1960's WOmen's Rights MOvement
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When you think of the stereotypical 50’s women you naturally think of the stay-at-home mother, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the family while her husband worked. There was no second thought of high end jobs for women, let alone jobs that didn’t include some sort of household chore. There were far less rights and society initially saw them as lesser compared to their male counterparts. This was, until the women's rights movement of 1960 where women realized what was happening in our society and they were ready to change that. Throughout time women have always been looked at differently than men. 50 years ago it was socially acceptable for women to be given less rights than men. The women's rights movements were prevalent at the time of the 1960’s and changed the way women were treated changing the lives of females for years to come. However, in the 1960’s society became more aware that a woman's place in the workforce, at home and in everyday life needed to change from the stereotypical image they had created.
Starting in 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed by congress giving women the right to vote alongside men stating, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” This was a small starting point for a movement that would last far longer than anyone expected. Even though they were given the right to vote, the way society viewed women remained unchanged until the 1960s. A woman's home life was much different than it is today. It was considered socially unacceptable for a women not to get married early on in life and begin raising a family. In fact, most women did not continue their education in hopes of finding a man to support them and their family. While the husband's job was to support the family as a part of the workforce and in return the woman's job was to fulfill her husband's needs as a stay at home mother and wife. Women did not have a place in the workforce other than taking care of the family and doing household chores. This was not due to them being incapable but solely based off society's idea that they were unable to perform at the rate of a man. When women were given jobs, they would be placed in factories with easy tasks, long hours and little pay. Compared to those tasks of men, who continued to climb the ladder to success while being paid much higher than women. In everyday life, the women was seen as lesser to the man to the point where they had no voice, no opinion and were seen as no better than their husband. At the time women were in search for a life outside their spouses ideas. They were constantly pleasing their man to the point where they had no ideas of their own and with that the fight for autonomy began. During World War II women were left at home while the men were sent off to fight. This is where women started to realize they were more than capable of the work men do on a day to day basis. In order to support their family, they took up men's jobs and became responsible for their own income. After they returned from war a majority of women did not want to stop this feeling of independence and working in the field.
The reason women were stereotyped prior to the 1960s as the stay at home moms who cooked and cleaned were based off the fact that the men were the ones to go out in the workforce and make money for the family. It was unheard of at the time for the men in the family to be the caretaker or for the women to be the working one, “In 1963 the average working woman earned only 63 percent of what a man made.” However, in 1964 the civil rights bill was passed giving women the ability to secure their rights. “Over time, the feminist trends of the Sixties took hold and over the subsequent decades changed relationships between the genders. Most young women, at least in the middle class, expected to have access to the same careers and to receive the same compensation as men," wrote historians Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin in America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. Following the civil rights law, a group of 28 women called NOW, National Organization for Women, raised awareness for women's rights, or “(made) women increasingly aware of their limited opportunities and strengthened their resolve to increase them.” This group and law reversed the stereotype of women in the workforce and opened them up to more opportunities.
The Ladies Home Journal was published in 1883 by the Meredith Corporation and became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century. During World War II the magazine focused primarily on women as homemakers. The government was a big supporter of this text and encouraged women around the United States to read into what goes into being the perfect housewife. In 1946, the journal began to use the slogan, “Never Underestimate the Power of Women”. This propaganda sparked a movement within the female community nationwide. On March 18, 1970 women from across the U.S. participated in a ladies sit in to protest the way news articles and magazines depicted women. The catch, the articles written about what women want and how they feel were primarily made by men. The women requested to have more female jobs in the magazine, raised salaries, free daycare options, the termination of degrading advertisements towards women and to create articles aside from the mythical, happy homemaker, such as “How to Get a Divorce” and “How to Have an Orgasm”. Furthermore, this protest was designed to eliminate the stereotypical ideas that this magazine was portraying from a male's point of view and focus more on living up to their slogan. As read from an excerpt from the 1885 Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper Newspaper, they focused more on a ladies place in the household and advertisements for the stereotypical women's fashion and everyday work. One ad we noticed was for a women's corset and below it for a “woman's shopping bag” which subjects women to shop for groceries and stay fit and attractive. There is also a makeup ad which claims to fix, “all imperfections of parts of the body that can be fixed by the doctor” once again making it a priority for women to look beautiful. Overall, this company run by men used their work as a way to further the stereotype of women, however, it also sparked a movement that continues on today in hopes for total equality between sexes.
The Ladies Home Journal was just one example of propaganda that began to change in the 1960s. There were many posters and advertisements that stereotyped women prior to these changes in society. Some examples of that include, a ketchup ad that read “You mean a woman can open it?”, or a Hardee's ad that stated, “Women don’t leave the Kitchen! We all know a woman’s place is in the home, cooking a man a delicious meal. But if you are still enjoying the bachelor's life and don’t have a little miss waiting on you, then come down to Hardee’s for something sloppy and hastily prepared”. Lastly, a Tipalet cigarette ad that read, “Blow it in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere”. These ads are extremely degrading to women at the time. The first ad makes the point that women are meant to complete easy task and if they can do it any man can. This idea changed at the time of the women's movement where the idea was brought into place that women can do anything men can too. The second ad makes the point that women should be at home cooking and cleaning but if this is for some reason not the case, to head to hardees. Lastly, the third ad mentions the idea that women are meant to follow men and are only there to marry in life and are put under their spouses control. These ads created a very controversial idea and were part of the reasoning for the women's rights movement at the time.
