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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965)

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965)

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"Women gained access to jobs in every corner of the U.S. economy, and employers with long histories of discrimination were required to provide timetables for increasing the number of women in their workforces. Divorce laws were liberalized; employers were barred from firing pregnant women; and women’s studies programs were created in colleges and universities. Record numbers of women ran for—and started winning—political office."

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With this information I will show how throughout American history people have taken a stand to equalize things between men and women.

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Despite such dissension in its leadership and ranks, the women's rights movement achieved much in a short period of time. With the eventual backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965), women gained access to jobs in every corner of the U.S. economy, and employers with long histories of discrimination were required to provide timetables for increasing the number of women in their workforces. Divorce laws were liberalized; employers were barred from firing pregnant women; and women's studies programs were created in colleges and universities. Record numbers of women ran for-and started winning-political office. In 1972 Congress passed Title IX of the Higher Education Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program receiving federal funds and thereby forced all-male schools to open their doors to women and athletic programs to sponsor and finance female sports teams. And in 1973, in its controversial ruling on , the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion.

The eventual dwindling of the women's rights movement was hastened by NOW's singular focus on passage of the ERA. Owing to the efforts of women such as Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem, the ERA passed Congress in 1972. But its ratification by the states became a rallying point for the backlash against feminism. Anti-feminists such as Phyllis Schlafly organized a crusade against the amendment, warning-correctly or not-that it would, among other things, invalidate state sodomy laws, outlaw single-sex restrooms in public places, legalize same-sex marriage, and make taxpayer-funded abortion a constitutional right. Needing ratification by 38 states within 10 years of its passage by Congress, the amendment fell three states short.

The failure of the ERA was followed in the 1980s by a gradual decline in organized, often bellicose activity by masses of women in the United States. Moreover, there was a growing national sense that the core goals of the women's rights movement had been achieved. NOW continued to work for women's rights-to defend abortion rights (a cause made more prominent by the National Abortion Rights Action League) and sexual harassment laws, to promote full equality in the military (including combat duty), and to secure greater federal funding for child care and for programs to prevent violence against women. But despite NOW's growth, both in budget and in membership, its activism became fragmented and fraught with dissension.

On college campuses, feminists argued among themselves and against their colleagues over such questions as whether male professors involved in consensual relationships with female students were guilty of sexual harassment. They debated the validity of women's studies as an academic major. The role of women in the armed forces became a point of contention as some hoisted the standard of equality while others protested that mothers in the military should not be sent off to war.

By the 1990s, a movement that was once defined by its radical pitch had taken on new tones-some of them conservative. The divide over abortion continued to alienate many women, such as the Feminists for Life, who believed fervently in women's rights but disagreed with the mainstream movement's position on abortion. That divide deepened when, in 1998, Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, declared her opposition to abortion on demand; shortly before dying in 2017, she claimed that she had been paid by antiabortion groups to support their cause.

Eventually, a backlash cast doubt on many of the social and economic achievements fostered by the women's rights movement. Faced with increasing numbers of single mothers and older divorced women living in poverty, many Americans began to wonder whether no-fault divorce and the end of most alimony had, in fact, served women's best interests. With a growing number of young children spending their early years in institutional day care, debates erupted over whether women were abdicating their maternal responsibilities and whether federal policies that gave tax breaks to working mothers were encouraging a further deterioration of the family unit. Feminists were further targeted as the primary culprits behind the many by-products of the sexual revolution, from the increased rate of teen pregnancy to the spread of AIDS. Ironically, however, many of the purveyors of those opinions were women who had achieved prominent status-thanks to the gains of the women's rights movement.
Elinor Burkett

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women's rights movement - Successes and failures

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Despite such dissension in its leadership and ranks, the women's rights movement achieved much in a short period of time. With the eventual backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965), women gained access to jobs in every corner of the U.S.

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In 1972 Congress passed Title IX of the Higher Education Act

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In 1972 Congress passed Title IX of the Higher Education Act

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"This prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program receiving federal funds and thereby forced all-male schools to open their doors to women and athletic programs to sponsor and finance female sports teams."

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In 1973, in its controversial ruling on Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion.

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In 1973, in its controversial ruling on Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion.

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I would like to first show how sexism came to be, not just in American society, but in the world. From all way back to the Stone Age-now.

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"These mammals are not a proxy for our ancestors – they have been evolving since our two family trees split between 7 and 10 million years ago – but their social structures can tell us something about the conditions that male dominance thrives in."

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"Common chimpanzee groups are manifestly patriarchal. Males are vicious towards females, they take their food, forcibly copulate with females that are ovulating and even kill them merely for spending time away from the group."

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"If they reflect what prehistoric hunter-gatherers did, women in those early societies would have had the choice of support from the group they grew up with, or the option to move away from oppression."

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"They acquired resources to defend, and power shifted to the physically stronger males. Fathers, sons, uncles and grandfathers began living near each other, property was passed down the male line, and female autonomy was eroded. As a result, the argument goes, patriarchy emerged."

