When my parents were my age, it was truly a time of civic engagement. Many issues found themselves in the spotlight for American youth. The Vietnam War, black rights, gay rights, women's rights, etc.-- all of these got many young people and older people alike fired up and working toward making positive change in the 60's and 70's. One of the most successful at the time, though, was the women's rights and liberation movement. This period of feminist activism has been given the name of Second Wave Feminism, the successor to First Wave Feminism. Whereas First Wave Feminism focused on issues such as suffrage and simple equality under the law, Second Wave Feminism was concerned with reproductive rights (such as contraceptive access and abortion rights), sexuality, sexism in the workplace, and domestic violence, to give you an idea. Most scholars seem to agree that the ultimate goal of the movement was the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
The movement came at a very opportune time. The Civil Rights Movement and the growing Anti-War sentiment made protesting a very effective strategy of being heard, and also unified activists who fought for a particular cause to begin fighting for and helping out other causes of the time. But they also fought very hard within the legal and political system for change. Women's groups and coalitions, such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), rallied women and took the fight to congress, lobbying for the changes they wanted to see take place. The movement was very successful in a very short amount of time. While the ERA was never ratified, a whole bunch of feminist changes took place that propelled second wave feminism to the mainstream. Some of theses changes were legal in nature, among them the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, making abortion a woman's legal right, Title IX, which guaranteed equality in education, and much more. Other changes simply took place in the minds of your ordinary American. Women began to be accepted as a normal and even necessary part of any workplace, even in fields typically dominated by men. The traditional idea of the "nuclear family" and fairly rigid gender roles was relegated to the backseat. Women could feel free to pursue their own educations and careers. In general the movement's goal was for women's liberation in all walks of life.
The movement was successful for a number of reasons. The post WWII economic boom meant that women were entering the workforce at very high rates. Their presence in the workplace then helped to normalize the idea of a working woman to those who otherwise might have clung on to their traditional idea of a woman as a homemaker. Moreover, the development of a simple oral contraceptive pill is credited with launching women's liberation forward. Women could spend time getting an education and moving forward in their careers without the worry of becoming pregnant and having to take lots of time off or quitting what they were doing. The pill also catalyzed sexual liberation, as one can imagine. Just as men had been doing forever, women could now be sexually active if they wanted to, without many consequences. Another reason the movement was successful is its focus on the issues of domestic violence and rape, including marital rape. These are issues that many women had experienced and continue to experience, so the inclusion of these issues and the support for things like rape crisis hotlines, battered women's shelters, and women's health clinics garnered a lot of support from women of all walks of life.
Although the ERA has still never been fully ratified, the time of second wave feminism is no longer upon us. We can learn a lot, however, from the movement, its successes, and its failures. For instance, one big takeaway is that the timing and greater sociopolitical context of a movement has as much to do with its success as the actual organization and work of the movement, it seems. Had there not been the need for women to enter the workforce, for example, the shift toward equality in the workplace would never have happened so quickly, as the resistance from men and the stigma would have lived on. Some could argue that if the pill and reliable, easy contraceptives had never been developed, women's liberation would have been on a much slower trajectory. On the other hand, this movement teaches us that unifying people, across lines of race, nationality, class, even gender, is vital for accumulating support and working toward positive change. And in today's society of both great division and great inequality, this is perhaps the most important thing for us to realize.
https://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/news-events/four-waves-feminism
https://tavaana.org/en/content/1960s-70s-american-feminist-movement-breaking-down-barriers-women
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/living/the-seventies-feminism-womens-lib/
http://people.howstuffworks.com/feminism4.htm
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