Select Source: Dictionary of American History
Women's Rights Movement Dictionary of American History COPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
This entry includes 2 subentries: The Nineteenth Century The Twentieth Century American Manager in Kiev | kievconnections.com Real Marriage Agency kievconnections.com | Sponsoredt (https://0.r.bat.bing.com/?ld=d33UZnE8cLhE-9T585hOlSTjVUCUwNeOueLRa-gdBrS9KyrADs3_kKKwYEJGuQrjNBgCmPZ6iL_iN3KHF5IJ8VY6ADKWBo3Rtnt_7HQH_Co0EJ1MxotDGGUIvU7a6orcABgJU3lIx8a7a6WTJypU0kI8g8bc6IGOX2Ku00hCsjU9fr7c&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww.kievconnections.com)
The Nineteenth Century During the Colonial era and the first decades of the Republic, there were always women who strove to secure equal rights for themselves. Some assumed the business interests of a husband after his death. A few women challenged male domination of religious life, though they met with criticism from their communities—or banishment, as in the case of Anne Hutchinson. Women were also active in the fight against the Crown and organized boycotts of British goods. During the struggle for independence, prominent females such as Abigail Adams wrote and spoke privately about the need for male leaders to rectify the inferior position of women, promising rebellion if their words were not heeded. But only later, over the course of the nineteenth century, did women's demands for equal rights change from a series of isolated incidents to an organized movement. This movement was far from unified, however; strife and division often arose as activists faced the difficulties of meeting the diverse needs and priorities of the women of America. Enormous changes swept through the United States in the nineteenth century, altering the lives of women at all levels of society. The country moved away from an agrarian, home-based economy and became increasingly industrialized. Beginning in the 1820s, many white single women found work in the mills that opened across the Northeast, where they often lived in boarding houses owned by their employers. As working-class women and men of all classes began to work outside the home, middle-class women were increasingly associated with, and confined to, the domestic sphere. Prescriptive literature defined the ideal middle-class wife as pious, pure, and submissive. Her main responsibilities consisted of creating a haven away from the harsh workplace in which her husband toiled and raising virtuous, productive citizens of the Republic. Brands Sold Direct - eBay - Fantastic prices on Top Brands Did you check eBay? Fill Your Cart With Color today! ebay.com | Sponsoredt (https://167000533.r.bat.bing.com/?ld=d3jj7Vqi3KuXr5NKmszV0OkTVUCUwm9u6NZKJuOFHAgk7J2O51tXG5LRwxYyAr0LJ3sO8Zljk6ln_zERsc_T0a7uvjaiag83L0_oY2EoKsFPtLqV-ZQaj4UTat2wFvxjFcXYbO4etMoBFSilNvYdXeklcgSPTCiirr92nlVkFGgFBezsU&u=http%3a%2f%2frover.ebay.com%2frover%2f1%2f71134000-13078-
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The new century saw changes in the lives of female slaves as well, when on 1 January 1808 the importation of slaves into the United States was outlawed. In response, slaveowners placed increased pressure on enslaved women to produce children. They also subjected these women to sexual advances against which they had little defense. The changing nature of women's lives helped create the circumstances that allowed them to begin to act politically, on their own behalf and for others. "Mill girls" often worked long hours under dangerous conditions. By the 1830s female workers were organizing protests in an attempt to improve their work environment and wages. Middle-class women's role in the home, on the other hand, led them to develop a sense of themselves as members of a cohesive group; this consciousness would later translate, for some, into the idea that they could collectively demand rights. Concern about the urban poor, moreover, allowed middle-class women to engage in charity work and temperance campaigns, in which they saw themselves as working toward the "moral uplift" of society in the same way that they cared for the moral wellbeing of their families at home. While coded as domestic and benevolent, these campaigns gave women a public voice and significant social power. Women's work in the abolitionist movement played a particularly important role in the creation of an organized women's rights movement. Early organizers for women's rights began by working with black women who had escaped slavery and wanted to learn how to read and write. The women who first spoke in public about slavery and female abuse were viciously attacked, and those who organized schools in the early 1800s met with incessant harassment. Black women, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs, fought for the rights of both their race and their sex, while also fighting the often condescending attitudes of white activists who saw themselves as the sole liberators of passive, childlike slaves. For white women like Lydia Maria Child and Sarah Grimké, campaigning for abolition made them aware of their own lack of rights, and the sexism they found within the abolitionist movement sharpened this awareness. In 1840 the organizers of the World Antislavery Convention in London refused to seat female delegates, including the American activist Lucretia Mott. Before leaving England, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose husband was a delegate at the convention, decided to launch a campaign for woman's rights