Women's Role In The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was the beginning of all the change to come in society. Although it was not without fight, the civil rights movement assured the rights of African Americans and gave them equal opportunities and the basic privileges and rights as U.S. citizens. The women’s movement took cues from this time to make much needed changes in the lives of women. They sought to make societal changes in all aspects such as social, political, and economic. In 1960, a woman’s reality was limited in almost all aspects. They had been expected to follow one unquestionable path, which was to marry early, start a family quickly and devote their lives to being a homemaker. They had been legally binded to their husbands in return of “head and master
Co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) her mission had become to make the movement, “ a respectable part of mainstream society” and not the “bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm.” Her book highlighted the frustrations of college educated housewives who felt unfulfilled with one saying, “I’m desperate. I begin to feel I have no personality. I’m a server of food and a putter-on of pants and bedmaker, somebody who can be called on when you want something. But who am I?” Her book was one of the first to contradict the thought that housewives were, “accepting and fulfilled by their reality of being a server for their family and property to their
A prime example of the oppression women faced was at a New Politics conference in which the chairman addressed a feminist asking her to, “Cool down, little girl. We have many more important things to do here than talk about women’s problems.” Such set backs never changed the course of the movement but empowered feminists to continue to push for