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二十世纪六七十年代女权运动对妇女

社会地位的影响

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The Influences of Feminist Movements on Women’s Social Status in the 1960s and 1970

Hanjinjin

(Foreign Language School,Anyang Normal

University,Anyang,455002)

Abstract:Feminism refers to the social trend that women demand equal rights as men. It was the result of European Enlightenment and Women’s Liberation Movement. The American women’s movement is an important part of the American history, the content of which touches on many fields such as history, politics, economics, culture, etc. The movement also left footprints in the American history that will never be erased. So it’s very useful for us to learn the history of American. The contemporary American women’s movement experie nced two great waves：The first is the women’s emancipation, from the middle of 1800s to 1920s, resulting in women’s winning the right to vote; the other one beginning in 1960s is called feminist movement. The movement’s main goal is for women to have the s ame legal rights and equal rights as men. With the advance of the society, the development of the technology and science, and various kinds of social activities, especially the women’s untiring struggle, women have improved themselves in social status to some extent. Especially the movements has an important effect on women’s social status in the world.

Key Words: feminism; women’s movement; influences

Introduction

Feminism is a cyclical phenomenon. Each cycle bears its own fruit. The first wave of American women achieved the right to vote. However women’s participation in elections did not change the election results in America any more than it did in other countries. Not, at least, until 1980 when the campaign preceding Ronald Reagan’s election reveal ed the existence of a distinct women’s vote. No doubt this phenomenon was to be accounted for somewhat by the sexism of the man who was to be president for the next eight years, but it also owed much to the long and difficult labor that had brought forth the new feminist movement. This movement was born at full term after a slow gestation period, the offspring of a silent revolution in the world of women that had occurred through succeeding crisis, finally being hurled into the world by the conclusions of the 1960s. This paper first states the origin and the development of the women’s movement, and shows the two waves of the feminism movements and their influences on the

society. Then analyzes the feminist movements in 1960s-1970s and its influences on women’s social status.

一、The Origin and Development of Feminism

Everything has its own life from the cradle to the grave, so does the feminism movement. In this section, the origin of feminism will be illustrated briefly first, then the development of such movements will be introduced. Through this part you can get the main portrait of feminism movements.

(一) Women’s liberation

Feminism, which gained strength as a social movement in the early 1970s, has a long and often overlooked history. As early as 1792 an English feminist named Mary WollstoneCraff was protesting women’s frivolous existence and “Slavish obedience” to men. She offered men “rational fellowship” and demanded legal rights and educational opportunities for women. In this country women not only fought for suffrage but were in the front ranks of the abolitionist, labor, and temperance movement in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1940s and 1950s, however, women as a group were generally silent about feminist issues.

The n in 1963, Betty Freidan’s Feminism Mystique was published, a book that help to launch a decade of change in America. The private grievance of women whose careers had been thwarted, of isolated suburban matrons, of abandoned mothers with means of supporting themselves or their children became a public out-cry. Freidan played the role of agitator in the early stages of the movement.

(二)Women’s movement in America

In western society, traditional male and female roles are not only substantially different, but also highly unequal. As we have seen, the male is given the dominating position. In sense he is the star actor, whereas the female often plays only a supporting role. The male is expected to have superior strength, greater stamina, higher intelligence, and better organizing ability. Psychologically, the male is trained to play the role of decision maker, whereas the female is encouraged to be submissive and obedient. This same gender inequality is reflected in our basic institutions. In education, employment, and politics, women clearly are treated as inferiors. They are victims of sexism (sexual stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination) in much the same way that African Americans are victims of racism. However, American women’s status in politics and society are not unchangeable, but are changing with the reform of social system and advance of ages.

Groups of American women began to campaign actively for equal rights during the middle 1800s. They demanded that women be given the right to vote. That struggle lasted 70 years. A constitutional amendment giving American women the right to vote was passed in 1920. After that many sup porters of women’s rights felt that their most important goal had been achieved. So the women’s movement in America remained quiet for more than 40 years. Then in the 1960s, many women students became active politically. They became involved in movements to end the war in Vietnam and to bring about racial equality in America. These women began to question

why men, never women, held power, even in movements for social progress. Many women were also growing unsatisfied with what they considered to be limited choices. Influenced by the liberal democracy in America in the 1960s, American feminist initiated “New Women Movement” for the equal rights and the freedom of women. The second wave of American Feminist Movement has both shaken and strengthened the myth of the American women, symbol of the free and powerful woman hood of the New World, endowed from birth with inalienable rights, facing the frontier with indomitable spirit.

二、 The Politic Influences of the Women’s Movement

As one of the social movement at that time, feminist movements have great impact on the whole society, such as on politics and economy. The policies about women have changed a lot, and women’s rights and status have aroused the public attention. The government begins to realize that women are equal with men, and the congress makes changes on the national constitution. Of course such movements affect the development of the economy greatly. This chapter will describe the politics affects.

American women gained the rights to vote in the early 20th century. At the same time, they paid much attention to getting the economic equality. They struggle for their equal treatment and the equal pay as men on employment, and they strive for getting legislation to secure their rights through the constitution.

