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As a generation of women became liberated in their sexual identities, they wanted that liberation to extend beyond the bedroom.

Women's equal rights advocates like Gloria Steinem, Susan Brownmiller and Kate Millett emerged and became the faces and voices for a generation.

Here are some of the key women and events that helped -- or hindered -- women's liberation throughout the decade.

Feminism goes mainstream

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which states that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," was originally introduced to Congress in 1923 -- three years after women gained the right to vote -- but never reached the House or Senate floor.

The National Organization for Women, which was founded in 1966 and advocated for a "fully equal partnership of the sexes," soon endorsed the ERA and made passing it into the U.S. Constitution a top priority. (The amendment had been unsuccessfully presented to every session of Congress between 1923 and 1970.)

However, the ERA was just one part of what the new, "second-wave" feminists wanted to accomplish, asTIME's article " Who's Come a Long Way, Baby?" from August 31, 1970, points out:

"They want equal pay for equal work, and a chance at jobs traditionally reserved for men only. They seek nationwide abortion reform -- ideally, free abortions on demand. They desire round-the-clock, state-supported child-care centers in order to cut the apron strings that confine mothers to unpaid domestic servitude at home. The most radical feminists want far more. Their eschatological aim is to topple the patriarchal system in which men by birthright control all of society's levers of power -- in government, industry, education, science, the arts."

In the same article, TIME spotlights Kate Millett, an author who was able to capture the feminist movement's most radical ideology into a book that became a must-read for any supporter.

"Until this year, however, with the publication of a remarkable book called 'Sexual Politics,' the movement had no coherent theory to buttress its intuitive passions, no ideologue to provide chapter and verse for its assault on patriarchy. Kate Millett, 35, a sometime sculptor and longtime brilliant misfit in a man's world, has filled the role through 'Sexual Politics.'

" 'Reading the book is like sitting with your testicles in a nutcracker,' says George Stade, assistant professor of English at Columbia University. He should know; the book was Kate's Ph.D. thesis, and he was one of her advisers."

What gender equality would look like

Gloria Steinem's 1969 New York Magazine article " After Black Power, Women's Liberation" also brought nationwide attention to the women's movement. The following year, she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and TIME published her essay on what a world with gender equality would look like.

In "What It Would Be Like If Women Win," from August 31, 1970, Steinem writes:

"In Women's Lib Utopia, there will be free access to good jobs -- and decent pay for the bad ones women have been performing all along, including housework. Increased skilled labor might lead to a four-hour workday, and higher wages would encourage further mechanization of repetitive jobs now kept alive by cheap labor. ... Schools and universities will help to break down traditional sex roles, even when parents will not. Half the teachers will be men, a rarity now at preschool and elementary levels; girls will not necessarily serve cookies or boys hoist up the flag."

The 51% minority

The women's movement attracted women of all races, backgrounds and political beliefs because many of them felt that they were being treated like second-class citizens. Despite making up more than half the American population, women were not admitted to colleges at the same rate as men or allowed equal pay or job opportunities.

As the feminist wave swept across the country, the support for ERA picked up even more steam.

The amendment was passed by both houses of Congress and President Richard Nixon in 1972, and was sent off to be ratified into law by the states. At the end of 1973, the ERA only needed five more states to ratify it by March 1979 in order to get the three-fourths approval it required.

Women as 'Man of the Year'

Mid-decade, the women's liberation movement had inundated America. The changes were so rampant that TIME awarded its "Man of the Year" in 1975 to "American women." Their article "Great Changes, New Chances, Tough Choices" from January 5, 1976, reads:

"They have arrived like a new immigrant wave in male America. They may be cops, judges, military officers, telephone linemen, cab drivers, pipefitters, editors, business executives -- or mothers and housewives, but not quite the same subordinate creatures they were before. Across the broad range of American life, from suburban tract houses to state legislatures, from church pulpits to Army barracks, women's lives are profoundly changing, and with them, the traditional relationships between the sexes. ...1975 was not so much the Year of the Woman as the Year of the Women -- an immense variety of women altering their lives, entering new fields, functioning with a new sense of identity, integrity and confidence."

Phyllis Schlafly

Then, feminism hit a roadblock: Her name was Phyllis Schlafly.

Schlafly, a staunch conservative, began speaking to the women who felt that the feminist movement was not for them -- women who enjoyed their roles as mothers and housewives.

