Women and Politics Class First Exam Exam

Question 1

What is the Seperate spheres ideology?

Answer 1

The idea that Men and Women are meant to operate in seperate spheres without overlap. Men and Women are naturally and inevitably divided in labor due to physical or biological differences.

The idea that Men and Women are created differently.

Question 2

What are examples of the seperate spheres idelogy?

Answer 2

Men are meant for politics/government, buisness, physical labor, manufacturing/finance jobs. Women are meant to focus on domestic labor, the role of a caretaker, and child rearing.

Men dominate any career outside the home, while women are meant to dominate any job inside the home.

Question 3

What is the Doctrine of Coverture?

Answer 3

19th century laws upon marriage, that stated a woman is legally “covered” by her husband. Woman would cease to exist once married; no longer had legal rights independent of husband

reinforces the idea of seperate spheres

Question 4

What are the Comstock Acts/Laws?

Answer 4

Acts at the state and federal level that made it a crime to send or recieve “obscence” material through the mail

This included depictions of nudity (including medical), information about contraceptive devices, information about abortion, and personal correspondence (private communication between two parites).

Question 5

What is the Anti-Obscenity Movement?

Answer 5

Anything classified as “obscene” does not have first amendment protection. Included the Hicklin Test (came from a British Court case)

Something was obscene and not protected if any portion of the material had a tendency to corrupt or deprive those.

Question 6

Why protect women from “obscenity?”

Answer 6

Due to the notion that women are pure and fragile but easily corrupted. Once a women loses this purity, she has little to no social value anymore.

Stresses that women need to know and stay in their place in society. They also need to be “protected” from any ideas that compromise the concept of separate spheres.

Question 7

Why protect men from obscenity?

Answer 7

The notion that men are violent and easily overstimulated and need to be protected from their beastly natures.

Are prone to fall to sexual ruin

Question 8

What is the temperance/prohibition movement?

Answer 8

A movement focused on the idea that there should be moderation or complete abstinence in drinking liquor (alchohol)
-always a movement dominated by women
- appealed to women to reduce domestic violence
- women believed if men stopped drinking, it would prevent domestic violence or improve the household

-temperance - limiting alchohol consumption
-prohibtion- prohibiting ^^

Question 9

Women’s Christian temperance union

Answer 9

Nation wide was racially integrated. However state chapters varied signficiantly in terms of their politics. During that time, seen as progressive, today seen as racist. WCTU women could organize segregated state and local chapters. Would be in accordance with anything that supported pushing prohibition.

campaigned on labor laws, prison reform and suffrage

Question 10

What were the argument’s against suffrage?

Answer 10

1) Separate spheres argument
2) Voting is a burdensome obligation
3) If women are allowed to vote, it would destroy the family unit
4) Men will be so emasculated by women they wouldn’t want to get married
5) it will ultimately destroy the country

1) women are “too emotional” for political engagement
2) idea that if you are legally allowed to vote, you must. feared about what women as a voting class would do to society.
3) what if your vote cancels out your husbands? would take time away from domestic responsibilities.

Question 11

The American Women’s suffrage association (AWSA)

Answer 11

They supported the 14th and 15th amendments. Were less confrontational, older, and had a wealthier membership. Allowed men to join and did not oppose marriage. Focused on lobbying the federal government.

Question 12

The National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA)

Answer 12

Oppossed the 14th and 15th amendments as written, focused on more confrontational protest tactics, originally banned men from joining the organization, opposed to marriage and supportive of the free love movement, and argued strategically to focus on both the state and federal governments.

Question 13

What was the impact of 19th amendment after passing?

Answer 13

1) The National Association Oppossed to Women’s suffrage (NAOWS), stayed or became highly politically active (mostly republicans)
2) There was an increase in voter education/outreach
3) Southern states continued Jim Crow system (restrained voter turnout)
4) Turnout rate amongst women was significantly lower than men for decades (approx 30’s for women, high 60’s for men)
5) Women’s bloc didnt materialize

5) Gender had no impact on vote choice
6) “women’s bloc” (women will all vote the same way) believed it would dominate american politics

Question 14

What is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)?

Answer 14

Was first drafted in 1921, introduced in congress in 1923 and was meant to guarantee legal gender equality for women and men.

-first introduced and did not get very far in congress

Question 15

What are the reasons why people did not want the ERA?

Answer 15

1) Apathy from many members of congress
2) opposition from unions (protections legislation)
3) unrepresentative membership of the national woman’s party
4) Disconnect between actual working women and those that aspired to be
5) Republican party endorses the ERA in their party platform in 1940

Question 16

What is the history of the ERA?

Answer 16

ERA did not get very in congress from 1923-1972. By 1972, gathered more activity and passed in congress. From 1972-1977, 35 states ratified the ERA. The deadline was 1979, then 1982. 2017- state of Nevada decides to ratify the ERA. 2018- Illinois ratified ERA. 2019- Virginia ratified ERA.

