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Feminism DBQ

Explain the causes and consequences of the rise of a women’s rights movement in the period 1940–1975.

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Anushka Nayak
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231 views

Feminism DBQ

Explain the causes and consequences of the rise of a women’s rights movement in the period 1940–1975.

Uploaded by

Anushka Nayak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Explain the causes and consequences of the rise of a women’s rights movement in the period

1940–1975.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, finally granting American
women the right to vote after decades of struggle. Yet, this did not change the idea of “seperate
spheres” for men and women, with longstanding cultural notions of women as in charge of
domestic services were still prevalent throughout the country, especially during the post World War
II era when women were encouraged to relinquish their jobs and return to being homemakers for
returning war veterans. But many women no longer wanted to return to a life of suburban
conformity, as their experiences in the workforce during WWII and with facing employment
discrimination, as well as the influence of other civil rights movements, a women’s rights movement
rose once again in the period of 1940-1975, ultimately leading to rejection of the traditional gender
roles, although the not all groups of women could reap the rewards of these efforts.
The rising number of women in the workforce, as well as their experiences in the work force
was a key driving force of the rights movement. The increased employment rates of women during
WWII was a main cause in shifting the American public’s opinion on the role of women, as for the
first time, the government supported women joining the workforce to support defense industries. A
war propaganda poster (Document 1), which expresses the opinion of the federal government and
Office of Public Information, displays how even secretarial work was considered important to the
country’s war effort, saying “Uncle Sam needs stenographers!” As such, for the first time, the idea
of separate spheres was somewhat broken down, causing cultural ideas to shift about what women
were capable of. However, as explained by Betty Freidan in Document 2, another major driving
force of the rights movement was the prevalence of economic discrimination against women in the
workforce, as “Wage discrimination against women workers exists in every industry where women
are employed.” As a pro-union, pro women’s rights activist who would later write the Feminine
Mystique, Freidan aimed to draw attention to unequal treatment of women in the workforce, hinting
that a change needed to be made. Friedan also had a hand in founding the National Organization
for Women, which adopted the activist tactics of other civil rights movements to secure the equal
treatment for women, especially following the Equal Pay of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibited discrimination on the measures of gender but were poorly enforced. These facets
of the movement developed due to the greater number of women in the workforce and inequities in
job opportunities.
The result of the women’s empowerment movement caused a shift in what was considered
the traditional women, as more Americans seemed to reject it. The New York Radical Women
rejected the idea of a Miss America beauty pageant, symbolising the traditional, sexualised idea of
a female object, with their press release on Document 3, and the movement led to an increasingly
growing sexual revolution, with greater advocacy for reproductive rights and contraception. The
landmark case Roe vs Wade legalised abortion for women, which prior to the movement, would
have been unthinkable in the image of of the traditional homemaker, and more and more women
supported this effort, as seen in Document 5. However, not all women were able to access these
achievements, as stated by Mirta Vidal (document 4), who argues that Chicano females are told to
“stay away from women’s liberation because it is an ‘Anglo’ thing.” Many would say that feminism
was only available to middle class white women. Additionally, the protest shown in Document 5
was occurring after the decision of Roe v Wade, as the these facilities were not made available to
all women in all states.
As such, the large causes of the resurgence of the women’s rights movements was the
prevalence of women in the workforce and the influence of other movements, which caused a
great change in how America viewed women, although some would argue that this change was
only for middle class white women.

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