Changes

After World War II, some writers began to question how women in society were perceived and the role they played, particularly as the war had shown women made valuable contributions and in many cases performed tasks equally to me. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307265560/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307265560&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=f9a9c302f5b6ddd567059a2383502e0d The Second Sex]</i>, a groundbreaking book that questioned how society viewed women and the role in which they played. In her work, Beauvoir writes, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This quote represents how society fosters the idea of what a woman should do and act, where gender roles are learned and forced upon women. <ref> Vasilopoulou, Angeliki. "Woman by Choice:’ A Comment on Simone De Beauvoir’s Famous Phrase ‘One Is Not Born a Woman, but Becomes One'" <i>Journal of Research in Gender Studies</i> 4, no. 2 (2014), 489-490. </ref> Where World War II showed that women could break out of their gender roles as was required; the book questioned then why should women's roles that saw them as secondary to men in the workplace and home be perpetuated when this was clearly not the case during the war.

After some time, the movement gained greater traction through more authors in the 1960s. Betty Friedan was perhaps one of the most influential writers at this time. After surveying her classmates, Friedan noticed that many of her classmates were unhappy in their marriages where their lives revolved around childcare and housework. This realization prompted her to write <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393346781/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393346781&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=d6e4ecbac3092d2eb858479ab01a3368 The Feminine Mystique]</i> in 1963 where she questioned white, middle-class ideals of family life and motherhood. She focused particularly mainly on domestic life because she believed it had stifled women and their aspirations.

Other changes, including the introduction of the contraceptive pill and the introduction of abortion in Europe , began to have political ramifications. The pill, on the one hand, allowed women to delay childbirth and establish careers in many cases. Abortion also gave women greater choices about rearing children.<ref>Norgren, Christiana A. E., <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691070059/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691070059&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=bf43bcb707350c972852ae8f8c2c3e1a Abortion before Birth Control: The Politics of Reproduction in Postwar Japan].</i> Studies of the East Asian Institute. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001.</ref>

In 1969, Katy Millett wrote <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/023117425X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=023117425X&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=2fe4ee2d4947098dbd51cc06640451a6 Sexual Politics]</i> and wrote about the patriarchal structure of society that controls sex, sexual expression, and ultimately politics and the narrative of political discourse. Sex and gender oppression are common because of political discourse found in society. Millets argued that before any other type of oppression existed, elite men first oppressed people based on sex and gender, extending later to race and class. <ref>LeGates, Marlene. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415930987/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0415930987&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=62b570a5374aa4b505b21eaac8d210d2 In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society]</i>. New York: Routledge, 2001, 361.</ref>