Clarifying question [All notes you take need to help you answer the following question] Your response to the question above should reference at least 3- 5 specific examples from the historical content contained within this PPT presentation. For added information feel free to expand your base of information from the internet but please use the specific people, places and events found here.

Origins in the 1880s that moved into the 1950s-1970s The U.S. Feminist Movement Michael Quiñones, NBCT

 Women in the United States have been extremely influential in the development of social policy.  Although the rights of women have been stifled during certain periods of U.S. History several key figures have effected change.  Abigail Adams,the wife of John Adams [2 nd U.S. President], enjoyed the respect and admiration of several early U.S. policy makers [J. Adams, Jefferson and Washington].  Adams expressed many views considered very controversial for her time: anti-slavery, wider women’s property rights and women’s suffrage.

The Feminist Movement: Some Origins The so-called Seneca Falls Convention held in upstate New York for two days in July of 1848 sought to secure for women many of the same rights Abigail Adams had espoused several decades earlier. Seneca Falls, New York was a mostly Quaker community that believed in expanding civil rights for various oppressed groups such as blacks and women. In fact, as a result of petitions drafted at Seneca Falls in 1848 state legislatures in Pennsylvania and New York passed women’s property rights laws protecting property before and during marriage. Over the 2 days many influential figures addressed the convention including the famous ex-slave Frederick Douglass who favored full civil rights for American women [particularly suffrage]. Quaker, Lucretia Mott, feared that demanding women’s suffrage would be considered too drastic and undermine the entire movement for women’s quality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist and non-Quaker realist, advocated for and succeeded in having a suffrage requirement included into what became known as the Declaration of Sentiments, a document drafted and signed by over 1/3 of the convention’s attendees.

The Feminist Movement: Some Origins A major social issue that concerned many American women was the use of alcoholic beverages. Tired of witnessing the devastation alcohol wrought on families a ban or prohibition of the manufacture, possession and consumption of alcohol was sought. Rural men were especially prone to alcoholism because of isolation and depression. Domestic violence on women was also a problem related to alcohol. Christian women religious groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union [WCTU] were most active in trying to have alcohol legally banned. Eventually states began to prohibit alcohol culminating in the 18 th Amendment in 1919 which banned manufacture, possession and consumption of alcohol [except for religious purposes such as communion].

 As a direct result of gains in women’s rights a renewed Women’s movement became known as Feminism emerging in the 1960s lasting into the 1970s.  Feminism-a set of beliefs that demands equal political, social and economic rights for women.  President John F. Kennedy established a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women led by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in  The Commission investigated claims of discrimination in the workforce, schools and public places and reported many instances to support claims made by various feminist activists such as Betty Friedan who authored the Feminine Mystique based on her interviews with dissatisfied women across the U.S.

The Feminist Movement: Legislation  As a result of political attention to problems related to discrimination of women in the public and private workforce several laws were passed to create measures of equality.  The Equal Pay Act of 1963 outlawed wage disparities based solely on gender.  The next year, as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII of the law forbade workplace discrimination and Title IX of the same forbade discrimination in school admissions and athletics.

 Emboldened by legal advances the Feminist movement pushed forward under the leadership of Betty Friedan’s National Organization of Women [N.O.W.].  N.O.W. sought to expand women’s reproductive rights with the repeal of state abortion laws. In 1973 the controversial Roe vs. Wade case declared anti-abortion laws unconstitutional on the grounds they restricted privacy rights according to the 4 th Amendment.  Prominent members of N.O.W. advanced the feminist cause in publications, most notably, Ms. Magazine [co- founded by noted feminist Gloria Steinem] that touted so-called Women’s Liberation [Women’s Lib] to be realized immediately.  Another of the feminist movement’s greatest achievements was its support of Shirley Chisholm who in 1972 became both the first Democratic woman and black major party candidate for President of the United States

 N.O.W. and other feminist groups sought ultimate validation of gender equality with a constitutional amendment.  In 1970 the Equal Rights Amendment [E.R.A.] began its journey through Congress finally passing both houses in  Ironically there were many vocal critics of the E.R.A., including Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative constitutional lawyer from Missouri and opponent of the E.R.A. who believed women would be subject to the military draft and men’s jobs.  The amendment was sent to the states for ratification but despite repeated attempts to gain passage only 35 of the 38 states needed ratified.

Reexamining the Clarifying question [All notes you take need to help you answer the following question] Your response to the question above should reference at least 3- 5 specific examples from the historical content contained within this PPT presentation. For added information feel free to expand your base of information from the internet but please use the specific people, places and events found here.

 Extend your learning by writing an evidence based narrative about the Feminist movement.  Use one of the specific historical people, events or issues mentioned in this PPT presentation to write a first person narrative explaining your experience as a woman in the United States that has suffered discrimination.  Your narrative must contain as its foundation specific historical examples from this presentation and any enhancement from internet research you conduct.  Whether you are male or female this narrative must be written from the female perspective.