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"Ultimately, real change will only come when societies embody the values espoused by the laws, argues Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at the Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago: “The laws are the first step, the internalised values come later.”

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"Ultimately, real change will only come when societies embody the values espoused by the laws, argues Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at the Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago: “The laws are the first step, the internalised values come later.”

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THE vast majority of cultures are patriarchies, where men are more likely than women to hold positions of social, economic and political power. So it is tempting to assume that this is the natural state of affairs, perhaps because men are, on average, stronger than women. But a study of humanity's roots suggests this answer is too simple.

Chimpanzees are not a proxy for our ancestors - they have been evolving since our two family trees split between 7 and 10 million years ago - but their social structures can tell us something about the conditions that male dominance thrives in. Common chimpanzee groups are manifestly patriarchal. Males are vicious towards females, they take their food, forcibly copulate with females that are ovulating and even kill them merely for spending time away from the group.

Males also spend their lives in the group they were born into, whereas females leave at adolescence. As a result, males in a group are more closely related to each other than the females. And because relatives tend to help one another, they have an advantage.

The same is true in human societies: in places where women move to live with their husband's family, men tend to have more power and privilege. Patrilocal residence, as it is called, is associated with patriarchy, says anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Hrdy at the University of California at Davis.

For most of our history, we have been hunter-gatherers, and patrilocal residence is not the norm among modern hunter-gatherer societies. Instead, either partner may move to live with the "in-laws", or a couple may relocate away from both their families. According to Hrdy, a degree of egalitarianism is built into these systems. If they reflect what prehistoric hunter-gatherers did, women in those early societies would have had the choice of support from the group they grew up with, or the option to move away from oppression.

According to one school of thought, things changed around 12,000 years ago. With the advent of agriculture and homesteading, people began settling down. They acquired resources to defend, and power shifted to the physically stronger males. Fathers, sons, uncles and grandfathers began living near each other, property was passed down the male line, and female autonomy was eroded. As a result, the argument goes, patriarchy emerged.

This origin story is supported by a study published in 2004. Researchers at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, studied mitochondrial DNA (inherited from mothers) and genetic markers on the Y chromosome (inherited from fathers) in 40 populations from sub-Saharan Africa. This suggested that women in hunter-gatherer populations, such as the !Kung and Hadza, were more likely to remain with their mothers after marriage than women from food-producing populations. It was the reverse for men, suggesting that agriculture is indeed correlated with patrilocal societies.

"It's tempting to assume male dominance is the natural state of human society. It isn't"

In righting things, solidarity is crucial, says Amy Parish at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She studies bonobo societies, which are patrilocal but female-dominated. Females weigh 15 per cent less than males - similarly to humans and chimps - yet Parish says they have the upper hand because they cooperate and form alliances. She sees a parallel with feminist movements: "The goal is to behave with unrelated females as if they are your sisters."

It's not as easy as it seems (see " Why the patriarchy isn't good for men and how to fix it "). "The #MeToo movement is about female cooperation," says Hrdy, "but getting cooperation among non-kin is difficult." Competitive instincts can prevail, or events can cause cooperation to fall apart - for instance in times of war, Hrdy says. "Women start to look out for the safety of their own children and their husbands." She worries that conflict could erode gains from recent decades. "None of this stuff is certain," she says. "It's what I tell my daughters: don't take any of this that you have now for granted."

Restoring and strengthening equality will require effort on multiple fronts, she says. If patriarchy originated in sedentary social structures that formalised male ownership and inheritance, then laws that give women the right to own property in their own name, for instance, can help.

But such laws exist in many 21st century societies - so why does the patriarchy persist? Ultimately, real change will only come when societies embody the values espoused by the laws, argues Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at the Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago: "The laws are the first step, the internalised values come later."
This article appeared in print under the headline "The Origins of the Patriarchy"

Topics:

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The origins of sexism: How men came to rule 12,000 years ago

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Human societies weren't always male-dominated. The switch came when we became farmers - and that suggests ways to roll back towards a more equal system

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This will be my last point made, showing that women today still have to fight for their rights and how we can fix this.

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That these restrictions still exist tells us that there is much to do. A backlash against sexual and reproductive rights is brewing - driven by well-funded and organized interest groups. At the highest levels, some governments are trying to roll back these rights, questioning the ideas of "reproductive rights" and "gender equality", or branding the principle of "human rights for all" as Western.

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"Being able to make our own decisions about our health, body and sexual life is a basic human right."

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"Being able to make our own decisions about our health, body and sexual life is a basic human right."

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In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), which guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.

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"That these restrictions still exist tells us that there is much to do. A backlash against sexual and reproductive rights is brewing – driven by well-funded and organized interest groups. At the highest levels, some governments are trying to roll back these rights, questioning the ideas of “reproductive rights” and “gender equality”, or branding the principle of “human rights for all” as Western. What’s clear is that our rights to express our sexuality and make decisions over our own bodies are being challenged."

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"They have to remember that we’re human beings. "

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"They have to remember that we’re human beings. "

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Anonymous on how politicians and lawmakers treat women who need an abortion