Naming “The Problem that Has No Name”: Second Wave Feminism

1. Naming “The Problem that Has No Name”: Second Wave Feminism

2. Persistent, Systematic, Omnipresent Discrimination • Lois Rabinowitz: “Do you appreciate you’re in a courtroom in slacks?”; “start now and clamp down a little or it’ll be too late” • Stewardesses: “Executive Flight;” height, weight, hands “soft and white;” marriage • College and quotas: “We don’t have anything in the newsroom for you, but I could see if we could get you a waitressing job in the Times cafeteria.”; MRS degree • House deed: “It was made out to ‘John McDaniel and spouse.’ My name wasn’t even on it.”: banks only considered women’s salaries on loans if over 28, ½ if in 30s, all if over 40 and sterilized • Men’s clubs/lounges/gyms, golf courses, bars, lunch counters • Sandra Day O’Connor: 1981: “It must be a secretarial position, is it not?”; Stanford Law 1952 (1 of 5)

3. “Second Wave” to distinguish from “First Wave,” the fight for suffrage • Movement lost coherence and motivation after 1920

4. I. Preconditions for Gender Consciousness • The Women’s Movement required: • that a critical mass of people who were able to see that there were problems that had to be fixed and • who saw themselves as a group facing common problems

5. 1. Birth Control • Widespread use of birth control (esp. after 1960 and the birth control pill; 1 million women using within 1 year): • Ruptured the link between sex and reproduction (didn’t have to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen) • Later: “tissue paper” sex

6. 2. Life Expectancy • 1900-1950: life expectancy for women doubled (48 70s): fewer children, safer births • opens up time for women to act after children leave home

7. 3. Education • Proliferation of schools expectation women will be educated • Middle class women go to work in order to raise money to send children to college • College question received wisdom, marry later, fewer kids, more careers

8. 4. Women Working • More and more women working: including married women (legacy of WWII) • 1940: 15% ‘60: 30% ’70: 40% ’80: 50% • Principally still traditional jobs: pink collar/service • 1960: 3.5% of lawyers; 6.1% of doctors: less than in 1940 • Economic growth + government expansion new and bigger bureaucracies clerical work (pink collar) pull women out of homes women in labor movement organizational and activist experience • Why working? Intellectual stimulation, necessary to maintain middle class lifestyle

9. 5. 1950s Critiques of Conformity • Beats, Playboy, psychologists, etc. men as cogs in the machine who need to break free • Although focus on effects on men, women also read and are affected and see selves in new ways • Women still expected to work “double shift” but not recognized for it • Popular culture didn’t change: idealization of domesticity frustration and neurosis: “Domestic containment”

10. 6. Microwave Oven Liberation • Massive reduction in hours worked in the home by washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc. increased time and energy for activism • For those who worked outside of the home; for housewives # hours increased from 1920s level: raised bar on expectation • Martha Stewart

11. 7. Civil Rights Movement • CRM functioned as a revolution: • Involvement in movement was transformative for activists • Society was transformed Women in CRM learned important lessons: • If racial equality, why not gender equality? • Sacrifice would be necessary, but change possible • Required collective action • Government support necessary as was convincing those who disagreed with movement

12. II. Women’s Rights Movement A. 1961: JFK’s Commission on the Status of Women • JFK owed women for 1960 election victory • JFK didn’t understand or predict what he was setting in motion

13. First “consciousness raising” movement: different races, regions, classes, ethnicities • Discovered all societies/cultures undervalue women • Collected reams of data in order to file law suits • Set up state commissions in order to gather more data and to raise issues and make change • Many of the women had radical roots: old Left, Harlem activists, New Deal coalition, labor activists, etc.

14. B. Feminine Mystique • 1963: Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique attacks idealization of domesticity and the split-level trap • Reveals to middle class white women that there was a systemic problem • Names the “problem with no name”

15. C. 1964 Civil Rights Act • Inadvertently addressed women’s issues • Amendment made in an effort to kill it: illegal to discriminate on basis of sex (poison pill) • Passage excites women activists • But EEOC refuses to enforce sex discrim.: limited staff and funding focus on race

16. D. NOW • 1966: National Organization of Women formed to force EEOC to enforce provisions for women • 1st Pres: Betty Friedan • Early days: primarily professional women (esp. attorneys), middle class, middle age • Focus on legal and economic discrim.: lawsuits and lobbying • Similar to NAACP

17. III. Women’s Liberation • Grows out of CRM and Anti-war movements • Women in these movements faced discrim.: forced to fulfill demeaning, traditional roles (secretaries, sex) • Men in movements respond to women’s complaints w/ridicule: lynching and napalm are real problems, yours aren’t

18. Hidden Injuries of Sex • Women’s Lib is grass roots, decentralized • Consciousness raising groups: cultural problems they face: • Division of labor in family: women’s work • Beauty and the Barbie Ideal: 1968 Ms. America pageant • Sexual revolution (named in 1965 by media) • Medicine

19. These issues seen as more important than NOW lawsuits want to change society not just get bigger piece of the pie • NOW sees economics as root of cultural problems (pseudo-Marxist analysis)

20. IV. Convergence in 1970 • 1970 NOW calls nationwide strike in commemoration of 1920 • Draws together Women’s Lib groups • NOW transformed from within focusing on both economic and cultural issues

21. V. Impacts • Legal goals largely achieved, and economic equality greater • Cultural goals largely fail: 1980s Backlash (feminazis, opposition to ERA, violence rises) • Feminism becomes a dirty word: even those who agree with the goals don’t call selves feminists • Third Wave Feminism (mid 1990s)