Key Facts (Feminism)

Question 1

WHY

Answer 1

• challenge the sexist structure of western society
• break the stereotypes of women (daughter, wife and mother)
• equality between women and men (workplace/play, education, domestic violence)
• respect
• media discrimination (unrealistic expectations and presented as sexual objects)

Question 2

HOW

Answer 2

• protests (Miss America Beauty Pageant)
• music (Helen Reddy’s I am Woman)
• strikes (Women’s Strike for Equality)
• books (Feminine Mystique & Female Eunuch)

Question 3

RESPONSE

Answer 3

• man-hating
• anti-family
• women were arrested
• seen as a form of communism (equality)

Question 4

Women’s Strike for Equality

Answer 4

• 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage
• described by Time magazine as “the first big demonastration of the Women’s Liberation movement”
• took different forms in more than 90 citites
• Washington D.C, women march with a banner that read “we demand equality” and lobbied for the ERA
• women who worked foe a newspaper in New Orleans ran pics of the grooms instead of the brides
• made front page on many national newspapers and covered by three broadcast networks
• first major protest of the women’s liberation movement and was the largest protest for women’s rights at the time
• the next year, congress passed a resolution declaring aug 26 women’s equality day

Question 5

Miss America Beauty Pageant

Answer 5

• impossible standards of beauty
• objectifies women
• compared to a cattle auction
• made ‘freedom trash cans’ and filled it with representations of women being trapped in the home (bras, heels, hair curlers and magazines)