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A2 History Civil Rights > Women > Flashcards

Women Flashcards

1
Q

What was the impact of the Civil War on women?

A
  • 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
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2
Q

What social change occurred for women from 1865 (early years)?

A
  • 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
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3
Q

What economic developments occurred for women from 1865 (early years)?

A
  • 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
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4
Q

What were women and politics like in the early years (post 1865)?

A
  • 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
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5
Q

What were the impacts of WW1 on the postition of women?

A
  • 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
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6
Q

How did women’s lives change in the 1920s?

A
  • 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
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7
Q

How did the Depression and New Deal impact women?

A

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

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8
Q

What were the Comstock Laws and when were they introduced?

A
  • 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
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9
Q

What were the religious beliefs regarding birth control?

A
  • 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’
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10
Q

Who was Margaret Sanger? What was the ABCL and when was it founded?

A
  • 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
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11
Q

Why were the Comstock Laws lifted in 1938?

A
  • 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
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12
Q

What were state laws on birth control?

A
  • State legislatures enforced their own laws
  • Contraception wasn’t made widely available
  • Some states allowed contraception but abortions were still illegal
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13
Q

When did the Supreme Court finally establish the right to use contraception?

A
  • Griswold vs Connecticut in 1965 repealed ban on contraception
  • Right to privacy
  • Applied to married couples
  • Extended to married couples in 1972
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14
Q

What was the WCTU? When was it formed?

A
  • 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
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15
Q

What was the ASL? When was it formed?

A
  • Anti-saloon league
  • 1893
  • Main organisation for lobbying prohibition
  • Allied with WCTU - powerful
  • Defeated in 1930s
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16
Q

What was the 18th Amendment?

A
  • Banning of alcohol

- 1920

17
Q

What was WONPR? When was it founded?

A
  • Women’s Organisation for National Prohibition Reform
  • Founded in 1929 by Pauline Sabin
  • Very wealthy supporters
  • By 1931 there were 1 million members
18
Q

What were the arguments against prohibition?

A
  • Economic reduction in profits
  • Reduced tax revenue
  • Speakeasies made alcohol more accessible
  • Racketeering
  • Bribery
19
Q

What was the 21st Amendment?

A
  • Repeal of prohibition in 1933

- WONPR successful in campaigns but alienated working class

20
Q

What does the Rosie the Riveter song say about women and war? What were women doing in WW2?

A
  • 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)
21
Q

What were the impacts of WW2?

A
  • 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%
22
Q

What was the first act of New Feminism?

A
  • 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
23
Q

What helped fuel the new feminism in the 60s?

A
  • 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
24
Q

What were the 2 Acts that seemed to improve women’s lives but were actually disappointing?

A

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

25
Q

Who was Betty Friedan and what was her book about?

A
  • 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
26
Q

What was NOW? What did it do?

A
  • 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
27
Q

What was the NARAL?

A

National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws

- Co founded by Betty Friedan

28
Q

What increasing rights in the workplace occurred from 1969-92?

A
  • 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
29
Q

What were the issues remaining in the workplace for women 1969-92?

A
  • 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
30
Q

Who were The Feminists? When were they around?

A
  • Splinter group of NOW
  • Around in 1968-73
  • Believed in abolition of marriage and that women needed to separate themselves from men
31
Q

Who were The Radicalesbians? When were they around?

A
  • Combined women’s rights and gay liberation group
  • 1973 onwards
  • Believed that women could only be liberated through lesbianism
  • Supported NOWs abortion rights campaign
32
Q

What was Roe Vs Wade? When was it?

A
  • 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
33
Q

What were impacts of Roe vs Wade and radical feminism?

A
  • 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
34
Q

What was ERA?

A
  • 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
35
Q

Why didn’t women achieve more in the social arena from 1969-92?

A
  • 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

A2 History Civil Rights (5 decks)

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