on their return to the United States. On 19 and 20 July 1848 Mott and Stanton's plan reached fruition, as they staged the country's first formal women's rights convention (see Seneca Falls Convention). Three hundred people gathered in Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, where they ratified the Declaration of Sentiments. Based on the Declaration of Independence, the document proclaimed that men and women were "created equal," and that women should therefore have legal and social parity with men, including the right to vote. The declaration was greeted with a storm of criticism in newspapers and from religious leaders. By 1850, however, activists had organized similar gatherings in Ohio and Massachusetts and established an annual Woman's Rights Convention. The campaign for dress reform became closely associated with the women's rights movement, as advocates such as Amelia Bloomer argued that the tight clothing women wore—especially whalebone corsets—was unhealthy and restrictive (see Bloomers). Many early women's rights advocates also became involved in spiritualism, a belief system based on direct communication with God and the dead, which offered women a greater voice in their religious life than did the male hierarchies of the Christian churches. The events of the Civil War and Reconstruction dramatically affected the women's rights movement. As tensions between North and South intensified in the late 1850s, many women activists decided to devote themselves purely to abolition, until slavery had ended in the United States. After the Civil War, many women returned to the fight for women's rights, but new tensions soon split the movement. Radical Republicans lobbying for black male suffrage attacked women's rights advocates, believing that to demand the vote for women hurt their cause. Some women's rights activists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, turned to the Democratic Party, portions of which supported white woman suffrage in order to stop black men from securing the vote. In 1869 Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on enfranchising white women; they insisted on female control of the organization and focused their energies on action at the federal level. Soon thereafter, the American Woman Suffrage Association formed as a rival group, turning to Republican and abolitionist men for leadership and agreeing to place black male suffrage ahead of votes for women, white or black, and to work at the state level. Both groups chose suffrage as their main issue, stepping back from an earlier, broader based agenda. The women's rights movement continued to transform itself and to weather divisive tensions. In 1890 the two rival suffrage associations merged, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Both constituent groups, despite their differences, had originally based their case for woman suffrage on the argument that men and women were naturally equal. Even as the two groups consolidated their strength, this view lost political ground, and older advocates found themselves replaced by younger, more conservative suffragists. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Young Women's Christian Association, and hundreds of other women's clubs began to focus on winning the vote, as they came to believe they could not accomplish their goals without official political power. The National Association of Colored Women, formed in part due to the exclusion of black women's clubs from the General Federation of Women's Clubs (formed in 1890), became a central player in fostering the black woman suffrage movement. While these clubs had different agendas, many of their members believed that the vote would allow women to bring their moralizing influence to bear on the problems of society; in other words, women should have the right to vote not because they were the same as men, but because they were different. Despite the new interest from clubwomen, the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth proved disappointing for advocates of woman's suffrage. Although there were some victories early in this period—by 1896, women in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah could vote and a few Midwestern states had enfranchised women in school and municipal elections—the suffrage movement would not enjoy another major victory until 1910. Racial and ethnic prejudice continued to haunt and divide the movement. As Southern women became more involved in the suffrage issue, many white suffragists began to court Southern politicians by portraying woman's suffrage as a method to secure white supremacy. African American women, in response, formed their own suffrage organizations. Some advocates also argued that female enfranchisement would allow educated native-born women—and their middle-class concerns—to overrule the growing immigrant vote. As suffragists fought amongst themselves, they also fought an active anti-suffrage campaign. Because many feminists were also socialists, and because women workers often earned minimal wages, business interests solidly opposed the women's movement. The liquor industry, alarmed by the coalition between temperance advocates and the suffrage movement, campaigned particularly vigorously against the vote for women. Many females joined the anti-suffrage forces as well, arguing that women did not desire the vote. In early decades of the twentieth century several suffragists introduced new approaches that both reinvigorated and once