In the 1960’s society became more aware that a woman's place in the workforce, at home and in everyday life needed to change from the stereotypical image they had created. Society had created this image of the typical American family with the bread earning husband and stay at home mother who takes care of the family and chores. It was up until the 1960’s that women decided this was not the way they were going to live anymore. They no longer would hide in the shadows of their spouse but would use their voices to fight for their rights. With this, strong and powerful women joined together and fought long and hard for what they believed was equal in society. This equality battle still continues today throughout our society and has never gone unnoticed. It is clear that a movement like such does not happen overnight, but it is also relevant that we are still fighting some of the same battles we were back in the 60’s. It has been made clear that women will never back down from this war on equality, so why has society not given in to its stubborn stereotypical ways yet? A tough question to answer, but that is why these women continue to fight day in and day out for their goal of equality.
When you think of the stereotypical 50’s women you naturally think of the stay-at-home mother, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the family while her husband worked. There was no second thought of high end jobs for women, let alone jobs that didn’t include some sort of household chore. There were far less rights and society initially saw them as lesser compared to their male counterparts. This was, until the women's rights movement of 1960 where women realized what was happening in our society and they were ready to change that. Throughout time women have always been looked at differently than men. 50 years ago it was socially acceptable for women to be given less rights than men. The women's rights movements were prevalent at the time of the 1960’s and changed the way women were treated changing the lives of females for years to come. However, in the 1960’s society became more aware that a woman's place in the workforce, at home and in everyday life needed to change from the stereotypical image they had created.
Starting in 1920, the 19th Amendment was passed by congress giving women the right to vote alongside men stating, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” This was a small starting point for a movement that would last far longer than anyone expected. Even though they were given the right to vote, the way society viewed women remained unchanged until the 1960s. A woman's home life was much different than it is today. It was considered socially unacceptable for a women not to get married early on in life and begin raising a family. In fact, most women did not continue their education in hopes of finding a man to support them and their family. While the husband's job was to support the family as a part of the workforce and in return the woman's job was to fulfill her husband's needs as a stay at home mother and wife. Women did not have a place in the workforce other than taking care of the family and doing household chores. This was not due to them being incapable but solely based off society's idea that they were unable to perform at the rate of a man. When women were given jobs, they would be placed in factories with easy tasks, long hours and little pay. Compared to those tasks of men, who continued to climb the ladder to success while being paid much higher than women. In everyday life, the women was seen as lesser to the man to the point where they had no voice, no opinion and were seen as no better than their husband. At the time women were in search for a life outside their spouses ideas. They were constantly pleasing their man to the point where they had no ideas of their own and with that the fight for autonomy began. During World War II women were left at home while the men were sent off to fight. This is where women started to realize they were more than capable of the work men do on a day to day basis. In order to support their family, they took up men's jobs and became responsible for their own income. After they returned from war a majority of women did not want to stop this feeling of independence and working in the field.
The reason women were stereotyped prior to the 1960s as the stay at home moms who cooked and cleaned were based off the fact that the men were the ones to go out in the workforce and make money for the family. It was unheard of at the time for the men in the family to be the caretaker or for the women to be the working one, “In 1963 the average working woman earned only 63 percent of what a man made.” However, in 1964 the civil rights bill was passed giving women the ability to secure their rights. “Over time, the feminist trends of the Sixties took hold and over the subsequent decades changed relationships between the genders. Most young women, at least in the middle class, expected to have access to the same careers and to receive the same compensation as men," wrote historians Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin in America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. Following the civil rights law, a group of 28 women called NOW, National Organization for Women, raised awareness for women's rights, or “(made) women increasingly aware of their limited opportunities and strengthened their resolve to increase them.” This group and law reversed the stereotype of women in the workforce and opened them up to more opportunities.
The Ladies Home Journal was published in 1883 by the Meredith Corporation and became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century. During World War II the magazine focused primarily on women as homemakers. The government was a big supporter of this text and encouraged women around the United States to read into what goes into being the perfect housewife. In 1946, the journal began to use the slogan, “Never Underestimate the Power of Women”. This propaganda sparked a movement within the female community nationwide. On March 18, 1970 women from across the U.S. participated in a ladies sit in to protest the way news articles and magazines depicted women. The catch, the articles written about what women want and how they feel were primarily made by men. The women requested to have more female jobs in the magazine, raised salaries, free daycare options, the termination of degrading advertisements towards women and to create articles aside from the mythical, happy homemaker, such as “How to Get a Divorce” and “How to Have an Orgasm”. Furthermore, this protest was designed to eliminate the stereotypical ideas that this magazine was portraying from a male's point of view and focus more on living up to their slogan. As read from an excerpt from the 1885 Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper Newspaper, they focused more on a ladies place in the household and advertisements for the stereotypical women's fashion and everyday work. One ad we noticed was for a women's corset and below it for a “woman's shopping bag” which subjects women to shop for groceries and stay fit and attractive. There is also a makeup ad which claims to fix, “all imperfections of parts of the body that can be fixed by the doctor” once again making it a priority for women to look beautiful. Overall, this company run by men used their work as a way to further the stereotype of women, however, it also sparked a movement that continues on today in hopes for total equality between sexes.
