Why was this leaflet published?

1. What problems did women face? C aim – to explain the problems women faced B aim – to explain how severe the problems were that women faced A/A* aim – to explain how severe the problems were that women faced and how it would be best to solve them • Why was this leaflet published? • Remember think about what the actual purpose was. Why was it created? What did they want to achieve?

2. Fill in this sheet using your handouts. Problems at work Problems in education What problems did women face in the 1950s and 1960s? Problems with contraception and abortion Problems in marriages and relationships

3. Work In the 1950s and 1960s more women were starting to work. However, most women were expected to give up work once they got married so they could concentrate on looking after their husbands, the house, and having children. They were still usually employed in supporting roles and struggled to get promoted. A few women did start to get promoted though. Most employers assumed that women weren’t as good at men at their jobs as they thought they were less intelligent, and that they should be at home looking after children anyway, so they paid them less. This was called the pay gap. There was deeply held belief that all women should be at home looking after their children and all men should be at work earning money, even if women didn’t want to stay at home and care for her family. Some even said it was psychologically damaging for a child to have their mother working, which wasn’t true.

4. Education Women started to get more educated as the Butler Act in 1944 said that everybody, men and women, must go to school until they were at least 14. Before 1944 most women went to school for a shorter period of time than men. More women started to go to university as well because more universities were built. The best schools in the 1950s were called grammar schools. There were lots of boys grammar schools, but not many girls grammar schools, which meant girls struggled to get a really good education. When they were at school most girls had to study ‘female’ subjects like domestic science (cooking) and needlework. This was to prepare them for being a housewife, and meant they could never get educated enough to get a well paid job. Most men studied ‘male’ subjects like woodwork and engineering, which helped them to get very good jobs.

5. Marriages and Relationships Women were expected to get married and have children, even if they wanted to do something else. They were expected to do as their husband said and never disagree with their husband. Most women said they felt like unequal partners. This was largely due to the fact that women had to ask their husbands for money, which they didn’t like doing. Many women said that they felt they got married too young. They wanted to do other things but felt pressured by society into getting married straight away. It was frowned upon to live together without getting married. When people got divorced in the 1950s and 1960s the judge would study how much both people had earnt whilst they were married and divide their wealth based on this. As women were expected to be housewives they usually hadn’t earnt much when they were married. This meant the judge wouldn’t give them any money when he divided their wealth. This left women very poor if they got divorced. It meant that women stayed in very unhappy marriages, or even sexually or physically abusive marriages, as they were too scared of being left in poverty if they got divorced.

6. Contraception and abortion There was no reliable contraception for women to use for most of the 1950s and 1960s. This meant that women had to rely on men using condoms properly. This meant that women couldn’t control when they had children and they could end up getting pregnant when they really didn’t want to, or having lots of children when they didn’t want to. Even when the contraceptive pill for women was introduced in 1961 (this was a pill women could take every day to stop them from getting pregnant), it was nearly impossible for unmarried women to get in the 1960s. Abortion was illegal for most of the 1950s and 1960s. This meant that women had to have the child if she became pregnant, even if she really didn’t want to have children at that point. The adoption rate was very high, and going through the process of pregnancy and then giving children up for adoption was very traumatic. Some women turned to backstreet, or illegal, abortions in the 1950s and 1960s. These were carried out by unqualified individuals. Many women became very ill, or even died, from backstreet abortions.

7. C – What problems did women face in the 1950s and 1960s? B – How severe were the problems that women faced in the 1950s and 1960s? A/A* aim – How severe were the problems that women faced in the 1950s and 1960s? How could they be effectively solved?

8. How did women try to solve these problems? • What do they need to change to improve their problems at work, in education, in marriages and relationships and in contraception and abortion? • How could they change this?

9. Dagenham Equal Pay Strike Some groups of women got together to protest. Some of them protested against Miss World competitions which they felt were just valuing women’s looks and not them as individuals. Others protested for equal pay. The most famous one was when 40 women workers went on strike because they wanted equal pay to the men who were doing the same jobs as them in the factory. They went on strike for 3 weeks and eventually settled for 92% of the pay of men.

