Women Flashcards
What was the impact of the Civil War on women?
- Women wanted to vote and protest against slavery - men didn’t like connection between suffrage and slavery
- Didn’t fight in war but supported war effort
- Women took on a greater economic role as fighting disrupted crops and plantations
- Ideas of women’s responsibilities conflicted with the view that women should be looking after the home
- Post war - challenging of old ideas in the South
- Industrial expansion in the North
- Didn’t want to return to pre-war domesticity
What social change occurred for women from 1865 (early years)?
- Suburban living improved life for middle class women
- Jane Addams created Hull House in 1889 providing parenting classes
- Changes to family sizes - fall for whites
- Women prepared to campaign in areas of real concern hoping it would lead to suffrage
- Expected to extend nurturing roles into wider community
- Comstock Laws 1973- prevent contraceptives and abortion
What economic developments occurred for women from 1865 (early years)?
- Growth in opportunities for unmarried women
- Domestic service replaced by better opportunity in textile and service industry as a result of industrial expansion
- 1890- many heading into office work helped by the typewriter and telephone but no career pathway
- White women in factories replaced by immigrant women
- Poor conditions and extremely low pay
What were women and politics like in the early years (post 1865)?
- Women’s suffrage began as a result of abolitionist campaigning - political change needed to promote women’s campaigns
- White, middle class women focused on abolition and temperance
- AA campaigner - Sojouner Truth
- Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cody Stanton were most prominent white middle class campaigners
- Lucretia Mott founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866 and wrote Declaration of Sentiments
What were the impacts of WW1 on the postition of women?
- Exposed US as not deomcratic
- Wilson wanted women as part of democracy and encouraged women to help in war but still not given until after the war
- ‘Gatsbyesque’ era
- Change in attitudes and vote gained
How did women’s lives change in the 1920s?
- Change in fashion
- Increase in workforce - 2 million more women working but low wages
- Low wages actually encouraged activism and union formation but often disintegrated by govt.
- 18th Amendment - banned alcohol
- 19th Amendment - gave women right to vote
- Shepherd- Towner Act - gave funds for maternity and infant care but terminated in 1929
How did the Depression and New Deal impact women?
Depression:
- Women overlooked and homeless women hidden from public view
- Destitute women overlooked
New Deal:
- Social Security Act 1935 - welfare benefits for poor families
- Aid to dependent children 1935 - helped single women with young families
- Fair Labour Standards Act 1937 - set new minimum wage but women still lower than men
What were the Comstock Laws and when were they introduced?
- Introduced in 1873
- Prevented sale or distribution of contraceptives/items used in abortion
- 3600 prosecuted under it
- Also banned anything obscene or pornographic
- And banned birth control advice
- Results in illegal abortion
What were the religious beliefs regarding birth control?
- For Roman Catholics and some protestants, relationships within marriage were for procreation
- Artificial birth control regarded with distaste and considered immoral
- Fear over increasing promiscuity
- ‘Every sperm is sacred’
Who was Margaret Sanger? What was the ABCL and when was it founded?
- American Birth Control League founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger
- Margaret was an activist who believed in women’s rights to choose if and when she has kids
- Newspaper articles giving birth control advice
- ABCL established first legal birth control clinic
- 27,500 members by 1924 but only 10 branches ain cities across just 8 states - not widely supported
Why were the Comstock Laws lifted in 1938?
- Federal ban lifted but it was only those who could afford contraception that benefited
- US vs One Package - became unconstitutional to interfere with Doctors prescription of medicine to prevent disease (contraception prevents STIs)
- States could still enforce laws post 1938
- Illegal, back street abortion continued for poorer women
What were state laws on birth control?
- State legislatures enforced their own laws
- Contraception wasn’t made widely available
- Some states allowed contraception but abortions were still illegal
When did the Supreme Court finally establish the right to use contraception?
- Griswold vs Connecticut in 1965 repealed ban on contraception
- Right to privacy
- Applied to married couples
- Extended to married couples in 1972
What was the WCTU? When was it formed?
- Women’s Christian Temperance Union
- 1874
- Formed by Frances Willard
- Crusade to win the right of women to vote so liquor could be banned
- Home and family values were central
- 150,000 members by 1890
- United movement that was successful in lobbying state legislatures and banning alcohol
What was the ASL? When was it formed?
- Anti-saloon league
- 1893
- Main organisation for lobbying prohibition
- Allied with WCTU - powerful
- Defeated in 1930s
What was the 18th Amendment?
- Banning of alcohol
- 1920
What was WONPR? When was it founded?
- Women’s Organisation for National Prohibition Reform
- Founded in 1929 by Pauline Sabin
- Very wealthy supporters
- By 1931 there were 1 million members
What were the arguments against prohibition?
- Economic reduction in profits
- Reduced tax revenue
- Speakeasies made alcohol more accessible
- Racketeering
- Bribery
What was the 21st Amendment?
- Repeal of prohibition in 1933
- WONPR successful in campaigns but alienated working class
What does the Rosie the Riveter song say about women and war? What were women doing in WW2?