The Ladies Home Journal was just one example of propaganda that began to change in the 1960s. There were many posters and advertisements that stereotyped women prior to these changes in society. Some examples of that include, a ketchup ad that read “You mean a woman can open it?”, or a Hardee's ad that stated, “Women don’t leave the Kitchen! We all know a woman’s place is in the home, cooking a man a delicious meal. But if you are still enjoying the bachelor's life and don’t have a little miss waiting on you, then come down to Hardee’s for something sloppy and hastily prepared”. Lastly, a Tipalet cigarette ad that read, “Blow it in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere”. These ads are extremely degrading to women at the time. The first ad makes the point that women are meant to complete easy task and if they can do it any man can. This idea changed at the time of the women's movement where the idea was brought into place that women can do anything men can too. The second ad makes the point that women should be at home cooking and cleaning but if this is for some reason not the case, to head to hardees. Lastly, the third ad mentions the idea that women are meant to follow men and are only there to marry in life and are put under their spouses control. These ads created a very controversial idea and were part of the reasoning for the women's rights movement at the time.
In the 1960’s society became more aware that a woman's place in the workforce, at home and in everyday life needed to change from the stereotypical image they had created. Society had created this image of the typical American family with the bread earning husband and stay at home mother who takes care of the family and chores. It was up until the 1960’s that women decided this was not the way they were going to live anymore. They no longer would hide in the shadows of their spouse but would use their voices to fight for their rights. With this, strong and powerful women joined together and fought long and hard for what they believed was equal in society. This equality battle still continues today throughout our society and has never gone unnoticed. It is clear that a movement like such does not happen overnight, but it is also relevant that we are still fighting some of the same battles we were back in the 60’s. It has been made clear that women will never back down from this war on equality, so why has society not given in to its stubborn stereotypical ways yet? A tough question to answer, but that is why these women continue to fight day in and day out for their goal of equality.
Women's Rights Movement Influence on Today's Society
“1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country” (Eisenberg 6). As well as the 19th Amendment which created equal rights for men and women in the voting place in 1920. Our society as a whole changed in the 1960s and ever since then women have been more respected and cut from the stereotypes they had lived with for so long. Today, women have been given more job opportunities in the workforce, for example, Kenneth, T. Walsh, a writer for US News states, "It was no longer surprising to see women leaders in formerly 'men's' fields like television production (Oprah Winfrey), diplomacy (Secretary of State Madeleine Albright), or the Supreme Court (Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg)”. Yet, this didn’t mean that they were still being treated equally once in the workplace. Today, women have still not completely escaped the bubble of inequality in comparison to men, but efforts to change that are still apparent. Even now, women make only 79 cents to every man's dollar for the same work (Gilroy 5). In fact, “A 1987 Congressional survey reported that women, on average, take home 68 percent of what men earn. That statistic, combined with the fact that many women are raising children alone, helps explain why far more women than men are living in poverty.” (Kane 4) However, in comparison to 60 years ago, a tremendous amount of effort has been made to shorten the gap between men and women's equality. Women have entered the workforce completely, becoming a common trend. They have taken on positions of power and established themselves as the hard working females they have always been. There are no more advertisements promoting how a woman can please her man or stereotypical stay at home, household chore jokes. Society is slowly realizing that we are all humans created equal, equal in every single way. Without the women who stood up for what they believed was right 60 years ago, things could be the exact. But due to the leadership, courage and confidence these women portrayed and continue to show throughout the years, we have sparked a movement. A movement that will not stop until we believe total equality has been reached because, as the Ladies Home Journal said in the 1900s “never underestimate the power of women”. Relating to what Patricia Ireland from the National Organization of Women said in 2011, "We are saying to young women, 'You have not only a right but an obligation to be part of the policy making of this country.” The idea that women have just as many rights as anyone else in society is still being pushed today, educating the younger generations to be aware of where they stand in society. The glass ceiling represents an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to women) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. In this year alone, the idea of the glass ceiling has been brought up at the time of the presidential election. Having a women up for president was a big deal because, as Hillary Clinton stated, “the first-ever nomination of a woman for president by a major party, put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet” (Kane 3). It created a movement due to the fact that a women could potentially become president in this day and age when the thought of a women even completing college was unheard of back at the time of the 1960s. Yet, even though it created a crack in the glass ceiling, the election did not completely break through it and caused controversy because of those who voiced their opinion on how a woman was incapable of being the president of the United States, even after all that women have been through to gain back their rights.