The Women's Movement

Question 1

During which period did the Women’s movement gain momentum?

Answer 1

During the 1960s.

Question 2

What types of jobs did women work in?

Answer 2

Low-paid ones such as nursing, teaching, clerical and domestic work.

Question 3

What did Eleanor Roosevelt pressure JFK into doing?

Answer 3

She made him create a Presidential Commission on the status of women in 1961 with herself as its head.

Question 4

When was the Equal Pay Act introduced?

Answer 4

1963

Question 5

What did the Equal Pay Act do?

Answer 5

It made it illegal to pay women less than men for the same job.

Question 6

What was the problem with the Equal Pay Act?

Answer 6

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was understaffed and there was little to stop employers giving different job titles to men and women doing the same activities.

Question 7

What did the Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibit?

Answer 7

Discrimination in employment on the basis of sex.

Question 8

When was the contraceptive pill made available?

Answer 8

1960

Question 9

What did the contraceptive pill allow for?

Answer 9

It made it easier for women to postpone having children while they started a career.

Question 10

When was ‘The Feminine Mystique’ by Betty Friedan released to the public?

Answer 10

In 1963

Question 11

What did ‘The Feminine Mystique’ do?

Answer 11

It criticised the isolation of women in the household saying that many of them felt trapped in the homemaker role.

Question 12

What does NOW stand for?

Answer 12

National Organisation for Women.

Question 13

How was Friedan connected to NOW?

Answer 13

She was one of the founders of it.

Question 14

What did NOW do?

Answer 14

It was set up in 1966 to campaign for women’s legal, educational and professional equality.

Question 15

Why did the Equal Rights Amendment fail in 1972?

Answer 15

It failed to achieve ratification by the necessary three quarters of the state.

Question 16

Who were a part of the opposition to the ERA?

Answer 16

Women who wanted to return to traditional femininity. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly organised a group called ‘Stop ERA’.

Question 17

What did the Educational Amendments Act in 1972 do?

Answer 17

It forced government funded educational establishments to provide equal facilities and opportunities for both sexes.

Question 18

What else did women campaign against?

Answer 18

The objectification of women.

Question 19

How did feminists protest against the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant?

Answer 19

They crowned a sheep their own ‘Miss America’.

Question 20

What was the result of the Roe Vs Wade case?

Answer 20

The Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.

Question 21

What did the Hyde Amendment in 1976 do?

Answer 21

It stopped Medicaid (the medical assistance programme for the poor) from funding abortions.

Question 22

What was the effect of the second world war on women?

Answer 22

It increased the number of working women, mass rush by women to get married and have babies yet 15 years later many of these women were extremely disillusioned.

Question 23

How were women discriminated against at work?

Answer 23

Women were almost half of the workforce in 1963 however they could still be dismissed when they married, women earned less money than men even for the same work and their jobs were low paid, part time and low level with no responsibility.

Question 24

What did Friedan say about married women?

Answer 24

That they must be helped to continue in paid employment so that they would not get bored or de-skilled.

Question 25

Why was NOW not very revolutionary?

Answer 25

The people they were fighting for did not support them, they didn’t support lesbians, they were too middle-class and white dominated and they continued to believe in marriage which some women saw as derogatory.

Question 26

What were the divisions that existed in the women’s movement?

Answer 26

Lesbians, women who didn’t support marriage, women who didn’t believe that men were the enemy and women who were targeting different things.

Question 27

What were women allowed to do in terms of the military?

Answer 27

Women were allowed to join the military however they could only work behind the front line.

Question 28

What was the women’s liberation movement?

Answer 28

It was more radical than NOW and demanded change, they burnt their bras, they demonstrated and camped out for days and they focused on the independence of women.

Question 29

What were the failures of the women’s movement?

Answer 29

The majority of women were still employed in clerical and menial work, discrimination did not end, some female lecturers were sacked for teaching female equality and there was a clause that could stop companies employing women if they could prove a man was needed.

Question 30

What was a success in the women’s movement in terms of politics?

Answer 30

Margaret Chase Smith stood for president.