1. Ch. 11: Modern Feminism and American Society, 1965-1980
History 37
Summer, 2014

2. Questions to Consider:
How did the civil rights movement contribute to the women’s movement in the early to mid 1960s?
What was “women’s liberation” and what factors/events contributed to its emergence?
What is “liberal feminism”?
Has the definition of “feminism” changed since the 1960s?
How did women of varying races, classes, and religions participate in the women’s movement?

3. Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement
Equal Pay Act of 1963
Civil Rights Act, 1964 (includes Voting Rights Act of 1965)
The “Great Society” – LBJ’s social programs to end discrimination and poverty
Civil Rights Act, 1968
Political attention to racial discrimination overshadowed many gender-specific employment and/housing issues.

4. Social, Cultural, Political Trends and Movements in the 1960s
Students for a Democratic Society, founded 1962
The Sexual Revolution
Counterculture (Timothy Leary pictured at right)
Hippies
Mods
Communes
Anti-War Movement (mid to late 1960s)

5. National Organization for Women (NOW)
Founded in 1966 by activists unsatisfied with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Modeled after the NAACP, NOW promoted ideology of “liberal feminism”
Focus on economic and political rights soon expanded to reproductive freedom and other social justice issues, including the ERA

6. Second Wave Feminism, 1960s - 1980
First “wave” refers to women’s activism for suffrage rights in the early twentieth century
Also called “Women’s Liberation” or the “feminist movement”
Global movement, focused on issues including but not limited to: reproductive rights, rape and sexual violence, female genital mutilation (FGM).

7. Divisive Issues within the Women’s Movement, 1960-1980
Work, Education, and Motherhood
Title IX funding, 1972
Reproductive Rights (BC and Abortion)
Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965)
Roe vs. Wade legalizes abortion in 1973
Issues between white and non-white feminists
Black Power
Chicana Movement
Lesbianism and feminism
Lesbian separatism
Disagreements over what true “feminism” means
The Equal Rights Amendment
Phyllis Schlafly and the “Stop the ERA” campaign (pictured at right)

8. When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold Stories
(28 minutes)