(一)Women at work

Women were discriminated at work in the past. They were unequal with men. They worked long hours and got lower salary. They were looked down upon at the working place. All those things stimulated women’s determination to fight for their own rights and equal status.

1. Employment discrimination

In colonial America, women who earned their own living usually became seamstresses or were kept in boardinghouses. But some women worked in professions and did jobs previously available mostly to men. There were women doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers and singers. By the early 19th century, however, acceptable occupations for working women were limited to factory labor or domestic work. Women were excluded from the professions, except for writing and teaching.

The medical profession is an example of changed attitudes in the 19th and 20th centuries about what was regarded as suitable work for women. Prior to the 1800s there were almost no medical schools, and virtually any enterprising person could practice medicine. Indeed, obstetrics was the domain of women. Beginning in the 19th century, the required educational preparation increased, particularly for the practice of medicine. Specific discrimination against women also began to appear. For example, the American Medical Association, founded in1846, barred women from membership. By the 1910s, however, women were attending many leading medical schools, and in1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women members.

In 1890, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the United States. During the 1980s the proportion was about 17 percent. But women also had not greatly improved

their status in other professions. In 1930 about 2 percent of all American lawyers and judges were women and in 1989 about 22 percent. In 1930 there were about no women engineers in the United States. In 1989 the proportion of women engineers was only 7.5 percent.

In contrast, the teaching profession was a large field of employment for women. In the late1980s more than twice as many women as men taught in elementary and high schools. In higher education, however, women held only about one third of the teaching positions, concentrated in such fields as education, social service, home economics, nursing, and library science. A small proportion of Women College and university teachers were in the physical sciences, engineering, agriculture, and law.

The great majority of women who have jobs are still employed in clerical positions, factory work, retail sales, and service industry. During the wartime women have served in the armed forces. In the United States during the Second World War almost 300,000 women were served in the Army and Navy, performing such noncombatant jobs as secretaries, typists, and nurses.

Women’s role in the work force has undergone a remarkable change. Fifty years ago, less than a quarter of all adult women in the United States worked outside the home. Today, that figure has more than doubled, and the number of working women continues to increase.

Although the gap between men’s and women’s play has narrowed in recent years, it continues to be a large one. In 1975 women earned only about 60 percent as much as men, but by 1992, that figure was around 75 percent. Unfortunately, the reason that the gap has closed is due more to a decline in men’s earnings than to an increase in women’s pay. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that over two-thirds of that improvement was caused by the drop in men’s wages and only a third by increasing women’s wages.

2. Unequal pay

Today, seven out of every ten women in American are employed full-time. The struggle for equality with men in the workplace, however, is still being waged against such issues as discrimination in hiring practices, wage disparity, hindered advancement, and sexual harassment. Sexism and discrimination are still of central importance as causes of the income gap.

Many women receive smaller paychecks than men because they enter lower-paying occupations and hold lower-ranking jobs within their field. Yet there are substantial differences in pay. Even among men and women professionals, women were paid only about 72 percent as much as their male counterparts. A Business Week survey found that the starting salaries of male graduates of the best MBA programs in the United States are 12 percent higher than the starting salaries of female graduates. Although 94 percent of all registered nurses are female, men nurses earn about 10 percent more than their female co-workers. Women who cross the gender barrier to join the building trades, on the other hand, earn about 25 percent less than male construction workers.

Women constituted more than 45 percent of employed persons in the United States in 1989, but they had only a small share of the decision-making jobs. Although the number of women working as managers, officials, and other administrators has been increasing, in 1989 they were out numbered about 1 to1.5 by men. Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women in 1970 were paid about 45 percent less than men for the same jobs; in 1988, about 32 percent less. Professional women did not get the important assignments and promotions given to their male

colleagues. Many causes before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1970 were registered by women charging sex discrimination in jobs.

Working women often faced discrimination on the mistaken belief that, because they were married or would most likely get married, they would not be permanent workers. But married women generally continued on their jobs for many years and were not a transient, temporary, or undependable work force. From 1960s to the early 1970s the influx of married women workers accounted for almost half of the increase in the total labor force, and working wives were staying on their jobs longer before starting families. The number of elderly working also increased markedly.

“Women’s jobs” also offer less chance for advancement. The secretary seldom becomes a top executive, or the nurse a doctor. Although there are now far more women in middle management, they still are more likely to be in dead-end positions (such as administering affirmative action programs or supervising the hiring process) than in the production and financial posts that lead to the top corporate jobs. Many successful women complain about an invisible “glass ceiling”, a kind of unseen barrier that seems to block them from rising to the top levels of power. A recent survey of female attorneys in the Los Angeles area, for example, found that 60 percent felt they received less desirable case assignments than their male colleagues, and

75 percent felt they were held to a higher standard than the men.

(二) Progress and problems

Many women who are trying to balance their careers and home life find they must make compromises to handle both. The past few decades have provided women with laws to protect them against workplace discrimination, and most employers are making a concerted effort to address the concerns of female employees.

