![]() The ‘radical persuasion’ of ‘The Feminist Mystique’ provided a new vocabulary for second-wave feminism and women’s liberation, as it spoke to housewives who felt ‘trapped’ within their suburban domestic spheres. Through the examples of the anti-feminist movement, opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and the governmental disregard for two reports that explored the subordinate position of women: ‘American Women’ and ‘A Simple Matter of Justice’, this essay will demonstrate that ‘traditional’, patriarchal attitudes persisted far beyond the 1960s, into the 1980s.ġ963 was a particularly significant year in the context of the US women’s rights movement as it saw the publication of Betty Friedan’s seminal work ‘The Feminine Mystique’. Focusing primarily on the 15 years that immediately followed the 1960s, this essay will argue that whilst the WRM had a profound impact upon the way in which many women both understood and valued themselves as members of society beyond the domestic realm, the extent to which it ‘changed’ attitudes across the United States must not be overstated. However, to truly determine the extent to which the women’s rights movement of the 1960s ‘changed’ attitudes as such, we must look beyond the decade in question. As argued by Nusbaum, for the first time, women in vast numbers ‘looked critically’ at the subordination that they had suffered for so many years, and through a vast array of tactics, they began to fight back. Moreover, it was in this political climate that the women’s rights movement gained huge momentum. ![]() The occasion of an escalated civil rights struggle, the war in Vietnam and the sexual revolution provide a few examples that are responsible for the omnipresence of social atavism at this time. Green puts forward that 1960 ‘kickstarted’ a decade that ‘uniquely lends itself to study as a self-contained entity’. Furthermore, when studying this era, we must understand that the sixties were one of the most ‘colourful, complex and eventful periods in American History’. One only has to observe Kennedy’s nationally televised, 1962 proclamation that ‘the primary responsibility of women’ is ‘in the home’ to understand that such discriminatory legislation was endorsed by high politics, and thus influenced the contemporary attitudes of many in the US into the 1960s. Of course, the experience of women in the post-war era was inevitably multifaceted, yet regardless of race or social class, according to the constitution in 1960 men and women were not equal. As put forward by Bird and Green, ‘fifties trends’ of ‘white flight’ suburbanization, the ‘cult’ of motherhood underlying the baby boom and the patriarchal expectation that women were pre-destined to become ‘homemakers’ persisted at the close of the 1950s. In assessing the impact of the Women’s Rights Movement (WRM) of the 1960s on attitudes towards women, it is necessary to acknowledge the social position of American women at the beginning of the 1960s. ![]() By Bethany Marris, Third Year History Student ![]()
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