The historiography of suburban women since the 1960's

Résumé du document

Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique is told to be the book which opened the door of the second wave of the feminism movement in the United States of the 1960's. Flora Davis, the writer of "Moving the Mountain: The women's movement since the 1960? calls it "the book that changed lives". While talking about this book, Davis tells us that it challenged the suburban women's life habits. Some of them were angry, and others reconsidered themselves. It made working women feel guilty and women staying at home more ambitious. In short, the status of women changed a lot, since the days they had no activities beyond their family. The founding of the National Organization for Woman or NOW (Freidan was one of the founders) in 1966 also showed that the second wave of feminism was on its way. It finally occurred between 1960 and 1980.

Extraits

[...] Since the 1960's, suburban women evolved dramatically in different ways: at work, at home and in the whole American society. In 1960, the birth control pill emerged which gave more liberty and independence to women, they became responsible of their own bodies and domestic violence were fought through the struggle against marital rape and sexual assault. Moreover, in 1973, abortion is legalized for the first time because feminist thought that no women had to be forced to have children.(sources: Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America since 1960 by Flora Davis and Against our Will: Men Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller a radical feminist). [...]

[...] Describe the historiography of suburban women since the 1960s, making reference to specific books (or articles) that have been written on the subject. Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique is told to be the book which opened the door of the second wave feminism movement in the United States of the 1960's. Flora Davis, writer of Moving the Mountain: The women's movement since the 1960 calls it" the book that changed lives". Actually, Davis tells about this book that it challenged the suburban women's life habits, some of them were angry, and other reconsidered themselves, it makes feel guilty women who would work and it makes more ambitious women who would stay at home. [...]

[...] Cott the proportion of suburban women who worked whereas they had children at school jumped from 25% in 1950 to 39% in 1960. Nevertheless, young suburban mother were still at home reading and doing what the magazines said they should do but once their children got the age of school they were taking jobs, in 1960 the percentage of married women at work doubled compared to 20 years ago (still according to Cott). As we said before, during and after the 1960's, not only did women get more in power, power at home, power at work, but also power in consumption. [...]

[...] In A Companion to American Women's History by Nancy A. Hewitt, it is told that after 1970, women were motivated by trade unions to rebel and militate for their rights as pink collar workers and they became dynamic in their sector. Besides, in Contextualizing Suburbia, William Shape and Leonard Wallock argue that suburban life is more centered around women than men indeed, men are still seen as braidwinner and women as homemaker, however women have this double duty since the moment they became to work, they have this primary responsibility to take care of children and the other to go at work and perform their paid jobs And as said FISHMAN (quoted in the article) , suburbia has become a "empowering " work of environment for women. [...]

[...] Bernard Vincent in Histoire des Etats-Unis states that NOW is the most important feminist organization in the United States and nowadays it counts about more than 500,000 members. In 1972, the Congress voted the Equal Right Amendment (ERA) which was fought by NOW, it intended to guarantee equal rights for men and women under the law. Besides, in the 1960's, American society was already disquieted because of the civil rights movement struggle and like students, women took part at that social struggle for equality. So it was the time of student as a nigger" the woman as a nigger". [...]