10. What does the Metro suggest this event is all about? What do they see as the ‘bigger picture’? Manipulating the story of British history: what has happened to the story ofthe Grunwick Dispute of 1976?

11. This is an alternative image of the Grunwick Dispute. What does it tell you about this event? What could be the ‘bigger picture’ of which this would be a part? How has the Grunwick Dispute been manipulated?

12. How far is one of these two pictures more reliable than the other for the study of the Grunwick Dispute?

13. This is an alternative interpretation of the Grunwick Dispute, presented in a short television clip. One of the Grunwick protesters, called Laxmi, is being interviewed over thirty years after the Strike. What does it tell you about this event? How far is this a contemporary source, as well as an interpretation of the event?

14. The Grunwick dispute went on for nearly two years, and it did lead to very challenging, aggressive, confrontations between police and protesters. However, the core significance of this dispute could be seen as the strength of Jayaben Desai and the Asian women she led in the dispute.

15. Feminism C aim – to explain what a feminist is and what they did in the 1960s B aim – to define feminists and explain the ways they contributedA/A* aim – to challenge concepts of feminism and explain how they contributed to society What is Feminism? Who is likely to be a feminist? Who can be a Feminist?

16. Feminists Feminists are groups of women who campaign for women to have more rights. In the first wave of feminism in the early 1900s this started with them campaigning for women to get the vote. In the 1960s in the second wave of feminism they campaigned for women to get more rights at work, in education, in their marriages and in contraception and abortion. Today we have the third wave of feminism when women are trying to make sure equality fully happens and work and to reduce the amount that women are seen as purely sexual objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XgPD8d3hT0

17. What is this source showing?What view are they trying to challenge?

18. Can you think of any feminist events happening today?

19. Who was likely to be a Feminist in the 1970s? Sue was interviewed as part of a major long-lasting project that interviewed a group of people at age 7 (1964) and then at seven year intervals after that. Would you consider Sue to be a feminist? What explains her challenges and limits in terms of women’s rights?

20. How far does this film clip show both the opportunities and challenges that women faced in 1960s Britain?

21. “Maybe I couldn’t make it. Maybe I don’t have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don’t know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I’m sick of the masquerade. I’m sick of pretending eternal youth. I’m sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I’m sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I’m sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I’m sick of the Powder Room. I’m sick of pretending that some fatuous male’s self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I’m sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I’m sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate.” ― Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch How does this writer interpret the problems facing women?

22. What do we learn from these sources about the impact of Germaine Greer’s book?

23. How important was education in Germaine Greer’s emergence as a feminist?

24. How significant was Germaine Greer in ‘giving birth to new women’ in the 1970s?

25. “Maybe I couldn’t make it. Maybe I don’t have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don’t know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I’m sick of the masquerade. I’m sick of pretending eternal youth. I’m sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I’m sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I’m sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I’m sick of the Powder Room. I’m sick of pretending that some fatuous male’s self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I’m sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I’m sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate.” ― Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

26. Is this source accurate in its portrayal of feminists?

27. Spare Rib was a feminist magazine, this issue was published in Feb 1973.How reliable is this source?

28. C – What is a feminist and what did they do in the 1960s and 1970s? A/A* - What concepts of feminism could you challenge? How did they contribute to society in the 1960s and 1970s? B – Who are feminists and how did the contribute in the 1960s and 1970s?

29. Changes for Women in the 1960s C aim – to explain what changed for women in the 1960s B aim – to explain what changed and why it changed A/A* aim – to explain what changed and how far feminists caused this change Fill this in using pp. 40-45. You will need to look for information using the subheadings.

30. How significant were feminists in solving women’s problems? • How are the problems solved? • How far did feminists influence this?

31. Homework – due Wednesday 4th Feb. Which source gives a more accurate view of women in the 1960s? • P1 – explain the ways that E is more accurate and F is less accurate • P2 – explain the ways F is more accurate and E is less accurate • Judgement