Feminism in the United States facts for kids
Feminism in the United States is about different movements and ideas that work to create and protect equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women in the United States. Feminism has greatly influenced American politics and society. The history of feminism in the U.S. is often divided into different time periods, called "waves": the first wave, second wave, third wave, and fourth wave.
In 2017, the United States was ranked 49th in the world for gender equality by the World Economic Forum.
Contents
First Wave of Feminism (1848-1920)
The first wave of feminism in the United States began with the Seneca Falls Convention. This was the very first meeting focused on women's rights. It happened in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848.
Why the Seneca Falls Convention Started
The idea for the Seneca Falls Convention came from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. They were at a meeting about ending slavery in London in 1840. But because they were women, they were not allowed to fully participate. This experience made Stanton and Mott realize they needed to hold a convention to discuss the unfair treatment of women.
The Declaration of Sentiments
About 300 people attended the convention, including important figures like Lucretia Mott and Frederick Douglass. At the end, 68 women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the M'Clintock family wrote this important document.
The Declaration of Sentiments was written to sound like the United States Declaration of Independence. For example, it stated, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men and women are created equal." It also said that men had repeatedly treated women unfairly throughout history.
The declaration listed many problems women faced. These included laws that took away married women's control over their wages, money, and property. These laws were called coverture. The declaration also pointed out that women had little access to education and good jobs. It also said that women were not respected in most churches. Most importantly, the Declaration said that women should have the right to vote.
Early Women's Rights Meetings
After the Seneca Falls Convention, other meetings were held. The Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 happened two weeks later. More state and local conventions followed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. The first National Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1850. These women's rights conventions continued regularly until the American Civil War.
The Fight for Voting Rights
The women's suffrage movement began with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. Many activists learned how to organize during the movement to end slavery. After the Civil War, the movement grew stronger. Many experienced campaigners joined, including those who had worked to ban alcohol in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. By the late 1800s, only a few western states had given women full voting rights. However, women had won other important legal battles, gaining rights over property and child custody.
In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony created the American Equal Rights Association. This group worked for voting rights for all people, both white and Black, women and men. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. This was the first time the U.S. Constitution used the word "male" to describe who could vote.
In 1869, the women's rights movement split into two groups. This happened because of disagreements over the Fourteenth and soon-to-be-passed Fifteenth Amendments. The two groups did not reunite until 1890. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). This group was more radical and based in New York. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe started the more traditional American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), based in Boston. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment gave Black men the right to vote. The NWSA did not support this amendment. They wanted a Sixteenth Amendment that would give everyone the right to vote. Frederick Douglass disagreed with Stanton and Anthony on this point.
Milestones in Women's Suffrage
In 1869, Wyoming became the first territory or state in America to give women the right to vote. In 1870, Louisa Ann Swain became the first woman in the United States to vote in a general election. She voted on September 6, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming.
From 1870 to 1875, several women tried to use the Fourteenth Amendment to gain the right to vote or to practice law. These included Virginia Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and Myra Bradwell. All of them were unsuccessful. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested in Rochester, New York, for trying to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. She was found guilty and fined, but she refused to pay. At the same time, Sojourner Truth tried to vote in Battle Creek, Michigan, but was turned away. Also in 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for president. She was nominated by the Equal Rights Party. She supported ideas like an 8-hour work day and fair taxes.
In 1874, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded to work against alcohol. With Frances Willard as its leader starting in 1876, the WCTU also became a strong supporter of women's voting rights. In 1878, a women's suffrage amendment was first introduced in the United States Congress, but it did not pass. Finally, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was approved. This gave women the right to vote. The first wave of feminism is considered to have ended with this important victory.
Post-War Feminism (1940s-1950s)
World War II changed things for women. Many women joined the workforce and took jobs that men usually did. From 1940 to 1945, the number of women working outside the home increased from 28% to 37%. By 1943, one-third of the workers at Boeing’s Seattle factory were women. Historians say that women received a lot of public praise for their skills and intelligence during this time. Symbols like Rosie the Riveter with her "We Can Do It!" slogan and the creation of Wonder Woman in 1941 showed this. This increase in women working and positive media attention made many women see more options for their lives than just being housewives.
Challenges for Women of Color
However, this idea of female empowerment was often limited. Women of color were usually the last to be considered for higher-paying factory jobs. African American women often continued to do domestic work for very low wages. White women in factories could earn much more. Also, images like Rosie the Riveter often showed working women as white, beautiful, and motivated by patriotism, not by needing money. For women of color and working-class women, World War II did not always improve their economic or social standing. Many women who joined the workforce during the war returned to their homes after the war ended.
Early Steps Toward Broader Feminism
Despite these challenges, some changes began. After World War II, the 1946 Congress of American Women spoke up for the rights of Black and minority women. White feminists started to think more about how race and gender connect, a concept called intersectionality. While women did not see huge wage increases, the small gains made by women of color in the 1940s influenced future feminist ideas. By 1950, the wage gap between white and African American women had gotten smaller by 15%.
Questioning Traditional Roles
In the late 1940s, some women began to question the idea that they should only be housewives. Edith Stern’s 1949 essay, "Women are Household Slaves," was an early example of ideas that would become part of second-wave feminism. Stern argued that being a housewife, as it was then, stopped women from being truly free. She said that American women felt emotionally and intellectually unsatisfied. Stern's essay was one of the first to discuss women's freedom in the context of home life.
However, the 1950s also saw a return to traditional roles for women. The number of women in the workforce went down as men returned from war. Media also focused on women's roles at home. TV shows like 'Leave it to Beaver' showed female characters as wives who served their families. This influenced many American women.