1. Article Ⅶ of the Civil Rights Act

With the onset of the Second World War, women entered the workplace in millions. And when the war ended, they were forced back to be wives and mothers. Until the women’s rights movement of the 1960s, women were primarily stuck in low paying and undervalued jobs, without access to professional positions. By the 1960s, the American culture was changing. Not every woman wanted to be a wife and mother, but women who tried to pursue a career found most doors closed to them. Some outspoken women finally decided they were tried of being discriminated against and began demanding equal access to employment opportunities.

In 1964 the doors swung open Article Ⅶ of the Civil Rights Act. This is the strongest piece of federal legislation protecting women’s rights against discrimination in the workplace. Originally, the act was created to alleviate racial and minority discrimination in society, with Article Ⅶof the Civil Rights Act focusing on employment issues. Amid much controversy within its ranks Congress decided to include sexual discrimination under the terms of Article Ⅶ, giving women the legal ammunition they need to safeguard their rights in the workplace. But more than thirty years after Article Ⅶ, business still discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex. Once Article Ⅶ of the Civil Rights Act was passed, however, not a single state labor law has been able to stand up to it. Women have proven that they would rather take their chances in less than ideal working environments than not have the choice.

Although women are granted the right to work in the same jobs as men, employers may still avoid hiring them. This obstacle prompted controversial legislation that is still debated today.

2. Affirmative Action

In 1964, the year in which the Civil Rights Act was passed, President Lyndon Johnson signed Executive Order 11246 (first presented by President John F. Kennedy) in an effort to increase employment and educational opportunities for women and minorities. No one denies that under Affirmative Action women have access to many jobs that were previously closed to them.

Supporters of Affirmative Action believe that without a dedicated and regulated effort on the part of employers, sex-based and racial discrimination would remain indefinitely. Women would be forced to fight against sex discrimination on a case-by-case basis through individual lawsuits. Nevertheless, many believe the program has outlived its usefulness and is now doing more harm than good. In November 1996, the state of California was the first to ban Affirmative Action in state-sponsored programs by a ballot initiative vote of 54 percent to 46 percent even though women’s rights groups campaigned vigorously against the ban. But, on the other hand, the women need Affirmative Action. Women haven’t achieved equality, in terms of money, power and opportunity.

3. Equal Pay Act

Around the same time as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action were set into motion; the Equal Pay Act (EPA) was also passed. The EPA marked the entrance of the federal government into field of safeguarding the right of women to hold employment on the same basis as men. It stipulated that employers must pay men and women equally for comparable work. Comparable jobs need not be identical; rather, two jobs would be comparable if their value to the business is equal and they require substantially equal skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Under the EPA women can bring their employers to court directly, but since 1978 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is mostly responsible for filing suit. The EEOC will investigate a claim and will attempt to negotiate a settlement on the employee’s behalf, keeping the person’s identity confidential.

Studies that compared the income of women across the board to that of men found that at the time the EPA legislation was passed, women earned on average fifty-nine cents for every dollar a man earned. In 1986 women earned sixty-four cents for every dollar earned by men, an increase of only five cents in over twenty years. In 1997 the ratio had risen to seventy-two cents to the dollar, and the Rand Corporation projected a rise to seventy-four cents by the year 2000.

If the comparison is between women and men in the exact same job, with the exact same qualifications, the gap narrows but does not disappear. In addition to the fight for an equal salary, many women complain that their job advancement is limited more than their male co-workers.

Conclusion

The modern women’s rights movement, begun in the 1960s, has already gone through periods of ebb and flow, and has struggled to maintain the gains made in the 1970s against the conservatisms of the 1980s and 1990s. American feminists have made great progress in gaining equality as men. And they will manage to overcome their ideological differences in the course of the “long march” in which they are engaged. The pattern of women’s rights in the United States is one of waxing and waning—periods of incremental or even great strides forward, interspersed with periods of movement backward. As each new generation grapples with home versus career, equal pay issues, sexism, and lack of opportunity, it is almost as though a national amnesia wipes away the memory that all of these issues have been raised before, argued before, and fought for before. It seems likely that, without a real equal rights amendment to the constitution, the same issues will continue to be reargued and discussed with each new generation.

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二十世纪六七十年代女权运动对妇女社会地位的影响

徐某

（某师范学院外国语学院,河南安阳 455002）

摘要：女权主义泛指妇女要求平等的社会思潮，是欧洲启蒙运动和妇女解放运动的产物。美国妇女运动是美国社会发展的一个重要组成部分，其内容涉及历史、政治、经济、文化等诸多方面，在美国社会文化和政治生活中有着重要影响。研究美国妇女运动有助于加深我们对美国社会的进一步了解。美国历史上发生过两次规模较大的妇女运动：第一次的妇女运动从19世纪中叶到20世纪二十年代，妇女赢得最终的选举权；第二次妇女运动开始于20世纪60年代，是一场妇女争取平等权利的运动，迄今为止尚未结束。随着社会的进步和科技的发展以及各种社会运动的开展，特别是妇女不懈的斗争，妇女的社会地位和作

用得到相当程度的提高，对社会的影响力越来越大。特别是此次运动对全球妇女社会地位起了重要作用。

关键词:女权主义;妇女运动;影响