Feminism in the USA (1960–1979)

The post-war cultural ideal that a woman's proper role was running the home as a full-time wife and mother.

About one in three — despite the domesticity ideal being everywhere in the culture.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth-control pill.

Roughly six million, making it one of the fastest-adopted drugs in history.

It struck down a state law banning contraception for married couples, on privacy grounds.

It extended the right to contraception to unmarried people, closing the legal gap with married couples.

Betty Friedan, published in 1963.

'The problem that has no name.'

NOW — the National Organization for Women, a major feminist campaign group.

The ideal said women belonged at home; in reality, about a third of married women already held paying jobs, creating a gap that fed frustration.

Use specific content from BOTH sources and explicitly link each one to the inquiry question — not just summarize them.

She wrote as a white, college-educated, suburban woman in 1963, which helps explain the book's appeal but also its limits — it reflected mainly white, middle-class women's experiences.

Small groups of women met to share personal experiences, realising problems like unequal pay or housework were political, not just individual.

7 September 1968, Atlantic City, New Jersey — outside the Miss America pageant.

About 400 women picketed and threw symbolic items — girdles, bras, false eyelashes, curlers — into a 'Freedom Trash Can'. Nothing was actually burned, but reporters wrote 'bra-burners' and the label stuck.

National Organization for Women — founded 1966 by Betty Friedan and others to fight sex discrimination through the law and workplace, modelled partly on civil rights groups.

Founded 1971 (Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug) to get more women into elected office and political parties.

NOW worked inside the system — lawsuits, lobbying, legal reform. Liberation groups (e.g. Redstockings, WITCH) favoured direct protest, consciousness-raising and street theatre outside the system.

Helped: TV and magazines spread the movement nationwide, gave it visibility. Hurt: coverage often mocked activists, invented the 'bra-burning' myth, and focused on spectacle over the message.

Who created it shapes what they knew and what angle they took — e.g. a movement newsletter differs from a mainstream newspaper report on the same event.

Purpose reveals bias or persuasion — a NOW pamphlet aims to recruit/persuade, a newspaper aims to report (but can still be selective or mocking).

Compare how ALL the sources see the inquiry question — where they agree and where they differ — not just summarise each source alone.

1970 sit-in and takeover of the Ladies' Home Journal offices by feminist activists demanding better representation of women in the magazine.

Journalists often shaped the story for entertainment (mocking tone, 'bra-burner' myth), so content can misrepresent activists' actual aims and methods.

Banned sex discrimination in any school or college receiving federal funding, opening up sports and academic opportunities for girls and women.

A Supreme Court ruling that a woman's constitutional right to privacy included the right to choose an abortion in early pregnancy.

A proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing that equal rights could not be denied on account of sex; passed by Congress in 1972 but never ratified.

It fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification by the 1982 deadline, after strong opposition led by Phyllis Schlafly.

The Equal Pay Act (1963) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964), which banned unequal pay and employment discrimination based on sex.

The first African American woman elected to Congress (1968); argued race and sex discrimination had to be fought together.

The idea that overlapping identities, like race and sex, shape a person's experience together, not separately.

Mainstream feminism (e.g. NOW) focused on careers, pay equity, and reproductive choice; working-class women often prioritized safe jobs, wages, and childcare out of daily necessity.

Roe v. Wade guaranteed a legal right to abortion, but poorer women, disproportionately Black and working-class, often could not afford to use that right in practice.

Explain how the content of two sources can be used to answer the inquiry question (6 marks).

Analyse how a source's context (origin, purpose, time, place) shapes how it can be used to answer the inquiry question (6 marks).

Examine how perspectives across all the sources can be used to answer the inquiry question, comparing similarities and differences (12 marks).