Imagine being a woman living in Europe during the war, taking on many important leadership roles and having a good amount of power. All of a sudden, the war ends and all of these roles and powers are taken away. Europe made women feel equal to men when everything was being sacrificed for a cause, and then threw them back into being a housewife and oppressed as soon as the war ended. Once seeing how much a woman can truly have, she was not going to go back to having nothing. This is what some consider to be the initial spark of the Women’s liberation movement and the second wave of feminism across Europe. In the 1960s, women liberationists saw themselves as an oppressed group and started to demand radical change all across the continent. The way each country reacted to this demand however, was somewhat different. Although after the war, women all across Europe were fighting for liberation, they only completed strides in everyday cultural and social life and gained little to no influence in political life.
Italy was considered to be the most reluctant country to give women certain rights and services. They still had laws restricting where a woman could work in the 1960s and were very skeptical about giving abortion, contraception, and divorce rights out of fear of losing the catholic vote. Hitchcock states: “Until 1967, adultery was a crime punishable only for women; until 1976, girls as young as twelve could be married; abortions were strictly prohibited, and only in 1971 was a ban on sales of contraceptives lifted”. Clearly radical change had to occur if it was still considered accepted for a girl to get married at 12 years old. In order to make these radical changes, women formed groups like the women’s liberation m...
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...en will never be fully equal and if it does happen, it will not be for a long time. It took about 90 years for women to get this far and have a much greater influence in new Europe then they ever dreamed to have in the old. Maybe in another 90 years women will be even closer to complete equality.
Works Cited
Ballarin, Pilar, Margarita Birriel, and Candida Ortiz. Women in the European Union Programme,
"Women in the History of Europe." Accessed April 1, 2014.
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/xantippa/wee/wee21.html.
Herzog, Dagmar. Sex After Fascism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Hitchcock, William. The Struggle For Europe. New York: Anchor Books, a Division of Random
House, INC., 2003.
Libcom, "The Women's Movement in Italy." Last modified August 14, 2009. Accessed April 5,
2014. https://libcom.org/library/19-womens-movement-italy.
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Every citizen of the United State was grant the right to vote since their birth in the United State or when they passed
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The three additional important fact that were in the book were Revolutionary Women, Railroads and Telegraph, and Commodore Mathew Perry and the opening of trade in Japan.
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Social movements refer to informal groups of people who focus on either political or social issues. The goal of the social movement is to change things in society, to refuse to go along with the norm, and to undo a social change. For example, the Women’s Rights Movement that began in the 1840s was geared towards getting women more equality in relation to political, social, and economic status in society (Foner). Along with this, women gained a louder voice to speak out about what they wanted to change and implemented the change. Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were often timid, compliant, obedient, and mistreated. After the 1920s, a movement towards more equality was shifted in society views, however not all were convinced or changed by the new ideas of women. Although women began to get increased rights, the typical gender roles, which they were expected to follow did not loosely lesson. Women still found themselves doing the same gender roles, house roles, and family roles even after the 1920s. It was not until the 1960s when the Feminist movement began (Foner). The literary piece is “Why I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and the goal of the Feminist Movement was to create new meanings and realities for women in terms of education, empowerment, occupation, sexual identity, art, and societal roles. In short, the Feminist Movement was aimed to gain women freedom, equal opportunity and be in control over their own life.
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality,” this was stated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a very crucial women’s suffragist. Over time, women’s history has evolved due to the fact that women were pushing for equal rights. Women were treated as less than men. They had little to no rights. The Women’s Rights Movement in the 1800’s lead up to the change in women’s rights today. This movement began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. For the next 72 years, women continually fought for equal rights. In 1920, they gained the right to vote which ended the movement and opened the opportunity for more change in women’s lives. Because of the Women’s Rights Movement, women today are able to vote, receive
The 1960s brought about changes economically and socially. The Civil Rights Movement was alive and moving. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s goal was to hopefully put an end to racial discrimination and to restore voting rights in the South. Clearly the 60s was not the beginning of the fight for civil rights in America. The 18th century in the United State was plagued by hatred, racism and slavery. Slavery affected the entire nation. Slavery destroyed families by taking members of one’s captive to work as slaves. Abolitionists of all races began protesting against slavery. As slaves grew tired of intense abuse, slaves planned escape routes, signals and even songs. By 1843, slaves were escaping to the north making slavery almost impossible. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed as compromise between the south and the north. The law mandated that runaway slaves be returned back to one’s master. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional. In 1859, the ruling was overturned. Slaves were given another ray of hope with the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The proclamation immediately freed fifty million slaves but slated to free 3.1 million slaves (Harris, 2001). However, the proclamation did not benefit slaves in every state. Slavery, non-voting rights, public segregation and Jim Crow laws led to the development of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NACCP) in 1909. Led by W.E. Dubois in 1910, the NAACP‘s mission was to ensure political, educational, social and economic equal rights for one. The organization publicized the malice acts of lynching, beatings and police ...
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