again divided the movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, founded the Equality League of SelfSupporting Women in 1907, bringing females from all classes and backgrounds together to work for suffrage. The League organized large, lavish suffrage parades that brought publicity and respect to the cause. Carrie Chapman Catt, who served as the president of NAWSA between 1900 and 1904, recruited both college-educated professionals and socially prominent women to the campaign. In 1912, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns took over NAWSA's Congressional Committee. The movement had employed a state-by-state strategy since the 1890s, hoping eventually to secure woman suffrage nationwide, but Paul and Burns believed only a push for a federal constitutional amendment would bring about victory. The two women also believed in more aggressive tactics than those employed by their parent organization, including picketing the White House and hunger strikes. Eventually Paul and Burns broke with the NAWSA, forming the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party) in 1914. Despite the split, the woman's suffrage movement had become a vital force. When Catt returned to the NAWSA presidency in 1915, she emphasized the importance of both state and national activity. Women in Arizona, California, Kansas, Oregon, and Washington had secured the vote by 1912; by 1913, Illinois women could vote in presidential elections. In January 1918 the House of Representatives passed the Nineteenth Amendment, sometimes known as the Anthony Amendment; a year and a half later, the Senate passed it as well. Suffragists worked tirelessly for the next year to obtain ratification by the required 36 states. On 26 August 1920 American women finally had the right to vote. While the women's rights movement focused its energies mainly on suffrage after 1869, it both fostered and was fed by other changes in women's lives. Women's access to higher education expanded, as both single-sex and coeducational institutions opened their doors (see Education, Higher: Women's Colleges). As a result, females could begin to enter, at least in small numbers, traditionally male professions, becoming authors, doctors, lawyers, and ministers. Women also became involved in other political causes, especially labor issues, and opened settlement houses to aid the poor. Although American women had not achieved equality, by 1920 they had traveled far. BIBLIOGRAPHY Braude, Anne. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Buechler, Steven. The Transformation of the Woman Suffrage Movement: The Case of Illinois, 1850–1920. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986. Clinton, Catherine, and Christine Lunardini, eds. The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780–1835. 2d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. DuBois, Ellen Carol. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America, 1848– 1869. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999. ———. Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Flexnor, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996. Ginzberg, Lori D. Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Hewitt, Nancy A. Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984. Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History by the University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Kraditor, Aileen S. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920. New York: Norton, 1981. Lerner, Gerda, ed. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Marilley, Suzanne M. Woman Suffrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in the United States, 1820–1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. Marshall, Susan E. Splintered Sisterhood: Gender and Class in the Campaign Against Woman Suffrage. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol. New York: Norton, 1996. Ryan, Mary P. Women in Public: Between Banners and Ballots, 1825–1880. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990. Scott, Anne Firor. Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Wheeler, Marjorie Spurill. Votes for Women!: The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. CarolAndreas KatherineCulkin See alsoAntislavery (/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/military-affairsnonnaval/antislavery#1G23401800222); Discrimination: Sex ; Gender and Gender Roles (/history/dictionaries-thesaurusespictures-and-press-releases/gender-and-gender-roles); Suffrage: Woman's Suffrage ; Women in Churches (/philosophy-andreligion/other-religious-beliefs-and-general-terms/miscellaneous-religion/women-and#1G23401804578); Women in Public Life, Business, and Professions (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/women-public-life-businessand-professions); Women, Citizenship of Married (/history/united-states-and-canada/ushistory/citizenship#1G23401804575)andvol. 