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Image from Vol. 1 Iss. 1 of "Off Our Backs". Photo Credit: Off Our Backs Inc.

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"Health care should be the right of all people, yet it is given based on our ability to pay. We suffer great degradation in maternity wards and severe 111-ness and death when we cannot afford hospital admission or when we are turned away because of overcrowded conditions."

"The right to control our reproduction has been robbed from us. Misinformation surrounds birth control. Male supremac- ist laws and prohibitive costs make safe abortions the last resort of only the rich. The rest of us must risk our lives and health at the hands of corner quacks or supposed friends. Many of us, especially black and brown women, are forced into tube tying operations at city hospitals."

"And when we have children we are pressed into the isolation of raising them alone. We cannot get jobs with a clear mind since we cannot be assured our children are well taken care of while we are away. The only time this country gave us all free child care was when we were desperately needed as workers. That stopped all too soon when men, the "real" workers, returned from the war."
off our backs/February 27, 1970/8

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“This society expects women and children to be financially supported by men. But many mothers don't have husbands and must support their families by themselves. It is difficult for women to find jobs that pay enough to adequately support a family. We suffer great discrimination in wages, are fired first and hired last, are essentially the most exploited sector of the labor force. In 1964 the median income for male workers was $6,283; for female workers it was $3,710. Non-white women receive lower wages than white women, but all women receive lower wages than men. The income scale in the United States goes white men, black men, white women, and finally black women. Even when women can find full time work, we are grossly underpaid."

"Sometimes it is impossible for women to work, so we must turn to welfare. On welfare we have to feed a family on pennies a day and live in fear that even that can be taken away. We have to account for every cent spent and are made to feel that we are inadequate human beings because we are supported by the government. What's more, they expect us to be grateful!

Women around the country have organized Welfare Rights organizations which give us the power to fight for more money to live on and better treatment. We are also organizing to fight a system that gives corporations millions and calls it subsidies, but gives women and children pennies and calls it charity.”

off our backs/February 27, 1970/6

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Image from Vol. 1 Iss. 1 of "Off Our Backs". Photo Credit: Off Our Backs Inc.

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Image from Vol. 1 Iss. 1 of "Off Our Backs". Photo Credit: Off Our Backs Inc.

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"We are told that a man's world is his house and that a woman's house is her world.

Today, that is a myth. Most women work because they have to. In 1967, 62% of working women were supporting either them- selves or others. They were either living alone or had husbands who earned less than $5,000 a year.”

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"We are taught from the time we are small that little girls grow up to be Mommys, not doctors, lawyers, or artists. We are taught that our place is in the home caring for the household. The little girls have brooms, dolls, dishes: they all prepare her for this future.

The schools also tell us that a woman's primary place is in the home- or if she is working, she still is a maidservant. We're taught to be lady-like, i.e., obedient and polite. We're rarely encouraged to develop our potential as people so that we might be able to do something in the world. We are taught home economics, typing and "manners", not physics, math or self-defense. We are programmed for future dependence."
off our backs/February 27, 1970/5

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Image from Vol. 1 Iss. 1 of "Off Our Backs". Photo Credit: Off Our Backs Inc.

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"On March 8th women around the world will celebrate International Women's Day with demonstrations demanding our libera- tion and marking this date with a renewed commitment to fight against economic, racist and sexist discrimination.

Denied our history, few of us know that International Women's Day originated in the United States. In New York City on March 8th, 1857, a long cortege of war-ravaged, widowed and poverty-stricken women garment workers carried picket signs. demanding improved working conditions and the recognition of equal rights for women.

"Decent wages! A ten-hour day!", the women called as they walked through the cold. When they reached the rich districts, however, they were trampled and dispersed by police. Many were arrested. On March 8, 1908, marking the date of this earlier revolt, women workers in the needle trades again demonstrated on the Lower East Side of New York for the right to vote and an end to sweatshops and child labor."
off our backs/February 27, 1970/5

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Photo of Audre Lorde. Photo Credit: Poetry Foundation

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“A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Lorde was born in New York City to West Indian immigrant parents. She attended Catholic schools before graduating from Hunter High School and published her first poem in Seventeen magazine while still a student there” (Poetry Foundation 1).

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Image of Steinem. Photo Credit: gloriasteinem.com 

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“Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice” (Steinem 1).”

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Female beekeeper, Samantha Foxx. Photo Credit: “Meet the Inspiring Woman Behind North Carolina's Buzziest Farm” Southern Living

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The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd shows women in the workforce in an interesting way. At the beginning of chapter 4, Kidd writes,

“The woman moved along a row of white boxes that borders the woods beside the pink house…Lifting the tops off the boxes, she peered inside, swinging a tin bucket of smoke back and forth. Clouds of bees rose up and flew wreaths around her head” (Kidd 67).

The main character, Lily, was very surprised to see a woman working. This is because the normal woman wasn’t working at this time.

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This video gives great insight into the lives of the working women. They came from the home, other industries, and other companies of the same type. White women had the most benefit to these changes.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower witnesses Frank K. Sanderson swearing in Mrs. Katherine G. Howard, as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Photo Credit: “Women in the 1950s” Eisenhower Presidential Library.

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Politics was a very rough world for women. At this point not many women had been involved in politics. They had to constantly fight for any kind of respect from their male peers. The United States House of Representatives wrote in their article titled "Postwar Gender Roles and Women in American Politics":

"'A woman enters into a man’s world of politics, into back-fighting and grubbing. Before she puts her name on the ballot, she encounters prejudice and people saying, "A woman’s place is in the home." She has to walk a very tight wire in conducting her campaign. She can’t be too pussyfooting or mousy. Also, she can’t go to the other extreme: belligerent, coarse, nasty.'”

regarding women in politics after WWII.

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72-357-1 Katherine Howard swearing-in ceremony (1)

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With women being expected to stay home, they did not have much access to education. Women were often able to read, write, and perform fairly basic math with a high school diploma. They often did not attend post-secondary education. Betty Freidan actually remembers her friend who was very intelligent and said:

"'It was not very useful to be too intelligent, for a girl, in Peoria when we were growing up,' Attributes such as beauty and charm were more highly prized” (Frederiksen 28).

Many women felt this was unfair and began to find ways to break away from what was expected of them. Individuals began participating in silent protests as well as boycotts.

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Women preparing for a party or event. Photo Credit: “Women in the 1950s” Eisenhower Presidential Library

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Women have been expected to act in specific ways for years. In fact,

“the image of the ‘ideal’ family was that of the successful husband, of the children running in the garden or watching the brand-new television set and, above all, of the wife cooking in her highly-equipped kitchen, doing the laundry in the most modern washing machine and cleaning the house with her extremely powerful vacuum cleaner while wearing high heels and pearls and with an intact hairstyle” (Lambs 17).

These stereotypes lasted throughout the 1950s and 1960s.