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Women’s history The women's movement before the 1920s is famous for the was characterized by suffrage movement and a push for a larger social safety net for the poor and less fortunate. What is not usually talked about in basic history text is that led to women did not just stop fighting for their rights after they got gaining the right to vote. Since From the 1920s there have been multiple instances 1890s and early part of the 20th century, much of the women organizing around their rights in multiple spaces 's movement focused on general societal inequalities and, such as poor working and housing conditions, while also focusing on social ills such as alcoholism and placesprostitution. For example in the 1930s, Black women of color in the Southwest of the United States , during the 1930s, for instance, joined labor unions like such as the ILGWU and UCCAPAW and put their bodies on the line in to protest of the extremely poor wages and work environment environments they had to endure while also helping with their large extended families. <ref>Ruíz, Vicki. <i>Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950</i>. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987.</ref> Apart from this general social activism and gaining the right to vote, gender-specific topics, including equality in work and pay, were not a major focus areas

In the 1940s, women gained increasing employment in lieu of as men fighting left overseas to fight in WWIIWorld War II. The In fact, it was World War II that can be argued as the major trigger for the second wave feminist movement that occurred after the war. During the war years, the labor unions that had grown in the 1930s became even stronger because as women became more involved as they found workincreasingly employed, particularly in manufacturing jobs required to support the war effort. It was in During the 1940s that , new work benefits became available to women successfully achieved , including maternity leave, day caredaycare, and women counselors counseling. These benefits developed more substantially in Europe, as many countries there were devastated by war, where much of the factories instead of menmale population was reduced. <ref> Laughlin, Kathleen A., and Jacqueline L. Castledine. <i>Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985</i>. New York: Routledge, 2011, 4. </ref> The National Council of Negro Women Nevertheless, in the United States, women's participation in the labor force in World War II created a feeling among many women, after the war ended, that they also fought for deserved the same types of rights of African American women’s as men in jobs they filled. This was highlighted by the fact that were to be swiftly taken away many men who came back and replaced with domestic retook their old jobs as from women who were doing them during the war endedalso were given higher salaries, as well as fought to gain racial and gender equality concerning larger umbrella women’s organizationsfurther highlighting this inequality. <ref> LaughlinMilkman, Kathleen A.Ruth, and Jacqueline L. Castledine. <i>Breaking the Wave: WomenOn Gender, Their OrganizationsLabor, and FeminismInequality, 1945-1985Working Class in American History</i>. New YorkUrbana, Chicago: RoutledgeUniversity of Illinois Press, 2011, 80-2016. Pg. 83. </ref> As the war ended, many women who enjoyed working in the public sphere were forced to back into the home and private sphere.

As In the 1950s rolled around , the economy began to expand and the Cold War was in full swing, height of the red scare or anti-communist sentiments would end most women’s organizing efforts due sentiment began to red-baiting (assuming someone or something is communist in nature) and challenging anything liberal in naturediminish feminist organization. <ref> Laughlin, Kathleen A., and Jacqueline L. Castledine. <i>Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985</i>. New York: Routledge, 2011, 90. </ref> The four decades in between However, by the early late 1950s and 1960s , as more prolonged prosperity took hold, there was greater interest to explore new ideas and movements emerged, including the 1920s proved civil rights movement, that began to be a harsh climate for women to achieve any real change across race and class lines. It was the question establish social atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s that would ignite women of all racial constructs such as segregation and ethnic backgrounds to become involved inequality in the effort to gain equal rights among menwork place.