9:Human Rights Not Founded on Sex, October 2, 1837 ; The Seneca Falls Declaration ; What If I Am a Woman? ; When Woman Gets Her Rights Man Will Be Right . The Twentieth Century The reemergence of the women's movement in the United States in the late 1960s is commonly referred to as the modern women's rights movement, the feminist movement, or the women's liberation movement. It is also known as second wave feminism, which serves to distinguish it from the period a century earlier when women in the United States first organized around demands for full citizenship. That earlier campaign, known as first wave, culminated with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which legally (if not actually) barred discrimination in voting on the basis of sex. Feminists in the 1960s, like their predecessors, sought to alter their unequal political, social, and economic status. Although still vital in a variety of forms, the modern women's movement reached a high point in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Simply put, feminism is the belief in the full economic, political, and social equality of males and females. But because women are often distinctly different from one another—divided by issues of class, race, and sexual orientation—how feminists defined women's problems and women's equality varied considerably. Consequently, the modern wave of feminism had many facets, and it changed during its initial decades as women confronted and acknowledged not only larger patterns of sexism in society, but also their differences from one another. There were underlying themes common to all those who sought to improve women's status, however. One was an opposition to sexism—the notion that there are political and social institutions as well as deep-seated cultural attitudes that discriminate against women, denying them the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. A second theme was the goal of individual self-determination—the claim that women should be free to choose their own paths in life, perhaps helped by but not constrained by men or other women. Finally, feminists insisted that the "personal is political." This conviction asserted that women's individual problems were legitimate, important political issues and that the only way to change the problems of battering, rape, low-paying jobs, unfair divorce laws, discriminatory education, or degrading notions of femininity was through political organizing and political struggle. Feminist critiques constituted not only a direct challenge to the gender system, but also to racism and capitalism. The roots of the second wave lay, in part, in large-scale structural changes that occurred in the United States during the middle part of the twentieth century. Demo-graphic change, including a rapidly falling birth rate, increased longevity, a rising divorce rate, and an increase in the age at which people married, radicalized the expectations of girls and women. They flooded into the full-time labor force, stayed in school longer, secured college and postgraduate degrees in increasing numbers, and linked their newfound sexual freedom with the desire to control their own reproduction. Other important origins included a variety of political protest movements, including the labor movement, the Civil Rights Movement, New Left politics, and the counterculture of the 1960s. Women joined these movements in large numbers and often encountered deep and pervasive sexism within these radical movements. When Stokely Charmichael, a leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, for example, was publically asked in 1964 what was the position of women in the organization, he replied famously: "The only position for women in SNCC is prone." The growing dissatisfaction of women within these groups led many to insist that the organizations devote attention to women's issues, while others exited New Left movements, joining with one another to ignite the modern women's liberation movement. The early 1960s saw two important events that perhaps signalled the beginning of the second wave. In December 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women. Chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and comprised of female political, business, and education leaders, the commission was asked to report on the progress women had made in six areas, including federal civil service employment and labor legislation. Its final report, although certainly not viewed as radical by modern feminists, did call for greater equality in the workplace while at the same time trying to protect women's "maternal functions." Writer and feminist Betty Friedan recognized that the commission was bogged down in bureacracy and that it would not bring about any real changes, so she decided to take matters into her own hands, leading to the second important event. In 1963, Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique was published and immediately caused an uproar. Called a "wake-up call to women," the book outlined Friedan's belief that women were tired of being trapped in the home as housewives and that the entire nation would benefit if women could escape that outdated role and assume a more productive place in the national workforce. With such controversial tactics as comparing being stuck in the role of housewife to spending time in a Nazi prison camp, The Feminine Mystique touched a nerve in women across the country and caused a social revolution, after which little was ever the same in the women's movement. Spurred on by those early 1960s events, organizations and small groups appeared in the late 1960s and the 1970s as feminists grappled with the difficult question of how to act on these themes and insights. The largest and most structured of the new feminist organizations was the National Organization for Women (NOW), founded in 1966. It sought solutions at the policy level, fighting legal and legislative battles. One of their most famous campaigns centered around an unsuccessful attempt to secure passage of a Constitutional amendment