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See also: First-wave feminism and Third-wave feminism

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Second-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the late 1960s and lasted through the late 1970s.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Significant Events 3 Education 3.1 Seven Sisters Colleges 3.2 Mills college 3.3 Other Colleges 4 Careers 5 Media 6 Success 7 See also 8 References

Second Wave Feminism is generally identified with a period beginning in the early nineteen sixties. It is referred to as second wave feminism as social changes tend to occur in waves. The fact that second wave feminism occurred was due to the failure of first wave feminism, because the aims were not accomplished there was still a need for change.

The movement encouraged women to understand the psychological implications of sexist stereotypes, and made them realise that they could achieve more in life than being a housewife and a mother. The movement opened up the eyes of American women, to a world of careers and achievement. During the Second World War, many women experienced working life for the very first time. Women and men were working side by side, and achievements were being recognised. In the wake of World War Two, the short-lived affirmation of women's independence gave way to a pervasive endorsement of female subordination and domesticity, and it was not until the 1960's that the women's movement became successful.

There were many significant moments during the 1960's which defined the second wave of feminism.

• The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was created in the USA by the Kennedy administration, with Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life.

• That same year, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique appeared on bookshelves. This book became extremely popular among American housewives. Friedan conducted a survey in 1942 which showed that 89% of women regretted rushing into marriage and not putting their education to good use. It was through this type of research that she was able to reach out to American women, and make them think about the importance of being women and achieving their goals. Friedan allowed women to talk about the problem with no name, that for so many years had oppressed women: the feminine mystique.

• Due to a combined effort from many different sorts of activists, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 of the USA was passed, including Title VII which made illegal employment discrimination on the basis of sex, along with race, religion, and national origin. Historians note that the category "sex" was actually included in an eleventh-hour attempt to kill the bill.

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established in 1964 to enforce laws concerning equal opportunities within the work place. Alice Hernandez resigned from the EEOC as the organisation was reluctant to act on women's issues. In 1966, NOW (National Organization for Women) was established and Betty Friedan was elected president. There were many other groups which were of great significance during this period such as the PCSW (President's Commission on the Status of Women), which documented the discrimination that many women encountered. It strove to fit new opportunities into women's lives as they were. The CACSW (Citizen Advisory Council on the status of Women) organized groups to urge state legislation to be passed. WEAL (Women's Equity Action League) was headed by Dr. Elizabeth Boyer who also recruited members for NOW. WEAL's main objectives were attain equality through the full enforcement of existing laws and through encouraging girls to prepare for more rewarding jobs. All of these groups were started by a small group of people, but as the years went by more groups were organized to meet more specified objectives.

• Eight years after Title VII, Title IX in the Education Amendments of 1972 (United States) was passed, which forbade discrimination in the field of education. Many people see Title IX as extremely important to young women today, contributing to equal provisions for women's sports in school and feminist campus activism, among other things. However, it soon became clear that many existing anti-discrimination laws were not enforced. For instance, within the commission's first five years, it received 50,000 sex discrimination complaints, but did little to investigate them.

• Inspired in part by the legal victories of the 1960s and 1970s, but still worried about de facto discrimination, many feminists supported and worked to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment into the United States Constitution. The Amendment, proposed in 1972, said:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Opponents, such as Phyllis Schlafly, charged that passage of the ERA of the USA would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets, gay marriages, and women being drafted. Despite polls consistently showing a large majority of the population supporting an Equal Rights Amendment, when the deadline for ratification came in 1982, the ERA was still three states short of the 38 needed to write it into the U.S. constitution.

• On January 22, 1973, Roe vs. Wade was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision legalized abortion in all 50 states, by stating that the right to decisions regarding one's reproductive system was consistent with a right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• The National Women's Conference was held in Houston, Texas, the first meeting in the United States of its type since the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York.

• The Feminist Sex Wars of the late 1970s and 1980s between anti-pornography feminism and sex-positive feminism led to deep divisions within the feminist movement and laid the groundwork for many issues that were important in third-wave feminism.

• The Second Wave also saw the beginning of streams of feminist thought which were critical or hostile to transgender and transsexual women. Feminists such as Mary Daly, Janice Raymond, and Gloria Steinem penned writings which asserted that transsexualism was inherently conservative and that sex reassignment was a way to preserve rigid, oppressive gender roles. It was not until 1991 (the beginning of the Third Wave) that Sandy Stone, a transsexual woman, published a rebuttal to these anti-trans writings in her landmark essay "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto."

One debate which developed in the United States during this time period revolved around the question of coeducation. Most men's colleges in the United States adopted coeducation, often by merging with women's colleges. In addition, some women's colleges adopted coeducation, while others maintained a single-sex student body.

