Full transcript
0:02okay everybody uh before you listen to
0:05this you should read over the 25th
0:07chapter right uh particularly the
0:10section on different rights movements uh
0:13today I'm going to talk about second way
0:15feminism and how it changed during the
0:19mid
0:201960s because young uh women's rights
0:24activists were increasingly frustrated
0:27with the response they got from people
0:31who are supposed to be like-minded when
0:34it came to pushing for a reform of
0:39American society that would level the
0:42playing field for women uh in in in work
0:47in in school um so I'm going to talk a
0:49little bit about second way feminism and
0:51its ideas what it was how it was
0:53influenced by people like Betty fan and
0:56then we're going to talk about how it
0:57radicalized in the mid-60s
1:00okay so uh without further Ado then uh
1:04let's talk a little bit about the second
1:06feminist wave um if you think way back
1:09to one of our early lectures I talked
1:12about a person named Charlotte Perkins
1:14Gilman who I defined as a a first wve
1:17feminist and what you might remember is
1:20that Gilman was interested in helping
1:22women break out of the private sphere
1:25into the public sphere and that she was
1:27uh largely successful as were a number
1:29of other first we feminists in
1:32establishing that women had a role they
1:35could play outside of the home they
1:37could get educations they could go to
1:40college they could work but the
1:42expectation really still was for a lot
1:45of women that they would do things
1:47people expected women to do like get
1:50married uh end up in heteronormative
1:53relationships have kids so on and so
1:56forth so if we we skip ahead basically
2:00um two generations maybe two and a half
2:03Generations uh we arrive in the early
2:061960s and
2:08people identified as second wve
2:12feminists begin to appear so between
2:151900 to 1960 what you have to keep in
2:18mind is that women's access to jobs and
2:22to education have been slowly expanding
2:25in fits and starts and so by the time
2:28you get to the 1960s
2:30people are are fairly used to seeing
2:33women work outside of the home uh
2:36they're fairly used to seeing women at
2:38College um there they still expect women
2:41to do traditional things um like get
2:43married and have kids but something that
2:46that women of the early 60s were
2:49interested in was creating equal
2:54opportunity in school and in the
2:57workplace right so a lot lot of the
3:00people who were motiv motivated to
3:02join the women's rights movement and
3:05identified as second way feminists did
3:08so because when they got jobs they
3:11realized that their opportunities for
3:14promotion uh was limited by their gender
3:17because people expected them to you know
3:20leave their jobs and get married and
3:22have kids or even if they kept their
3:24jobs to not be particularly Adept at at
3:27managing other people because they'd be
3:29too busy being a
3:31mom uh they realized that they could do
3:34the same work as men uh that was
3:37something women learned particularly in
3:38the 1940s working on the home front um
3:41but they understood that they weren't
3:43going to get treated the same they were
3:44going to be paid the same they're going
3:46to be respected uh as much so a lot of
3:50second wave feminism was driven by
3:54women's desire to receive equal rewards
3:58for equal work
4:00uh equal rewards for equal effort uh one
4:03of the most important voices in this
4:05movement was Betty fedan author of the
4:09feminist Mystique uh freedan was uh
4:13somebody who had kind of come of age in
4:14the 1940s so she's sort of middleaged by
4:18the early
4:191960s um and she's um had a career as a
4:23graduate student in Psychology she's um
4:27uh written uh been a fre Lancer in the
4:301950s she's been involved in sort of
4:33radical politics um but she's also been
4:37a wife and a mother uh and so one of the
4:40things that she's interested in doing in
4:44this book is working to convince women
4:48uh who had become housewives in the 1950
4:52that they were they were they were
4:55trapping themselves in what she called a
4:57velvet ghetto um middle class last
4:59Suburbia uh and she she said that you
5:02know women were were losing
5:04ground because they had bought into the
5:07idea of the sort of Creature Comforts of
5:111950 Suburban life and they were going
5:14to backslide on advancing women's rights
5:18in uh the public world because of that
5:21uh she ultimately wanted women to
5:24understand that they deserved equal
5:26reward for the work they did and that
5:29most importantly they could be fulfilled
5:33as wives and mothers and at the same
5:36time they could be equally fulfilled as
5:39people who had careers and were
5:42successful that the two things didn't
5:44have to exclude each other right again
5:46that was a thing that had limited first
5:48W feminism is that women at the turn of
5:50the 20th century had argued yes women
5:53can work they can have roles outside of
5:55the home but if they choose to have
5:57those beyond their early 20s they're
6:00going to forgo being a wife and a mother
6:03you have to choose do you want a career
6:04or do you want a family freedan is
6:06saying you can have both of these things
6:09that's perfectly understandable so fedan
6:12would be a a a leading voice in second
6:15way feminine in the women's rights
6:16movement of the early
6:191960s um she and a lot of other
6:23activists were bolstered by President
6:26John F Kennedy who established the
6:28president Commission on the status of
6:31women in
6:321963 that commission investigated the
6:35role of women in American society It
6:38ultimately published a report saying
6:41that that women had lives that were akin
6:43to that of a minority right so by making
6:46that argument what the commission is
6:48doing is they're saying it doesn't
6:50matter how talented how hardworking you
6:53are you'll ultimately be limited by your
6:56identity as a woman um and that was done
6:59in 1963
7:01specifically
7:03because the president wanted what would
7:06become the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to
7:09not just
7:10address rights movements tied to
7:13African-Americans but also the women's
7:15rights movement as well right the the
7:17Civil Rights Act of 64 if you look at it
7:20says that it works to advocate for
7:23minority groups so by defining women as
7:26minorities women are getting access to
7:28tools they need to get good jobs to get
7:32the pay they deserve to get the
7:34opportunities for advancement they
7:36deserve by 1966 the National
7:39Organization for Women had emerged it
7:42acted as a a lobbyist and protest group
7:45that worked to quote bring women in full
7:48participation in the mainstream of
7:50American society so again they very much
7:52reflect freedan in the presidential
7:55conven convention's arguments that women
7:58live as minority groups and now works to
8:01give them mainstream opportunities at
8:05the American dream these sorts of groups
8:08were particularly attractive to younger
8:12women um I'm not saying that a woman
8:15over 30 wasn't interested in now or the
8:18Feminine Mystique but it's certainly if
8:22you were a college age woman or woman
8:24just starting your working career in
8:26your early mid
8:2820s you know being involved in the
8:32feminist movement was something you saw
8:35as advocating for yourself you had a lot
8:37to gain by joining it you know somebody
8:40who's 35 or 40 might be sympathetic but
8:44feel like involving themselves wasn't
8:46really going to change much for them
8:48because too much time had passed so this
8:52second W
8:53feminism um tended to appeal to younger
8:57women who were very interested and
9:00already involved in the rights movements
9:02of the early
9:051960s