Laying the Groundwork for Change
Even so, some women's magazines in the 1950s, like Vogue, started to promote the idea of women finding their own identity and being unique. Surveys in 1951 showed that women who had worked in factories were annoyed by unfair treatment at work. Many wanted to stay in their industries but found it hard to get careers in fields like sales or journalism.
The work women did during World War II helped set the stage for the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. College reunions in the 1950s, which inspired Betty Friedan's famous book 'The Feminine Mystique', became places where middle-class women could talk about their boredom at home. They realized they shared frustrations about the "drudgery" of being a housewife. While the 1940s and 1950s did not fully start a new wave of feminism, they did create some important ideas for future feminist thought.
Second Wave of Feminism (1960s-1980s)
Second-wave feminism in the United States began in the early 1960s. During most of the 1960s, a common idea was "the personal is political." This meant that women's personal experiences, like those at home, were connected to larger political and social issues.
Key Ideas and Books
In 1963, Betty Friedan wrote the best-selling book The Feminine Mystique. In it, she strongly disagreed with how the media showed women. She argued that keeping women at home limited their potential and wasted their talents. She wrote that the image of the perfect nuclear family, which was heavily promoted, did not bring happiness and was actually harmful to women. This book is widely believed to have started second-wave feminism in the United States.
Legal Victories
The movement grew with important legal wins. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed to ensure men and women received equal pay for equal work. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate based on sex in jobs. In 1966, Betty Friedan and others founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). Friedan became its first president. A big legal victory in the late 1960s was a 1967 Executive Order that gave women full affirmative action rights.
The movement gained more victories in the 1970s. The Title X Family Planning Program, started in 1970, helps provide family planning and health services. The Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed (1971) was the first time the Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment to strike down a law that treated women unfairly. Also, the Education Amendments of 1972 expanded the Equal Pay Act to cover more types of jobs.
Challenges and Disappointments
One major disappointment of the second-wave feminist movement was President Nixon's 1972 veto of the Comprehensive Child Development Bill of 1972. This bill would have created a large national day care system.
In the late 1970s, NOW tried to help older divorced and widowed women. Many widows could not get Social Security benefits, and few divorced women received alimony. After being housewives, many had no job skills. However, younger activists criticized this program, saying that poor minority women should be the priority. By 1980, NOW focused mostly on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative leader, stepped in. She criticized feminists for not helping older middle-class women. She warned that the ERA would remove protections that older women needed.
The main disappointment of the second wave was the failure to approve the federal Equal Rights Amendment. It stated, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." The deadline for approving the ERA passed in 1982.
Although the United States signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1980, it has never been fully approved by the U.S. government.
Third Wave of Feminism (1990s-2010s)
In 1992, American feminist Rebecca Walker wrote an article called "Becoming the Third Wave." In it, she said, "I am the third-wave," which gave the movement its name. Also in 1992, Rebecca Walker and Shannon Liss (now Shannon Liss-Riordan) founded Third Wave Direct Action Corporation. This group aimed to support young activists from different backgrounds and with different concerns. Their goal was to encourage young women to become more involved in their communities.
New Ideas and Icons
In the early 1990s, the riot grrrl movement started in Olympia, Washington, and Washington, D.C. This movement aimed to give women control over their voices and artistic expression. Third-wave feminists wanted to question and redefine ideas about gender, beauty, and what it means to be a woman. This wave saw many new feminist icons like Madonna, Queen Latifah, Angelina Jolie, Emma Watson, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga. Fictional characters like Buffy and Mulan also became symbols.
Technology and Reach
Third-wave feminists also used the Internet and other modern technology to help their movement. This allowed information and organizing efforts to reach a much larger audience. This wider audience also included many male celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Internet made it much easier to publish. Online magazines (e-zines) and blogs became very common. Many serious writers and organizations found that the Internet offered a place to share information, essays, and videos that reached a huge audience. The Internet made the feminist movement's content much more open to different people, styles, and issues.
—Laura Brunell, 2008 Britannica Book of the Year
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, experts in music, like Susan McClary and Marcia Citron, began to study why women's music was often overlooked. They looked at topics like music as a gendered conversation, professionalism, how women's music was received, where music was made, and how wealth and education affected women in music.
Fourth Wave of Feminism (2012-Present)
Fourth-wave feminism refers to a new surge of interest in feminism that started around 2012. It is strongly connected to the use of social media. According to feminist scholar Prudence Chamberlain, the fourth wave focuses on justice for women and fighting against violence against women. She says its main idea is "disbelief that certain attitudes can still exist."
Kira Cochrane says that fourth-wave feminism is "defined by technology." It uses platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and blogs like Feministing to challenge unfair treatment of women and promote gender equality.
Examples of fourth-wave feminist campaigns in the United States include Mattress Performance, The Time'sUp Now movement, and 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman.
Multicultural Concerns in Feminism
Some critics of mainstream feminism point out that its history often leaves out or minimizes the roles played by women of color. They also highlight the different challenges faced by women of color. Ida B. Wells, an important figure in the early feminist movement, faced opposition from white feminist leaders like Rebecca Latimer Felton and Frances Willard. These leaders sometimes saw the feminist movement as mainly for white women.
By the 1970s and 1980s, African-American women began to speak out about their concerns. They were unhappy with how Black women were represented in feminist discussions. In 1981, feminist and essayist Audre Lorde said that women should look at their own biases and welcome all women. In 1989, Black scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw created the term intersectionality. This term describes how discrimination against Black women is a mix of racism and sexism. Crenshaw argued that it is hard to fit this type of discrimination into just one category. She stated that the goal should be to include all marginalized groups, so that "When they enter, we all enter."
