The Differences in the Women's Rights Movements
Like the movement for racial equality, the struggle for equal rights for women has gone through two significant waves in American history. The first wave was the women's suffrage movement, which began in the mid 1800s and culminated in the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. The second wave began in the 1960s and was also linked to a constitutional amendment; however the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed equal rights to all Americans without regard to sex, but was never passed. Because the ERA was not ratified, many classify the second wave of the women's movement as unsuccessful. Although many would disagree with such a classification, there is little question that the first wave of the feminist movement was more successful at accomplishing its stated goals than the second-wave. There are several reasons for the differences in the results of the two movements. The first reason is that first wave feminists were more successful in appealing to the desires of the average woman. The second and probably more significant reason is slightly more complicated; while both the equal rights movements and the civil rights movements were linked in leader
In contrast, the women's rights movement of the 1960s focused on issues that were more difficult to influence from the outside sphere. For example, second wave feminists chose to focus on issues like domestic violence and abortion rights. These issues were more difficult to conquer than the earlier issues, because they involved issues of privacy and secrecy. While women may have been willing to be vocal outward supporters of changing property laws, many of the women affected by domestic violence were unable or unwilling to provide the same type of public support. Furthermore, the women's rights movement was not successful in solving that problem; although awareness of domestic violence and resources for victims have dramatically increased over the last 20 years, there is no indication that domestic violence rates have experienced any type of decline. In addition, many women found the equation of the feminist movement with the abortion rights movement to be distasteful. Instead of unifying women, identification with the pro-choice movement by public figures discouraged many women from joining the feminist movement or supporting its other goals, such as the ERA. Furthermore, many people felt as if existing laws were sufficient to guarantee equality under the law and that the feminist movement should have placed more emphasis on de facto equality. In this way, the second wave feminist movement lost its similarity to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Like the abolitionists inspired early feminists, second wave feminists were frequently inspired by Civil Rights workers. However, the similarities between the plight of women and the plight of African Americans were far less apparent than in first wave feminism
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Approximate Word count = 1163
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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