known as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which bared discrimination on the basis of sex. Its backers believed the amendment could be used to eliminate discrimination against women in education and the labor force as well as to safeguard women's reproductive freedom. Other groups working on the policy level included the Women's Equity Action League (1968) and the National Women's Political Caucus (1971). These groups, along with NOW, demanded equal employment opportunity, equal pay for equal work, an end to sexual harassment in the workforce and educational institutions, more equitable divorce and child-custody laws, and greater concern with violence against women. Most also supported pay equity or comparable worth, reproductive rights (including abortion), and greater domestic autonomy. They believed that many of these reforms would likely occur when the numbers of women at all levels of government increased. Toward this end, they also launched initiatives to increase the number of women in public office. Other tactics for change included the development of consciousness-raising groups. Small discussion groups, these intimate forums sprung up in large numbers around the country and sought to raise women's consciousness about sexism and feminism. Women explored their struggles to become more assertive and to resist a socialization process that had taught them to be passive and self-denigrating. This technique was so successful that it has filtered into the general culture being deployed by a wide variety of groups today. Activists in many camps believed that street protests were the most effective way to communicate feminism's message to large numbers of people. Direct-action tactics included protests at the Miss America pageant in 1968; the hexing of the New York Stock Exchange by women dressed as witches from WITCH (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell); the Women's Strike for Equality on 26 August 1970, involving more than 100,000 women throughout the country; and, later, huge demonstrations to assert women's right to abortion. Other activists worked for a feminist vision of change by organizing alternative institutions. Some formed separatist female communities. Some established rape hotlines and battered women's shelters; women's health clinics, food stores, publishers, a symphony orchestra, art galleries, bookstores, banks, and bars provided outlets for creative energies and entrepreneurial skills. Although there was much disagreement within the movement about which of these disparate tactics was most effective, their combined effect was staggering. They touched the lives of millions of Americans and began to transform the ways people thought about and acted toward women. No sooner, however, had men and women begun to shift their behavior and attitudes than the male-dominated media began to ridicule and trivialize women's liberation and to publicize distorted accounts of women's activities. Most famously, the media branded the protesters at the Miss America Pageant in August 1968 as "bra burners." This event was never part of the protest, however. The press photograph of the purported incident was staged. Nevertheless, this image of the bra-burning, man-hating feminist registered powerfully and has persisted in the public mind. This backlash against women has taken a Wide variety of forms and has been a powerful force, particularly throughout the 1980s, in halting and reversing many gains for women's equal human rights. Some policy successes of the modern women's rights movement have included the 1963 Equal Pay Act, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, laws prohibiting discrimination in educational and credit opportunities, and Supreme Court decisions expanding the civil liberties of women. In 1972 Congress sent the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification; despite approval from more than half the states it failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds needed by 1982. In 1973, the Supreme Court affirmed a women's right to privacy in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. Subsequent gains included the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Victories in state legislatures included laws establishing greater protection for battered women and victims of violent crime, reform of rape statutes, and laws providing for more equitable distribution of marital property following divorce, made necessary by the negative impact of no-fault divorce laws on women. At the same time, many states placed restrictions on women's constitutional right to obtain abortions and often interpreted no-fault divorce laws in ways that harmed women's economic status. The women's movement remained a salient force for social justice and equity in the 1990s but faced new challenges and problems. Despite substantial gains in many areas over thirty years, sexist attitudes and behavior endured. The gap between women's and men's incomes narrowed but persisted, with women earning approximately 25 percent less than men regardless of education. Abortion rights, while guaranteed, came under renewed attack and in many states were severely eroded. Sexual harassment was a recognized crime but nevertheless continued to compromise women's full equality. More women were running for and winning elective office than ever before but in 1994 women constituted only 10 percent of Congress. Women continue to be underrepresented in positions of leadership in