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