Two of the Seven Sister colleges made transitions during and after the 1960s. The first, Radcliffe College, merged with Harvard University. Beginning in 1963, students at Radcliffe received Harvard diplomas signed by the presidents of Radcliffe and Harvard and joint commencement exercises began in 1970. The same year, several Harvard and Radcliffe dormitories began swapping students experimentally and in 1972 full co-residence was instituted. The departments of athletics of both schools merged shortly thereafter. In 1977, Harvard and Radcliffe signed an agreement which put undergraduate women entirely in Harvard College. In 1999 Radcliffe College was dissolved and Harvard University assumed full responsibility over the affairs of female undergraduates. Radcliffe is now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Women's Studies at Harvard University. The second, Vassar College, declined an offer to merge with Yale University and instead became coeducational in 1969.

The remaining Seven Sisters decided against coeducation. Mount Holyoke College engaged in a lengthy debate under the presidency of David Truman over the issue of coeducation. On 06 November 1971, "after reviewing an exhaustive study on coeducation, the board of trustees decided unanimously that Mount Holyoke should remain a women's college, and a group of faculty was charged with recommending curricular changes that would support the decision." ^[1] Smith College also made a similar decision in 1971.^[2] In 1969, Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College (then all-male) developed a system of sharing residential colleges. When Haverford became coeducational in 1980, Bryn Mawr discussed the possibly of coeducation as well, but decided against it. ^[3] In 1983, Columbia University began admitting women after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard College for a merger along the lines of Harvard and Radcliffe (Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia since 1900, but it continues to be independently governed). Wellesley College also decided against coeducation during this time.

On May 3, 1990, the Trustees of Mills College announced that they had voted to admit male students. ^[4] This decision led to a two-week student and staff strike, accompanied by numerous displays of non-violent protests by the students. ^[5], ^[6] At one point, nearly 300 students blockaded the administrative offices and boycotted classes. ^[7] On May 18, the Trustees met again to reconsider the decision, ^[8] leading finally to a reversal of the vote. ^[9]

Pembroke College merged with Brown University. Sarah Lawrence College declined an offer to merge with Princeton University, becoming coeducational in 1969.^{[citation needed]} Connecticut College also adopted coeducation during the late 1960s. In addition, due to its status as a public or government institution, the Mississippi University for Women become coeducational after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982). The ruling found that as a publicly funded institution, the university would be in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause if it denied admission on the basis of gender (in this case, men).

While women's education was improving, career prospects for women were also widening thanks to such organisations as ALSSA (Air Line Stewards and Stewardesses Association) who fought a long battle to get equal rights in employment. Airline stewardesses were fired once they were married; since the average age of a woman getting married was 20, this did not provide a very long career for air stewardesses. Dusty Roads and Nancy Collins campaigned for age restrictions on air stewardesses to be removed, and this coincidentally brought about the battle for equal rights in the work place.^{[citation needed]}

One should not underestimate the influence of the media during the women's movement. Due to a fear of women becoming less feminine, many authors during this period emphasised a woman's importance in the home. Popular magazines during the 1960's represented a repressive force, imposing damaging images on vulnerable, impressionable American women. Many magazines defined the role of a housewife as exciting and creative and often featured articles on baking. Magazines also had positive influences on the movement, and published articles that encouraged women to live a fulfilled life. Reader’s Digest, Ladies Home Journal, and Women’s Home Companion, and Life magazine, are just some of the magazines that influences women during the 1960’s. There were also a few African American magazines, such as Coronet which featured articles on strong black women that balanced a career and a family.

Second wave feminism saw a transformation of consciousness and changed how most American women saw themselves and the world around them. Through organisations such as NOW, WEAL and PCSW, discrimination in the work place on the basis of sex was made illegal. The impact of media allowed the spread of feminist ideals through articles, newspapers television and books, and this made it acceptable to talk about women's issues.

• first-wave feminism
• third-wave feminism
• Going Dutch
• Girl Power
• List of feminists
• Kate Millett
• Betty Friedan
• Radical Women

• Osgerby, Bill, Anna Gough-Yates, and Marianne Wells. Action TV : Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks. London: Routledge, 2001.
• Press, Andrea L. Women Watching Television: Gender, Class, and Generation in the American Television Experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
• ——— and Tery Strathman. "Work, Family, and Social Class in Television Images of Women: Prime-Time Television and the Construction of Postfeminism." Women and Language, 1993 Fall, 16:2, 7-15.
• Roth, Benita. Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

William, Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970, Oxford University 1972 M. Carden, The New Feminist Movement, New York 1974 F. Davis, Moving the Moutain:The Women's Movement in America since 1960,[[Category:History of the United States (1964–1980)