corporations and universities. Many women earning their own incomes had to work a "second shift" because they remained responsible for most or all of their families' care, even in dual income households. And families headed by single women were among the poorest in the nation. These and other concerns shaped the ideological debates within feminism at the end of the twentieth century. The women's movement continued to contain within itself a plethora of differing analyses and opinions concerning women and social change. One such debate focused on the issue of sexual violence. Feminists were divided about the role of pornography in engendering and encouraging the sexual violence rampant in the United States. Many who believed that pornography was a major cause of woman-centered violence called for strict regulation or outlawing of pornography as a violation of women's civil rights. Other feminists were concerned about the difficulty of defining pornography, claiming that the real causes of violence against women are complex and rooted deep within our culture and social institutions. They argued that pornography is a form of free speech—however abhorrent—that must be tolerated in a democratic society. Disagreements were apparent as well on the question of how to define and punish such problems as sexual harassment, date rape, and marital rape. Some questioned the legitimacy of a "battered woman defense," giving women victims of systematic violence the right to strike back against their abusers. While all feminists agreed that gender-based crimes against women, including violent acts against lesbian women, were a virulent form of sexism that must be eradicated, they differed in their analyses of and remedies for these problems. Another debate divided "difference" feminists from "equality" feminists. Difference feminists stressed that women resemble one another and differ from men in fundamental ways. They focused on the value of presumed feminine characteristics, claiming women's greater empathy, cooperation, intuition, and care and posited these as superior to those thought to characterize men. Although they frequently pointed to socialization rather than biology as the source of sex differences, these feminists believed women's characteristics are shared by all women and difficult if not impossible to alter. Equality feminism, in contrast, rejected the view that there are basic social and psychological differences between women and men. It focused on eliminating barriers to fulfilling individual potential. Equality feminism defined social justice in a gender-neutral fashion, anticipating a future that would provide women and men with opportunities to exercise individual choice on a wide range of issues, including reproduction, education, employment, legal rights, sexual orientation, and personal relationships. It rejected the traditional idea that women's differences from men are inherent or can ever be legitimately used to justify either sex's exclusion from any aspect of society or social life. The political ramifications of difference and equality feminism were many. They divided feminists who advocated special provisions for women in the labor force and the law from those who wanted equal treatment for women and men. One practical aspect of this debate concerned the appropriate remedy for the persistent disadvantages of women in the labor force. When compared to men, women earned less, were promoted less frequently, and continued to be segregated in "female" occupations. Most harmful of all was the pattern of interrupted work histories that characterized large numbers of women as they continued to drop out of the labor force in order to almost single-handedly rear children and care for their homes. Insisting on preserving women's special relationship to home and children, difference feminists addressed women's disadvantaged position in the workforce with such solutions as the "mommy track." This special arrangement of part-time work enables female lawyers, for example, to spend more time at home without forgoing their law practices. Women retain their relationships with firms even though the ability to qualify as partners is delayed and salaries are considerably lower than are those of full-time lawyers. Equality feminists, however, rejected such special protections. Their search for remedies focused rather on finding ways to equalize men's and women's responsibilities for home and child care. Many equality feminists believed that parental leaves of absence from work when children are young or ill, expanded availability of low-cost and high-quality day care, and greater participation of men in fairly dividing responsibilities for housework and child rearing were the only real solutions to women's dual-workload problem. By the middle of the 1990s, however, neither difference nor equality feminists had been able to exercise the political power necessary to resolve women's continuing disadvantages in the labor force. The ideologies of difference and equality separated feminists with respect to strategies for building the movement itself. Difference feminists tended to be wary of coalitions, Especially those with men. They were generally pessimistic about the possibility of changing what they saw as men's essentially intractable sexist attitudes and behavior and frequently claimed that only women can understand and fight women's oppression. As a result, feminists influenced by a difference model tended to be separatist, inward