-5 states tried to rescind their ratification

Question 17

STOP ERA Movement

Answer 17

1) argued the passing of the ERA would further solidify abortion rights
2) argued against women being drafted
3) unisex bathrooms
4) loss of alimony payments if husbands divorced them
5) thought housewife/stay at home moms would be disadvantaged.

• 3 states short from Ratification

Question 18

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Answer 18

This act only had to do with pay. Made it illegal for corporations to pay different genders different wages for performing the same jobs. the same jobs performed w/the same skills, effort, and responsibility.

Exceptions:
1) seniority
2) merit
3) quality/quantity of the production
4) any factor other than sex

Question 19

Civil Rights Act of 1964 section VII

Answer 19

Addressed hiring, firing, salary, day to day treatment in the workplace making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender

• was filibustered for years

Question 20

What were the exceptions to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Answer 20

1) Independent contractors- if you work for them you are not considered a real employee. You were given a 1099 form for taxes, dont cut taxes in paycheck. You have to pay those taxes at the end of the year.
2) less than 15 employees -applies to whole buisness
3) religious organizations are allowed to on the basis of religion (only)
4) certain parts of the entertainment industry

2) still covered with the act if franchise store has two employees
4) only applies to people in front of the camera

Question 21

What is the contemporary wage gap?

Answer 21

Full time working women on average make 83% salary to full time working men.

Question 22

What are the reasons for the wage gap?

Answer 22

1) Occupational gender segregation
2) fewer hours worked (43 vs. 40)
3) salary negotiations- used to be if you had a salary to negotiate, women were penalized for doing so compared to men
4) motherhood penalty - typically unequal distribution of labor in child-rearing responsibilities

3) very complex -> to determine the overall impact between gender and salary negotiations

Question 23

Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act of 2009

Answer 23

-Worked for goodyear tire who realized she had been subdued to pay discrimination.
-made it so that everytime you get a paycheck the clock starts again to sue
- given 180 days from the last paycheck to sue for pay discrimination not the first - as long as you are still working there.

Question 24

Christian Conservative against pornography

Answer 24

1) porn is bad because it depicts non-marital sexuality
2) it incites lust and leads to masturbation
3) it corrupts children
4) threatnens the sanctity of the family unit

Question 25

Feminist Objections to Porn

Answer 25

1) Porn objectifies and degrades women
2) Portrays women as enjoying pain
3) Men who watch porn will treat the women in their lives poorly due to having watched it
4) Watching porn will lead men to rape

-argued that pornographers should be sued violating the civil rights of women

Question 26

Meese Commission

Answer 26

The Reagan administration released the Meese report in 1986, to counteract the earlier Comission on obscenity and pornography. Report made recommendations on ways to prosecute pornography distributors and halt its spread. It also documented the growth of pornography industry.

Question 27

What was the historical development of Commerce Clause?

Answer 27

Pre 1937, commerce was defined as buying, selling, trading, transporting of goods but did not engage in production
Post 1937, all aspects of production from beginning to end
-occured during the Great depression, FDR’s re-election
Pre 1942, interstate commerce
Post 1942, purely Intrastate commerce can be regulated as well
From 1937-1995, everytime congress claimed authority to do something under the commerce clause -> the SCOTUS upheld every use of congress power under commerce clause

Question 28

National Woman’s Party (pre and post suffrage activities)

Answer 28

Pre- Date from 1912, used militant tactics such as hunger strikes, camping outside the white house, etc.
Post- Advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

Pre- What was distinctive of suffrage activism?
Post- national woman’s party was still organized on the basis of advocating for equal rights

Question 29

What is the Miller test for obscenity?

Answer 29

Came from the case Miller v. California (1973).
Three-pronged test to Define obscenity through:
1) whether the ‘average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find the work, ‘taken as a whole’, appeals to ‘prurient interest’(sexual interest)
2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law
3) whether the work as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value

used this standard to determine whether pornographic material production or sale could be prohibited without violating the constitution.
Has not been overturned by the SCOTUS and was a reformation of the previous legal defintion of obscenity the court established in Roth v. United States

Question 30

Violence Against Women Act (1994)

Answer 30

• Made it a Federal Crime: to cross state lines, to commit domestic violence.
• States have to honor restraining orders from other states
• UVisa (set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse)
• State & Local grants
• National Domestic violence hotline
• ability to sue in federal court if you’re a victim of “gender motivated violence” (overturned)
  1) unlimited damages
  2) no statue or limitations
  3) much easier to sue your spouse

-actual text itself, is gender neutral but spoken about as just for being beneficial to women.

Question 31

US v. Morrison (2000)

Answer 31

lawsuit provision overturned in US v. Morrison congress used a commerce clause rationale. Christy Brzonkala alleged that Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, both students and varsity football players at Virginia Tech, raped her. Morrison was found guilty and suspended but then returned back to school. Brzonkala then sued Morrison and Crawford in Federal District Court, alleging that Morrison’s and Crawford’s attack violated 42 USC section 13981, part of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), which provides a federal civil remedy for the victims of gender-motivated violence. Supreme court rejected the commerce clause arguement.

-lawsuit provision of the VAWA