First Wave Feminism
19th and early 20th century, suffrage movement
Goal = enfranchisement
o Black men had received the right to vote with the 15th amendment in 1870,
originally was just white landowning Protestant men.
o 19th Amendment: 1920, ratified in 1921
o Obstacles: believed women would vote like their husbands, religious beliefs, keep
“domestic tranquility,” thought women would extend prohibition, ideas about
female intellect and “science” about menstruation and the wondering womb,
“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Stanton, Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn
Gage: discusses the issues that were taking place in terms of women’s issues during the
late 19th century. It takes the style of “The Declaration of Independence.” The second part
of the passage is about what should be done about these issues and how we can solve
them.
o Susan B Anthony: She and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked together to form the
National American Woman Suffrage Association.
o Elizabeth Cady Stanton: When black men got the vote, she said that white women
were more educated and should get it too, if not instead of black men. Stanton was
the first president of the NAWSA.
o “History of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of
man toward woman”
No voting rights, withheld from most rights
Marriage contracts are oppressive
Unequal property rights
Unequal employment opportunities
Unequal educational opportunities
o Coverture: Civil and legal identity of a woman after marriage becomes that of our
husband. when a woman marries, she becomes her husband’s property. Anything
she owns or makes belongs to him, which gets in the way of preventing domestic
violence
“Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth: even though she isn’t white and privileged, and
doesn’t fit the standard of what people viewed as “feminine” in 1851, she is still a woman
and deserving of rights, Truth was an abolitionist and feminist, born into slavery.
Second Wave Feminism:
, Second Wave Feminism (1960s-1980s) was concerned with issues of sexuality, women in
the workplace, and family. It was one of the first time that rape and domestic violence
were discussed in the mainstream. One major effort was trying to pass the ERA.
“The Problem That Has No Name” by Betty Friedan: (The Feminine Mystique)
o considered the beginning of Second Wave Feminism
o Describes sense of unspoken dissatisfaction.
o Spoke to the fact that many women were increasingly unhappy with their role as
housewives
o Despite being married and having children (all the things society says they hoped
for) they were unfulfilled
o The question asked about their lives: “Is this all?”
o Women dissatisfied after giving up dreams of careers and higher education to get
married at younger and younger ages to start the families their lives were devoted
to
o Friedan criticized Freud and the general patriarchy especially in regards to the
media in depicting the “happy housewife."
“Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” by Frances Beale: acknowledgment of the
intersection between race and gender.
o Capitalism disadvantages black men and women
o Black women weren’t afforded luxuries of being a housewife, their grievances are
different.
o Black women are doubly disadvantaged
o Birth control mentioned as surgical genocide
Pill tried out in Puerto Rico to evaluate its effect
Black women should have the right to determine when they want to have
children and when they don’t
Reaction to the black power movement, which often left women by the
wayside, had the philosophy of “building a black nation” so would encourage
women to not take birth control. Beale didn’t think women’s reproductive
system should be used for nation building and pride
o Have to combat capitalist and racist exploitation of black people in order to be a
feminist – men can participate in this struggle
“What’s Wrong with Equal Rights for Women?” by Phyllis Schlafly: says women have
a God-given privilege and should be grateful that women are so privileged.
o The institution of the family as the basic unit of society is the “greatest single
achievement in the history of women’s rights” – gives women physical, financial, and
emotional security
, o Women are on a pedestal and get a special respect, don’t have to do tiresome work
as in some other civilizations.
o Age of chivalry = women are lucky and don’t need equal rights because women are
better!
o Helps raise up women who feel cast aside as housewives (by people like Friedan)
when it was a role they took pride in.
Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlaffly were on opposing sides of the ERA
o Schlaffly: Eagle Forum “pro-family”
o Friedan: NOW (largest organization of feminist grassroots activists in the US,
lobbying group)
o 1973 broadcast debate between the two women – Schlaffly says that the ERA would
cause the viewers’ daughters to go to war, chivalry/dating/marriage will change
and dismantle the family – this was very convincing
“The Women’s Health Movement” by Helen Marieskind: emphasizes preventative
health concepts, self-awareness, and comprehension through a basic knowledge of bodily
process.
o Reproductive potential is a central cause of female oppression – derived from her
“womanness” – ability to bear children, this difference has been used to build social
structure and a supportive ideology of female submissiveness
o Has the goal of women’s social independence and autonomy
o Political in interest – empower women through self-examination, helping them seek
knowledgably about problems.
o Educate health practitioners and eliminating profit motive which influences amount
of specifically female surgery
o Three main areas: changing consciousness, providing health related services, and
struggling to change established health institutions
o The Pill: Margaret Sanger challenged the Comstock laws, opened the first birth
control clinic in the United States in Brownsville New York, gave information about
condom use, etc.
searched for a scientist to design the pill (Greg Pincus) who went to
Puerto Rico to test it but there were a lot of side effects.
