Gloria Steinem Impact On Women's Movement

The women’s movement changed the daily life of women forever. The implicit feeling that a woman is not everything she could be. The feeling just lies in her stomach and doesn't move. The displeasure of knowing you have nothing to live for wraps through her stomach like a rug. Women’s lives were like this for many years. Times have truly changed. Over the course of many years; after many amendments; and after many tragedies; women's rights have increased dramatically due to persistence and hope. In the past, there was one path for a women to take in her life. To marry, have kids, and take care of the house while her husband attended work. This was just the norm and there was no denying it.

It’s puzzling to think women were not looked upon

as independent people before this movement. As opposed to now when women can work and are accepted as independent people in society. There was no main goal of the feminist movement. “The feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s originally focused on dismantling workplace inequality, such as denial of access to better jobs and salary inequity, via anti-discrimination laws. In 1964, Representative Howard Smith of Virginia proposed to add a prohibition on gender discrimination into the Civil Rights Act that was under consideration. He was greeted by laughter from the other Congressmen, but with leadership from Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan, the law passed with the amendment intact.” (tavanna.org). Thirty eight percent of women who worked in the 1960’s were limited to quite a few jobs. For example, a secretary, a nurse and a teacher. ⅕ of women with kids younger than 6 and nearly ¼ of women with kids over 16 maintained paying jobs in the sixties. The pay was only sixty percent of the pay men received. This movement had many goals. For example, one goal was to change society's thoughts on women's lives and to have people look at life through a feminist's perspective. Also, people wanted to give women equal rights in school and work. Feminists wanted people to rethink women's roles at home.
There were many organizations created to support women. Throughout the rest of this paper, many of them will be mentioned. NOW, which stands for the National Organization for Women was created on October 29-30 in 1966. The creators were frustrated that women lacked rights and were not held to the same standard as men. Some key founders of this organization include Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Aileen Hernandez, Richard Graha, Caroline Davis, Kathryn Clarenbach etc. A main goal of this organization was to help pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The National Women's Political Caucus was another organization created in 1972 to increase women’s participation in life. A few of the founders are Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisham, Dorothy Height and Gloria Steinem. ERAmerica was founded in 1975 to gain support for the Equal Rights Amendment. It was created at the time that Phyllis Schlafly created her “Stop ERA” campaign. The National League of Women Voters had been founded in 1920. Its purpose was to continue the work of the Women's Suffrage Movement.

Throughout this time period, there were many inspirational leaders to fight for equality. Betty Friedan was a true feminist She put her heart and soul into her work with the movement. Her perseverance still bewilders people today. In 1963, she published her book The Feminine Mystique which highlighted the frustration of college educated women who were trapped in a lifestyle in which they had to do one and only one thing with their life. She helped create the Women's National Political Caucus with Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. She was also one of the founders of NOW (National Organization for women). One purpose for her book was to open the eyes of the women that their lives are not being lived to their full potential. In her book she writes, “Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy a dishwasher, bake bread, cook gourmet snails, and build a swimming pool with their own hands; how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting; how to keep their husbands from dying young and their sons from growing into delinquents. They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for. Some women, in their forties and fifties, still remembered painfully giving up those dreams, but most of the younger women no longer even thought about them. A thousand expert voices applauded their femininity, their adjustment, their new maturity.” (The Feminine Mystique).

Bella Abzug was known for her drastic impact on the women's movement.

Her successful future started when she graduated from Columbia law school. She was the leading representative in the House of Representative when she ran for congress. She helped organize the women’s strike for peace in 1961.Gloria Steinem was yet another extremely important figure during the feminist movement. History.com writes, “Steinem found herself the subject of media scrutiny with her 1992 book Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem. To some feminists, the book’s focus on personal development to be a retreat from social activism. Steinem was surprised by the backlash, believing that a strong self-image to be crucial to creating change. “We need to be long-distance runners to make a real social revolution. And you can’t be a long-distance runner unless you have some inner strength,” she explained to People magazine. She considers the work to be “most political thing I’ve written. I was saying that many institutions are designed to undermine our self-authority in order to get us to obey their authority,” she told Interview magazine.”

Although there were many people who had extremely positive impacts on the women's rights movement, Phyllis Schlafly was known for her opposition to the women's movement. She was a public speaker and wrote a book called The Power Of Positive Women (1972). She was quite antagonistic about the whole idea of equality.

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There were not only individuals who made their mark and made a change. Many nationwide events took place. In December of 1967, NOW organized presentations throughout five cities to target the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) about changing ads that were segregated by gender. August 26, 1970, was the 50th anniversary of the Women's Strike for Equality march. In New York alone, 50,000 women marched and 100,000 other women participated elsewhere. In 1973, NOW organized yet another march nationwide. It was called “Take Back the Night.” This march protested gun violence and sexual assault against women.

There was not a specific place that women experienced inequality. It was everywhere. In the 1960’s, women were not allowed to do the simplest things. One of these things being obtaining a credit card. If you were single there was no way for you to get a credit card. If you were married, your husband had to co sign the card. Without a husband's signature, you could not have a credit card. In 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed. When it was passed, it was illegal to not give a credit card based off of gender. Progress! Women are getting there. Women were not allowed to serve on a jury. One main reason this was the case was because they were the main caregivers and they were the “center of the house.” Women were not accepted into Ivy Leagues. Women did not experience workplace equality as well. CNN claims, “Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative professional positions. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was going through Congress, an amendment made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender as well as race. When the amendment was not taken seriously regarding women in the workplace, the National Organization of Women was founded to enforce full equality for women in truly equal partnership with men.”

Subsequently, women's rights have turned for the better and are still improving today. All in all, the rebellious women who fought against American society’s vision of women made themselves realize they can make a change. With the help of many perpetual people- such as Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, women would not occupy the rights they have today. Women are not worthless, they are intelligent and can make a huge impact on our world. Thankfully, these brave people stood up to inequalities and face them head on. As the rousing Malala Yousafzai said, “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”