Women's Rights Movements: Second Wave

The widely accepted narrative of the modern feminist movement is that it initially involved white women beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who were later joined by women of color following in their footsteps. But this narrative is factually incorrect.

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.

Miss America pageant is under new leadership after a sexist email scandal. But the pageant has a long history of controversy—including the 1968 protests.

.pdf of the original Our Bodies, Ourselves, then called Women and Their Bodies.

A brief look into the history of the seminal women's health book, Our Bodies, Ourselves from the official website of the publisher.

By 1960, the baby boom was taking its toll. Mothers who had four children by the time they were 25 still faced another 15 to 20 fertile years ahead of them. Growing families were hemmed into small houses, cramped by rising costs. "By the end of the fifties, the United States birthrate was overtaking India's," Betty Friedan would write in The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Both men and women were beginning to ask, "Is this all there is?"

Timeline of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States from 1960 to 1977.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed but unratified amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was designed mainly to invalidate many state and federal laws that discriminate against women; its central underlying principle was that sex should not determine the legal rights of men or women.

Many feminists in the 1960s and 1970s felt that adding the Equal Rights Amendment would be the next step in the movement for women’s equality. So far, the ERA has failed to win passage, though it came close.

On March 22, 1972, the Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which proposed banning discrimination based on sex. The E.R.A. was sent to the states for ratification, but it would fall short of the three-fourths approval needed.

Does the Constitution embrace a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion? Read all about the legal proceedings and hear the arguments.

She appeared to be the perfect plaintiff in a case that changed America’s political landscape: Roe v. Wade, decided by the Supreme Court 40 years ago this month. But Norma McCorvey, now 65, was never what she seemed: neither as the pregnant Texas woman who won fame as abortion-rights icon “Jane Roe,” nor as the pro-life activist she would become. Retracing her life through family, friends, and advisers, Joshua Prager investigates.

"[The decision] is important today for the same reasons it was important in 1973," she says. "Women need to have an ability to control their reproduction, so that they can participate fully in the economic, social, and political life of the nation."

On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity

From the NCAA, answers to all your Title IX questions.

The groundbreaking legislation, which was supposed to help women thrive in sports, has had several unintended, negative consequences.

Journalist, activist, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Betty Friedan was one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Social activist, writer, editor, and lecturer Gloria Steinem has been an outspoken champion of women's rights since the late 1960s.

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.

10-page brochure "Conversations with Dorothy" (Pitman Hughes) is a thorough biographical overview and programming guide regarding employing lifelong activist and Ms. Magazine co-founder

African American political activist, author, and educator. In her scholarship and activism, Davis has been an outspoken supporter of civil rights, women's rights, and prisoners' rights.

First African American woman to serve in the United States Congress. Chisholm, a New York Democrat, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983.