Schlafly, who was known to open her speeches by thanking her husband for letting her attend because "it irritates the women's libbers," rallied together the anti-ERA crowd. In Schlafly's eyes, the ERA would strip away any protections that women had, like child support and exemption from the military draft. TIME notes this in their article "Great Changes, New Chances, Tough Choices" from January 5, 1976:

"The sweeping simplicity of the amendment -- 'Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex' -- made many voters, especially women, nervous. The anti-ERA lobby, led by Phyllis Schlafly -- a conspicuously liberated woman who at 51 is working for a law degree -- conjured up the prospect of unisex public toilets, an end to alimony, women forced into duty as combat soldiers."

National Women's Conference

In January 1977, Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the ERA. The amendment was now only three states shy of becoming law, but the effort was losing momentum. Many feminists saw the National Women's Conference in November 1977 as a chance to breathe new life into it. More than 14,000 women gathered to discuss the problems facing women and formulate a plan of action to deliver to President Carter.

As the "What Next for U.S. Women" TIME article from December 5, 1977, shows, the conference was a chance for many women on the fringe of the movement to finally become a part of it:

"Ida Castro, from New Jersey: 'It was a total high to get together and discover so many people who agree on so many issues, and finding that I am not alone.'

"Sharon Talbot, a 19-year-old Smith College student, put it, 'I didn't have to be a radical to be a feminist. Before I went, I hadn't really decided where I stood. Now I know that all those other women feel the same way I do, so if they call themselves feminists, or whatever, then that's what I am too.' "

Ultimately, more radical hot button issues like abortion and gay rights drove a wedge in the conference.

"During a conference vote favoring abortion, one woman cried, 'I never thought they would come to this. It's murder!' Said another: 'It will be old people next.'

"Dorris Holmes, a Georgia delegate, said 'Lesbianism has been an albatross on the whole movement since the last century. It is an extra burden we do not need.' "

While the National Women's Conference was taking place, Phyllis Schlafly was leading a counter rally of "pro-family" supporters.

"The Equal Rights proponents," she charged, "want to reconstruct us into a gender-free society, so there's no difference between men and women. I don't think babies need two sex-neutral parents. I think they need a father and a mother."

Many women left feeling more empowered than ever before, but the momentum did not translate into more votes for the ERA. After Indiana, no other state voted for its ratification. TIME also noted that during the conference "American women had reached some kind of watershed in their own history, and in that of the nation."

Steinem and other movement leaders expressed a similar sentiment.

"In terms of real power -- economic and political -- we are still just beginning. But the consciousness, the awareness -- that will never be the same," Steinem said.

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'the seventies': feminism makes waves - cnn

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'The Seventies': Feminism makes waves - CNN

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As a generation of women became liberated in their sexual identities, they wanted that liberation to extend beyond the bedroom. Women's equal rights advocates like Gloria Steinem, Susan Brownmiller and Kate Millett emerged and became the faces and voices for a generation.

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What you need to know about the gay rights movement

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What impact did Voting Rights Act of 1965 have on African America?

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What impact did Voting Rights Act of 1965 have on African America?

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Elected official's rose

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elected officials rose voting rights - Google Search

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Synopsis

Born in El Paso, Texas, on March 26, 1930, Sandra Day O'Connor was elected to two terms in the Arizona state senate. In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. She received unanimous Senate approval, and made history as the first woman justice to serve on the nation's highest court. O'Connor was a key swing vote in many important cases, including the upholding of Roe v. Wade. She retired in 2006 after serving for 24 years.

Early Life and Career

Born on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas, Sandra Day O'Connor spent part of her youth on her family's Arizona ranch. O'Connor was adept at riding and assisted with ranch duties. She later wrote about her rough and tumble childhood in her memoir, Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest, published in 2002.

After graduating from Stanford University in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in economics, O'Connor attended the university's law school and received her degree in 1952, graduating third in her class. With opportunities for female lawyers very limited at the time, O'Connor struggled to find a job and worked without pay for the county attorney of California's San Mateo region just to get her foot in the door. She soon became deputy county attorney.

From 1954-57, O'Connor moved overseas and served as a civilian lawyer for the Quartermaster Masker Center in Frankfurt, Germany. She returned home in 1958 and settled in Arizona. There she worked at a private practice before returning to public service, acting as the state's assistant attorney general from 1965-69.

Lawyer and Judge

In 1969, O'Connor received a state senate appointment by Governor Jack Williams in order to fill a vacancy. A conservative Republican, O'Connor won reelection twice. In 1974, she took on a different challenge and ran for the position of judge in the Maricopa County Superior Court, winning the race.

