The Civil Rights Movements - Essay Example

The civil rights movement also coincided with the women’s movement which had the same aspirations and ambitions that civil rights strove for but focused on the female population and their rights (MacLean, 2006). The successes that were achieved by the civil rights movement helped the Women’s rights as well and enabled them to gain the equality that they had been struggling so hard to gain over the years. A number of the successes that were achieved affected the women as well and thus in this way it can be said that both movements were connected in their fight to achieve their goal of equality(English, 2009).

A good example would be the passage of the 1963Equal Pay Act that can be related to the Greensboro sit-ins in 1960. The sit-ins were staged in protest of the racial segregation policies that were practised by Woolworth in the southern states whereby the white employees received better treatment and pay than their African American counterparts (English, 2009). The sit-ins were able to gain a lot of media coverage and can be said to be part of the reason that the equal pay act was eventually passed in 1963 and abolished pay disparities which affected the women as well.

Through these two connections, one can see that the civil rights movement did serve a part in increasing the momentum of the women’s movement and the rights that they were fighting for as they took into consideration all groups that were discriminated against including the female population(MacLean, 2006).