Feminist Movement in the 1960's - Research Paper Example

The first wave was less radical and dealt with issues such as women’s voting rights and gender equality. The second however broadened the spectrum and agitated for issues such as sexual liberation, workplace inequalities and legal inequalities. One of the factors that propelled this movement was feminist publications. In Betty Friedman’s book; The Feminine Mystique, she put’s forward among other things, that woman should not be relegated to the home as it is a waste of her potential (Helium: Understanding the 60s' women's liberation, par 4 Sept. 2008). It was a bestseller world over and influenced many feminists after its publication in 1965.

Women attempted to empower themselves through the law through steps in the legal arena one such being the 1963 bill by Esther Saperstein introduced into state legislature meant to create a Commission on the Status of Women in conjunction with relevant national legislation. . (Encyclopedia of Chicago: Feminist movements 2004).They also formed feminist movements. It is in these period movements such as that the women’s liberation movement, which argued that women suffered both personal and political oppression in a male-dominated society and Chicago women’s liberation movements (1965) were formed (Encyclopedia of Chicago: Feminist movements, 2004). . Feminists also agitated for freedom in sexual reproduction; they demanded access to abortion services, rape clinics and family planning services.

They even went as far as to; through a movement named “Jane” to provide abortions in Illinois despite its being illegal there. Several landmark legislations for the feminist movement were passed at this time. Such included the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which disallowed sex based discrimination between men and women working under similar conditions. (Helium: Understanding the 60s' women's liberation, par 7 Sept. 2008) The civil rights amendment of 1964 also guarded against discrimination based on gender, race color or creed.

This however did not always guarantee that the discrimination would stop and even while they were in place Betty Friedman in 1966 formed now an organization that interrogated the discriminative practices in work place. This showed that despite changing the laws, it would take a lot more to change the minds of people (Helium: understanding the 60s' women's liberation, par 7 Sept. 2008). During the Miss America pageant in 1968, a group of feminists protested the move and claimed that through such pageants, they were being viewed as sex objects.

They demonstrated and in what were popularly known as bra burnings; they removed their bras and called for a bra ban. Such action did raise criticism in some quarters where it was said that their actions to fight the view as sex objects made them the same thing. This however is just an opinion. Through these actions, women were showing the world that they could not and would not be ignored and they were willing to do whatever needed doing to get on equal footing with men and