As a judge, Sandra Day O'Connor developed a solid reputation for being firm but just. Outside of the courtroom, she remained involved in Republican politics. In 1979, O'Connor was selected to serve on the state's court of appeals. Only two years later, President Ronald Reagan nominated her for associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. O'Connor received unanimous approval from the U.S. Senate and broke new ground for women when she was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice

As a member of the country's highest court, O'Connor was considered to be a moderate conservative, who tended to vote in line with the Republican platform, although at times broke from its ideology. O'Connor often focused on the letter of law, and voted for what she believed best fit the intentions of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1982, she wrote the majority opinion in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, in which the court ruled 5-4 that a state nursing school had to admit men after traditionally having been a women's-only institution. In opposition to the Republican call to reverse the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights, O'Connor provided the vote needed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) to uphold the court's earlier decision. In a majority opinion coauthored with Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, O'Connor broke away from the dissents penned by William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia. In 1999, O'Connor sided with the majority opinion in the sexual harassment case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education that ruled the school board in question was indeed responsible for protecting a fifth-grade student from unwanted advances from another student.

O'Connor was also the deciding vote on the controversial Bush v. Gore case in 2000. The ruling effectively ended the recount of votes for the contested 2000 presidential race, thereby upholding the original certification of Florida's electoral votes. George W. Bush thus went on to serve his first term as president, with O'Connor later admitting that perhaps the highest court should not have weighed in based on the circumstances of the election.

Personal Challenges and Retirement

During her time as a justice, O'Connor also faced some personal challenges. She discovered that she had breast cancer in 1988 and subsequently underwent a mastectomy. In 1994, O'Connor publicly revealed her battle with the disease in a speech delivered to the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. But it was her husband's declining health that eventually led the respected jurist to step down from the bench.

O'Connor retired from the court on January 31, 2006. Part of her reason for leaving was to spend more time with her spouse, John Jay O'Connor III, who suffered from Alzheimer's. The couple married in 1952 and had three sons. Her husband died in 2009.

For 24 years, Sandra Day O'Connor was a pioneering force on the Supreme Court. She'll long be remembered for acting as a sturdy guiding hand in the court's decisions during those years and for serving as a swing vote in important cases.

Life After the Supreme Court

O'Connor didn't slow down in her retirement. In 2006, she launched iCivics, an online civics education venture aimed at middle school students. As she explained to Parade magazine, "We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation." She has also served on the federal appeals court and authored several books: the judicial memoir The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice (2003), thechildren's titles Chico (2005) and Finding Susie (2009) and Out of Order: Stories From the History of the Supreme Court (2013).

O'Connor has been active on the lecture circuit as well, speaking to different groups around the country while continuing to weigh in on legal issues. In 2012, O'Connor defended current Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his vote to uphold President Barack Obama's healthcare law. Roberts came under fire for not voting in line with conservative views. According to the Los Angeles Times, O'Connor said that the justices were not obligated to follow the politics of the president who appointed him or her. She has also campaigned to end judicial appointment through elections, with the belief that having judges run campaigns compromises the judicial process.

Since her retirement, O'Connor has received numerous accolades. Arizona State University named its law school after the distinguished justice in 2006 and President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Born in El Paso, Texas, on March 26, 1930, Sandra Day O'Connor was elected to two terms in the Arizona state senate. In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. She received unanimous Senate approval, and made history as the first woman justice to serve on the nation's highest court.

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How did Reagan attack the Civil Rights Movement?

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How did Reagan attack the Civil Rights Movement?

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He Prevented extensions of voting rights act of 1965

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What happened in 1982 regarding the women movement?

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What happened in 1982 regarding the women movement?

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ERA failed to gain approval

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Why was there such a resistance to gay rights in the 1980s?

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Why was there such a resistance to gay rights in the 1980s?

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Because people found it wrong.

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what did president Reagan do regarding Martin Luther King's birthday? 

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what did president Reagan do regarding Martin Luther King's birthday? 

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Reagan made it a national holiday.

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What 4 social issues pervaded Reagan's terms in office?

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What 4 social issues pervaded Reagan's terms in office?

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-Sexual Orientation
-Civil Rights
-Women's Movement
-Conservatives on the supreme court

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What First did Reagan do the supreme court

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What First did Reagan do the supreme court

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The first women judge