In 1848 the world's first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. It took over 70 years for women to be granted the right to vote with the nineteenth amendment. During the late 1930's Eleanor Roosevelt revitalized the Women's Rights Movement and from then on women have made continual and progressive steps towards equality. The cause of this increased advocating of women's rights over the past sixty years is difficult to pinpoint. It can not be attributed to one person, group, or event; however, one influential arena during this time period was the Hollywood film scene. A connection can be made between the changing image of women in Hollywood and the progression of the Women's Rights Movement. This correlation will be examined in selected Hollywood films dating from 1935 to 1985.

From 1920 when suffrage was granted to women until World War II there was little activity concerning women's rights. The right to vote was one of the few equalities women could lay claim to during this time period. One of the most popular films of the 1930's was the musical Top Hat (1935), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The two main female roles in this film, Dale Tre

Further demonstrating a parallel between the Hollywood image of women and the status of women's rights is the Rob Reiner production, The Sure Thing (1985). In this film, Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) is a bright student at an Ivy League institution. She is doing very well in her first year of college and aspires to become a lawyer when she gets older. In the 1930's it was virtually unheard of for a girl to be chasing a law degree; however, a half-century later, in this film, it seems normal. In the 1980's women were infiltrating fields once dominated by men. A figure from 1987 reported that over 25% of the country's scientists at the time were female. Everyday more and more women are found in fields that were previously reserved for men.

This conversation reveals the stereotypes of women that were prevalent during the years of Top Hat and Stagecoach. Amanda aims to dispel these notions and show that women should be created equally under the law and she does so successfully by earning a not guilty verdict for the defendant. This film promotes women's rights in two different ways. It shows that women should be created equally under the law and that a woman can hold a professional job. Amanda shows that in some instances a woman can even perform her job better than a man can. This film was an important change as it depicted females holding several professional, everyday jobs opposed to the two before mentioned films. As this film reveals, the post war years were a time when women were gaining steady progress towards equality. A report from 1950 stated that over 30% of all women were in the paid labor force, an increase of over 10% from the previous decade.

mont (Ginger Rogers) and Madge Hardwick (Helen Broderick), are glamorous fashion models. Although they live a luxurious lifestyle, their line of work is not very skilled and does not require very much independence. Dale is very dependent upon her dress designer Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes) who essentia

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Approximate Word count = 1339
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)