Went to jail a lot of times because she incited violence and was kind of
crazy
Believed that eugenics and birth control were inseparable issues – both
were about getting rid of the “unfit” – forced sterilization of the “feeble
minded”
1968: the pill became the start of movies, there was a sexual revolution
o “Our Bodies, Ourselves:” Profits went to the women’s health movement
, information on diet, alcohol, drugs, birth control, childbirth, parenting,
etc.
was very controversial
“The Women’s Liberation Movement” by Linda Gordon:
o Women’s Liberation Movement (1967-mid 1980s) sought a more holistic
transformation of the society, one that would do away with male dominance in
every sphere and would challenge all the older gender patterns (a little bit
disorganized because it wasn’t hierarchical and not so disciplined)
o Many identify the protest at the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant as the
founding event of the Women’s Liberation Movement.
o Elizabeth Martinez (Betita)
first Latina to attend Swarthmore College
took on her mother’s maiden name Sutherland and wrote books that
were immensely influential in mobilizing white support for civil rights.
Chicana feminist – separated from white feminism when they didn’t
seem to be affected as strongly by MLK’s assassination
o Karen Nussbaum: career fighter for working woman, headed the Women’s
Bureau of the US Department of Labor, headed the Working Women’s
Department of the AFL-CIO
o Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein (“Firestone”): founded the New
York Radical Women, at first a small consciousness-raising group and wrote
The Dialectic of Sex, advocated laboratory, rather than sexual, reproduction as a
means of liberating women, very radical
o Consciousness Raising Groups: talk about personal problems, provide
support, understand sexism and understand that pain and struggles are not
individual, but rather something a whole group endures. Used as a support
system – encourages action, very empowering, learned by questioning
conventions of gender
Opening up, sharing, analyzing, and abstracting
It was activism in that changing consciousness led to social change
Involved opening up to a small group of women about personal matters
Women’s raised consciousness changed everyday experience,
transforming relationships with men.
Made the women’s liberation movement different from NOW
o “Personal is political” consciousness raising gave rise to this saying because it
created the discovery that sexism operated in every sphere – personal
liberation will happen with the changing of society, not independently.
19th and early 20th century, suffrage movement
Goal = enfranchisement
o Black men had received the right to vote with the 15th amendment in 1870,
originally was just white landowning Protestant men.
o 19th Amendment: 1920, ratified in 1921
o Obstacles: believed women would vote like their husbands, religious beliefs, keep
“domestic tranquility,” thought women would extend prohibition, ideas about
female intellect and “science” about menstruation and the wondering womb,
“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Stanton, Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn
Gage: discusses the issues that were taking place in terms of women’s issues during the
late 19th century. It takes the style of “The Declaration of Independence.” The second part
of the passage is about what should be done about these issues and how we can solve
them.
o Susan B Anthony: She and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked together to form the
National American Woman Suffrage Association.
o Elizabeth Cady Stanton: When black men got the vote, she said that white women
were more educated and should get it too, if not instead of black men. Stanton was
the first president of the NAWSA.
o “History of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of
man toward woman”
No voting rights, withheld from most rights
Marriage contracts are oppressive
Unequal property rights
Unequal employment opportunities
Unequal educational opportunities
o Coverture: Civil and legal identity of a woman after marriage becomes that of our
husband. when a woman marries, she becomes her husband’s property. Anything
she owns or makes belongs to him, which gets in the way of preventing domestic
violence
“Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth: even though she isn’t white and privileged, and
doesn’t fit the standard of what people viewed as “feminine” in 1851, she is still a woman
and deserving of rights, Truth was an abolitionist and feminist, born into slavery.
Second Wave Feminism:
, Second Wave Feminism (1960s-1980s) was concerned with issues of sexuality, women in
the workplace, and family. It was one of the first time that rape and domestic violence
were discussed in the mainstream. One major effort was trying to pass the ERA.
“The Problem That Has No Name” by Betty Friedan: (The Feminine Mystique)
o considered the beginning of Second Wave Feminism
o Describes sense of unspoken dissatisfaction.
o Spoke to the fact that many women were increasingly unhappy with their role as
housewives
o Despite being married and having children (all the things society says they hoped
for) they were unfulfilled
o The question asked about their lives: “Is this all?”
o Women dissatisfied after giving up dreams of careers and higher education to get
married at younger and younger ages to start the families their lives were devoted
to
o Friedan criticized Freud and the general patriarchy especially in regards to the
media in depicting the “happy housewife."
“Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” by Frances Beale: acknowledgment of the
intersection between race and gender.
o Capitalism disadvantages black men and women
o Black women weren’t afforded luxuries of being a housewife, their grievances are
different.
o Black women are doubly disadvantaged
o Birth control mentioned as surgical genocide
Pill tried out in Puerto Rico to evaluate its effect
Black women should have the right to determine when they want to have
children and when they don’t
Reaction to the black power movement, which often left women by the
wayside, had the philosophy of “building a black nation” so would encourage
women to not take birth control. Beale didn’t think women’s reproductive
system should be used for nation building and pride
o Have to combat capitalist and racist exploitation of black people in order to be a
feminist – men can participate in this struggle
“What’s Wrong with Equal Rights for Women?” by Phyllis Schlafly: says women have
a God-given privilege and should be grateful that women are so privileged.
o The institution of the family as the basic unit of society is the “greatest single
achievement in the history of women’s rights” – gives women physical, financial, and
emotional security
, o Women are on a pedestal and get a special respect, don’t have to do tiresome work
as in some other civilizations.
o Age of chivalry = women are lucky and don’t need equal rights because women are
better!
o Helps raise up women who feel cast aside as housewives (by people like Friedan)
when it was a role they took pride in.
Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlaffly were on opposing sides of the ERA
o Schlaffly: Eagle Forum “pro-family”
o Friedan: NOW (largest organization of feminist grassroots activists in the US,
lobbying group)
o 1973 broadcast debate between the two women – Schlaffly says that the ERA would
cause the viewers’ daughters to go to war, chivalry/dating/marriage will change
and dismantle the family – this was very convincing
“The Women’s Health Movement” by Helen Marieskind: emphasizes preventative
health concepts, self-awareness, and comprehension through a basic knowledge of bodily
process.
o Reproductive potential is a central cause of female oppression – derived from her
“womanness” – ability to bear children, this difference has been used to build social
structure and a supportive ideology of female submissiveness
o Has the goal of women’s social independence and autonomy
o Political in interest – empower women through self-examination, helping them seek
knowledgably about problems.
o Educate health practitioners and eliminating profit motive which influences amount
of specifically female surgery
o Three main areas: changing consciousness, providing health related services, and
struggling to change established health institutions
o The Pill: Margaret Sanger challenged the Comstock laws, opened the first birth
control clinic in the United States in Brownsville New York, gave information about
condom use, etc.
searched for a scientist to design the pill (Greg Pincus) who went to
Puerto Rico to test it but there were a lot of side effects.
Went to jail a lot of times because she incited violence and was kind of
crazy
Believed that eugenics and birth control were inseparable issues – both
were about getting rid of the “unfit” – forced sterilization of the “feeble
minded”
1968: the pill became the start of movies, there was a sexual revolution
o “Our Bodies, Ourselves:” Profits went to the women’s health movement
, information on diet, alcohol, drugs, birth control, childbirth, parenting,
etc.
was very controversial
“The Women’s Liberation Movement” by Linda Gordon:
o Women’s Liberation Movement (1967-mid 1980s) sought a more holistic
transformation of the society, one that would do away with male dominance in
every sphere and would challenge all the older gender patterns (a little bit
disorganized because it wasn’t hierarchical and not so disciplined)
o Many identify the protest at the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant as the
founding event of the Women’s Liberation Movement.
o Elizabeth Martinez (Betita)
first Latina to attend Swarthmore College
took on her mother’s maiden name Sutherland and wrote books that
were immensely influential in mobilizing white support for civil rights.
Chicana feminist – separated from white feminism when they didn’t
seem to be affected as strongly by MLK’s assassination
o Karen Nussbaum: career fighter for working woman, headed the Women’s
Bureau of the US Department of Labor, headed the Working Women’s
Department of the AFL-CIO
o Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein (“Firestone”): founded the New
York Radical Women, at first a small consciousness-raising group and wrote
The Dialectic of Sex, advocated laboratory, rather than sexual, reproduction as a
means of liberating women, very radical
o Consciousness Raising Groups: talk about personal problems, provide
support, understand sexism and understand that pain and struggles are not
individual, but rather something a whole group endures. Used as a support
system – encourages action, very empowering, learned by questioning
conventions of gender
Opening up, sharing, analyzing, and abstracting
It was activism in that changing consciousness led to social change
Involved opening up to a small group of women about personal matters
Women’s raised consciousness changed everyday experience,
transforming relationships with men.
Made the women’s liberation movement different from NOW
o “Personal is political” consciousness raising gave rise to this saying because it
created the discovery that sexism operated in every sphere – personal
liberation will happen with the changing of society, not independently.
