in the above mention nations both in Europe and in the US.

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