Women's & Gender Studies

In the late 1960s the women’s movement gave rise to a reproductive rights movement whose goals encompassed legalizing abortion, promoting easier and safer contraception, and fighting racist and classist birth-control programs. The vibrancy and successes of that reproductive rights movement, as well as its broad attack on traditional gender roles, stimulated the backlash politics of the New Right.

The National Organization of Women made ratification of the ERA central to its mission, and, together with other interests, it undertook a major effort during the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in the passage of the ERA by Congress in 1972. However, , it failed to be ratified by sufficient states by the stipulated deadline of July 1982.

Sexual discrimination involves treating someone differently, usually less favourably, because of his or her gender.

In law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes.

From Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
The specific concerns of lesbians came to the fore as part of a broader challenge against sexism. Betty Friedan called lesbians a “lavender menace” that threatened to taint the reputation of the feminist movement, driving women away out of fear of association and diverting attention from more-important campaigns for women’s equality.

From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 makes it illegal for private employers to have different rates of pay for women and men doing the same work. It was the first federal law to address sex discrimination.

From The Reader's Companion to US Women's History
Before passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in October 1974, most women had difficulty obtaining credit without a male cosigner. In the 1960s, as women increasingly entered the work force, they demanded individual access to consumer credit.

From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits institutions receiving federal funds from practicing gender discrimination in educational programs or activities. It was the first comprehensive federal law to prohibit sex discrimination against students and employees in these institutions.

Case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes.

From From Suffrage to Senate: America's Political Women
In Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the first equal pay case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court found that Corning Glass Works’ pay policies violated the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by paying a higher base wage to male night shift inspectors than it paid to female inspectors performing the same tasks on the day shift.

Writer and feminist leader; As a result of surveys of female college graduates, she came to identify certain problems that women were experiencing in their lives.

“Red Emma,” the archetypal anarchist rebel best known for her defense of individual freedom and the rights of workers, became one of the most reviled women of her time. Much was made of Goldman’s perceived “infamy” as a female political firebrand and her many colorful affairs as an advocate of free love.

Birth control advocate; She moved to New York City (1912) where she became active in the women’s labour movement and the Socialist Party. She concluded that control over childbearing was the key to female emancipation, and was appalled by women’s ignorance of contraception, which she experienced first-hand working as a practical nurse in New York City (1912).

Gloria Steinem was famous for her wit and incisive commentaries on women’s rights, her invention of the neutral term Ms. for single women, and her critiques of the family and gender roles.