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Unlock This CourseFrom about 1967 a younger, more radical wing of the women's movement grew up beside NOW. Many of its members had worked in the civil rights and anti-war movements. There they had learned how to protest, but they had often been left to type, cook and clean while men made the decisions.
These women said that new laws were not enough. They wanted 'liberation': freedom from the whole idea that men should be in charge at work, in politics and at home. They had no single leader or organisation. Instead there were hundreds of small local groups, such as New York Radical Women (1967) and the Redstockings (1969).
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In consciousness-raising groups, women talked about housework, pay, marriage and how they were treated by men. Their slogan was 'the personal is political'. Feminists also wrote for a wide audience. Gloria Steinem helped to launch 'Ms.' magazine. The 300,000 copies of its trial issue sold out in eight days, and it became a monthly magazine in 1972.
On 7 September 1968 a few hundred women protested at the Miss America beauty contest in Atlantic City. They said it judged women like cattle, and they crowned a sheep. They threw bras, high heels and make-up into a 'Freedom Trash Can'. Nothing was set on fire, but the press invented the label 'bra-burners'.
Protests like this won huge publicity and made millions of people talk about how women were treated. But they also made it easy for opponents to mock feminists as extremists. Some in NOW, including Betty Friedan, feared that the radicals would frighten away ordinary women.
In the 1960s abortion was a crime in almost every state unless the mother's life was in danger. Women who wanted to end a pregnancy either travelled a long way or turned to illegal, unsafe 'back-street' abortions. Both wings of the women's movement took up the issue. NOW called for abortion laws to be repealed in 1967, and in 1969 the Redstockings held a public meeting in New York where women spoke openly about their own abortions. Campaigners argued that a woman had the right to control her own body. A few states changed their laws. New York made abortion legal in 1970.
Then came a court case from Texas. A woman known as 'Jane Roe' (her real name was Norma McCorvey) challenged the Texas law that stopped her having an abortion. Henry Wade was the local official who enforced that law.
The Supreme Court ruled by 7 votes to 2 that the Constitution's right to privacy covered a woman's decision to have an abortion. In the first three months of pregnancy, states could not ban it. In the middle three months, states could make rules to protect the woman's health. In the last three months, states could ban it unless the woman's life or health was at risk.
The ruling overturned the abortion laws of most states at a stroke. Feminists saw it as a great victory. Many other Americans, and churches such as the Catholic Church, believed abortion was the taking of a human life and were deeply opposed. On 22 January 1974, one year after the ruling, about 20,000 people joined the first 'March for Life' in Washington. Abortion has divided Americans ever since.
The ERA said that equality of rights must not be denied 'on account of sex'. Congress passed it in March 1972, and 22 states ratified it by the end of that year. It looked certain to become law.
Phyllis Schlafly set out to stop it. She was a Catholic mother of six from Illinois and a well-known conservative writer. In 1972 she set up STOP ERA. 'STOP' stood for 'Stop Taking Our Privileges'.
Schlafly said the ERA would take away rights that women already had. Women could be drafted into the army. Wives could lose the legal right to be supported by their husbands. Separate public toilets could be banned. She argued that feminists looked down on housewives and that the family was the basis of American life.
Schlafly spread her message through her monthly newsletter, speeches and television debates. She organised thousands of housewives to write to and visit the politicians in their state legislatures (the law-making bodies of each state). They took home-made bread, jam and pies with them as gifts.
The effect: ratification slowed sharply. Eight states ratified in 1973 and only three in 1974, making 33. Nebraska and Tennessee voted to take back their approval. The ERA did not reach 38 states before its deadline ran out in 1982. Schlafly showed that the women's movement did not speak for all women.
There were real gains. In 1972 a law known as Title IX banned sex discrimination in schools and colleges that received government money. In 1974 the Equal Credit Opportunity Act let women borrow money in their own names. But women were still paid far less than men on average, very few sat in Congress, and the ERA had stalled.
Don't mix up NOW and women's liberation: NOW worked through laws and courts, while the liberation groups were small, radical and leaderless. Don't write that feminists burned bras. And don't say all women backed the movement: its best-known opponent was a woman.
'The main reason why the women's movement had not achieved all its aims by 1974 was the opposition led by Phyllis Schlafly.'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own.
I agree only partly. Schlafly did more than anyone to hold up the Equal Rights Amendment, but her campaign worked because of deeper problems that the women's movement already faced.
Schlafly's opposition was clearly important. Congress passed the ERA in March 1972 and 22 states ratified it by the end of that year, so it seemed sure to pass. But in 1972 Schlafly set up STOP ERA. She argued that women would be drafted and that wives would lose the right to be supported by their husbands, and she sent thousands of housewives to lobby state politicians. After this, ratification slowed sharply. Only three states ratified in 1974, and Nebraska and Tennessee voted to withdraw. This shows that she turned a likely victory into a stalled campaign.
However, divisions within the movement also held it back. NOW worked through laws and the courts, while women's liberation groups wanted to change the whole of society and used shock protests such as the Miss America protest of 1968. Friedan feared the radicals would frighten away ordinary women, and the press mocked them as 'bra-burners'. This made it harder to speak with one voice, and it gave Schlafly an easy target.
A third reason was the strength of traditional beliefs. The issue of abortion shows this. After Roe v Wade in January 1973, the Catholic Church and many others strongly opposed the ruling, and about 20,000 people joined the first March for Life in 1974. Many Americans, women as well as men, still believed a woman's main place was in the home. These attitudes also explain why women were still paid far less than men in 1974, even after the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Very few women sat in Congress, so the movement had little power where laws were made. Schlafly had nothing to do with that failure.
Overall, Schlafly was the main reason for one failure, the stalling of the ERA. But if we judge by which factor held back the most aims, traditional attitudes mattered more. They lay behind unequal pay, the anger over abortion and the support that Schlafly was able to organise. She was the most effective voice of the opposition, not its cause.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three aspects (one from own knowledge), argues both for and against the statement, and reaches a judgement using a clear test, which factor held back the most aims.
An answer that uses only the two bullet points cannot reach the top level. Here the third point was traditional beliefs and the reaction to Roe v Wade. Notice too that the judgement breaks 'all its aims' into separate aims (the ERA, equal pay) and asks what blocked each one. It also shows that even Roe v Wade, which feminists saw as a victory, created new opposition.