- Song about women working in industry for the war as men were leaving
- Govt. propaganda to encourage women to work
- Changed the appearance of women
- Firmly established in workforce by 1945
- Dismissed in 1945
- Increase in mothers and married women in work
- Low paid jobs but still established work ethic
- Role was to do it for sake of family (sons and husbands)
What were the impacts of WW2?
- In 1945, 5 million more women were working than in 1940
- Both working class and middle class worked in war industry
- Reevaluation that women could work and look after the home
- 75% of women wanted to stay in employment
- Many were laid off to make way for returning soldiers
- Media used extensively post war to remind women (mainly married) of their position and to get them to return to traditional roles
- ‘Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care’ emphasised role of women in the home (1946)
- Increase in service jobs began to increase for unmarried women
- Greater economic opportunities for AA women
- Federal funding was given to men to enter higher education but this wasn’t given to women
- Number of men in professional jobs post WW2 increased by 40%
What was the first act of New Feminism?
- Jan 1968 - a group of young feminists demonstrated the rejection of traditional womanhood in a ceremony in national military cemetery at Arlington, Virginia
- Ritual of burying the traditional submissive woman
- Followed by a march on Congress against the Vietnam War
- Defiant manifestation of the ‘new’ feminism
What helped fuel the new feminism in the 60s?
- Seeing the impact of protest (Civil Rights and Voting Acts in 1964)
- Response to failure of govt. to respond to demands
- JFK was the first president to consider the status of women in 1961 BUT refused to recognise pressure from Sanger for birth control
What were the 2 Acts that seemed to improve women’s lives but were actually disappointing?
Equal Pay Act
- Embodied principle of equal pay but also promoted marriage and motherhood
Civil Rights Act
- Prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender but Equal Employment Opportunities Commission that was meant to enforce terms failed to satisfy equality demands
Who was Betty Friedan and what was her book about?
- Friedan was an influential feminist writer in the 60s
- The Feminine Mystique (1963) argued that married women were yearning to escape from suburban homes
- Urged women to adopt a ‘new life plan’
- Book challenged existing social attitudes to women and was mainly successful amongst middle class
- Influence was pivotal in instigating the ‘new’ feminist movement
What was NOW? What did it do?
- National Organization for Women
- Founded by Betty Friedan in 1966
- Pressed for equality- protests included lobbying members of US senate, filing lawsuits against discrimination and seeking govt. support of public opinion
- Involvement in civil rights protests & anti-Vietnam war campaigns gave confidence in protest
- More aggressive by 1968 - publicly threw away heels, bras and curlers
- Loss of support over right to abortion
What was the NARAL?
National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws
- Co founded by Betty Friedan
What increasing rights in the workplace occurred from 1969-92?
- Laws against gender discrimination
- Women had more opportunities
- More higher education courses available
- Gender segregation decreased by 10% in employment (1970-80)
- Increasing TU activity
- Increase in higher education qualifications
- Large proportion of working women were married
- Wage gap nearly closed for young and educated
- Self awareness and self confidence
- Making own way in terms of enterprise
What were the issues remaining in the workplace for women 1969-92?
- Discrimination still not eliminated
- Equal opportunity not accompanied by equal pay
- Lawsuits needed to force employers to implement law
- Very small % of women were managers or executives
- ‘Glass ceiling’ - invisible barrier preventing women from reaching top jobs
- Class divisions continued
- Fed govt. refused to legislate in favour of paid maternity leave and lack of child care
- Still no fed law in 1992 requiring employers to provide paid maternity leave
Who were The Feminists? When were they around?
- Splinter group of NOW
- Around in 1968-73
- Believed in abolition of marriage and that women needed to separate themselves from men
Who were The Radicalesbians? When were they around?
- Combined women’s rights and gay liberation group
- 1973 onwards
- Believed that women could only be liberated through lesbianism
- Supported NOWs abortion rights campaign
What was Roe Vs Wade? When was it?
- Test case that ensured the establishment of a woman’s right to legal abortion
- 1973
- Norma McCorvey aka Jane Roe argued that she couldn’t afford to raise another child
- Judges decided in her favour based on right of privacy
- Many SC appeals resulted as refusal from state legislatures to implement the ruling - but these appeals were successful
What were impacts of Roe vs Wade and radical feminism?
- Wave of anti-feminist opposition - Phyllis Schlafly and pro-life organisations such as the National Right to Life Committee
- Attacks on centres and doctors
- Increased growing political awareness
- Recognition to female issues from politicians
- Reagan and Bush opposed abortion but Roe vs Wade prevailed unaltered
What was ERA?
- Equal Rights Amendment
- Campaign started in 1920 by feminist Alice Paul who believed right to vote along wouldn’t ensure equality
- Repeatedly put to Congress between 1923-70 - defeated 1946 and accepted in 1950
- Labour unions opposed ERA - worried about influx of female labour
- ERA would undermine home and family as it could remove requirement of divorced men to provide financially
- Schlafly and National Committee to stop ERA made sure it wasn’t ratified
Why didn’t women achieve more in the social arena from 1969-92?
- Radical feminists were too extreme
- 33% of men supported gender equality by 1972 but only rose by 7% to 1990
- No mass support from working class women to feminist propaganda
- No unified support
- Ethnic diversity increased divisions between groups
- Priorities were mainly achieved with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- ERA ad abortion campaigns undermined traditional family values
