Second-wave feminism was about much more like sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities.
Second-wave feminism also fought violence with proposals for marital rape laws, establishment of rape crisis and battered women's shelters, and changes in custody and divorce law.
Second-wave thought pop culture was sexist so the created their own counter-culture in which they tried to promote a positive image of a woman. Helen Reddy’s song "I Am Woman" became a feminist anthem; Reddy became the "feminist poster girl".
After world war 2, there was a renewed sense of femininity that came along with the post-war boom, which included unprecedented economic growth, a baby boom, a move to family-oriented suburbs, and the ideal of perfect marriages.
The second wave of feminism was a reaction to the late 1940s. the media of idealized domesticity (EX: Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver). in the 1940s Simone de Beauvoir wrote that male-centered ideology was being accepted as a norm and that the fact that women are capable of getting pregnant and menstruating does not make them the "second sex". Kennedy established a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1963 Betty Friedan wrote the bestselling book The Feminine Mystique in which she protested the mainstream media image of women, stating that making all women into housewives limited their possibilities, and wasted talent and potential. This book started second-wave feminism. in 1963, Kennedy's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women released a report, which revealed great discrimination against women in American life.
In 1963, the Equal Pay Act became law in the U.S., and it established equality of pay for men and women performing equal work.
In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964