How Did The Position Of Women Change 1917-80? Flashcards
Eleanor Roosevelt
Chairwoman of charities/ invite BA to WH
Flown by Tuskegee airmen Red Tails
FDR needed Dixiecrat support
Civil Rights significant for women
Women get the vote
1920
20s is the start of women’s liberation
WW2
1939 War Outbreak
Go into war work
40s: more and more women enter the workplace
Kennedy and women
Set up Commission on the Status of a Women 1961
1963 Equal Pay Act
Women’s liberation movement
1961-80
60s saw more sexual freedom
NOW and FEW
National Organisation for Women
Federally Employed Women
Progress made by 1980
Normal for women to work
Social freedom
Sexual freedom, contraception
Involved in politics
How did the position of women change in the 20s?
1) 18th August 1920: women for the vote
2) even more freedom- small minority flappers
3) some remained employed following war work (typing pool)- many housewives
4) women’s Bureau of Labour
Impact of the depression on women
Effects due to class rather than gender
Unemployment, falling wages and rising prices
Women with husband kept jobs or looked for work to supplement
Widows took any work
1932 Bureau of Labour
97% of women working in slaughtering and meat packing worked as the only wage earner/ boost husbands wage
Women’s Bureau of Labour and general bureau
Largely ignore by General bureau of labour due to its focus- some thought it hindered progress
Women had limited hours (10)
Enormous migrant labour pool
Impact of the New Deal
Advisors understood immense pressure and burden of feeding a family
New Deal Aid for Families
Men came first in New Deal
Poorest families received help
Camps for women
Eg Camp Tera
Set up by Eleanor Roosevelt
1936:36 federally funded camps
Black women rejected due to racism, established Housewives League in Detroit
Impact of WW2 on women
Posters of women working ‘we can do it’
3million worked in agriculture in 1943
Coloured and BA women could work where previously banned yet some employers didn’t
Acts for women for the war
1940 Selective Training and Service Act: trained women for war and to take jobs
1941 Lanham Act’s childcare provision was extended and % of married women working rose
Suburban life
Part of building boom that made houses more affordable
Socially segregated and built similarly
Black Americans lived similarly, low cost suburbs near white to provide services
Achievements of the women’s lib movt 50s/ 60s
1958 Education Act
1963 Equal Pay Act
1964 Civil Rights Act, inc sexual equality
In reality, issues continued and girls were not encouraged into HE
Betty Friedan
Trained psychologist
1963 writes of suburban life constraints
Got women thinking of their rights
One of the founding members of NOW
Get equality by raising awareness and working steadily for change
Feminine Mystique
Young radicals
Predominantly under 30, white, middle class, college educated
Parallel to Black Civil Rights movt
Media focus more on them
Voice of all lib movt
Criticisms of young radicals
Easier for men to ridicule
Attracted opposition
Some objected to specifics of abortion and contraception
Conservatives: ‘unamericaness’
Phyllis Shlafy
Conservative who opposed ideas of women’s liberation
STOPERA: prevent equal rights act
Gains of women’s liberation
LBJ extends executive order calling for affirmative action to improve conditions
1972 Einstadt v Baird case- contraception available to married and unmarried
1973 abortion federally legalised Roe v Wade
Limitations of women’s liberation
LBJs ex order only served for federal employees or businesses working for fed
1970: few states allow abortion
15 states refuse 1972 Equal Rights Act by 1982: needed ratification
US didn’t sign up for 1979 UN policy of non discrimination of women in all walks of life
Found ‘acceptable’ ways to discriminate
Disintegration of liberation movt
Conservatives
Working class and non white women felt excluded
National Alliance of Black Women and Congress of Labour Union Women established