looking, and focused on what they saw as women's inevitable victimization. Their activism often took the form of trying to shield women from sexism, especially by separating them from its sources. Thus, one of their primary goals was the creation of all-women environments that were considered safe spaces, such as those at women's music festivals or retreats. The ideology of equality feminism, in contrast, concentrated on eradicating sexism by removing its causes. For many equality feminists this included working in coalition with men to change their attitudes and behavior toward women. They focused on issues that could unite women and men of different social classes and races, such as the disproportionate poverty of U.S. women and their children, federal funding for abortions, and the need for day care. Their goal was to change those aspects of the society that engender sexism. They fought for fair laws and nonsexist legislation and staged large demonstrations and protests to create a broad-based, diverse, and effective movement for ending sexism. The difference and equality debate raged within academic institutions. The establishment of women's studies courses and programs in almost every institution of higher education in the country was unquestionably one of the women's movement's most significant achievements. These programs and the women's centers with which they were often associated on college campuses altered the way scholars and students thought about issues of gender. Reversing a situation in which women and their contributions to history, science, and society were almost entirely ignored, women's studies courses educated millions of young people about the importance of both women and men to our cultural heritage and contemporary world. Despite their success, women's studies programs faced an identity crisis in the 1990s. On one side, equality feminists argued that the subjects of women and gender should be integrated into the curriculum and not require separate courses or programs. To them the primary goal of women's studies programs was to facilitate that integration. In contrast, difference feminists claimed that only an independent women's studies curriculum could fulfill the continuing need for courses dedicated to women's unique place in and approach to the world. Thus, feminists celebrated the many accomplishments of women's studies programs even as they disagreed about the strategy that should be adopted by such programs. The women's movement remained a forum for debate, with issues, strategies, and tactics subject to controversy. While such diversity may have confused a public looking for simple definitions or perplexed those who wanted to know, finally, "What do women want?" its multifaceted nature was the movement's strength. The women's movement had room for everyone who agreed that sexism has no place in a society dedicated to social justice. The most important contribution of the women's movement of the late twentieth century was to improve women's lives by reducing obstacles to the full expression of their desires and choices. Feminists contributed to the wider society as well, because their activism was an important element in the continuing struggle for a more equitable and just society for all. BIBLIOGRAPHY Baxandall, Rosalyn F., and Linda Gordon, eds. Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Deslippe, Dennis A. Rights, Not Roses: Unions and the Rise of Working-Class Feminism, 1945–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Evans, Sara M. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Anchor Books, 1991. Freedman, Estelle B. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America. New York: Viking, 2000. White, Deborah G. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Joan D.Mandle/l. t. See alsoBirth Control Movement (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/birth-control-movement); Discrimination: Sex ; Emily's List (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/emilys-list); Feminine Mystique, The ; National Organization for Women (/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/social-
reform/national-organization-women#1G23401802862); National Women's Political Caucus (/history/dictionaries-thesaurusespictures-and-press-releases/national-womens-political-caucus); Pro-Choice Movement (/history/dictionaries-thesaurusespictures-and-press-releases/pro-choice-movement); Rape Crisis Centers (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-andpress-releases/rape-crisis-centers); Sexual Harrasment ; Sexual Orientation ; Sexuality ; Suffrage: Woman's Suffrage ; Women, President's Commission on the Status of (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/womenpresidents-commission-status); Women in Public Life, Business, and Professions (/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-picturesand-press-releases/women-public-life-business-and-professions); Women's Equity Action League (/history/dictionariesthesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/womens-equity-action-league); Women's Health (/medicine/divisions-diagnostics-
and-procedures/medicine/womens-health#1G23401804585); Women's Rights Movement (/social-sciences-and-law/sociologyand-social-reform/social-reform/womens-rights#1G23401804586); Women's Studies (/history/united-states-and-canada/ushistory/womens-studies#1G23401804587)andvol. 9:NOW Statement of Purpose . Learn more about citation styles
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