3,257
edits
Changes
→Lead up to the Second Wave
== Lead up to the Second Wave ==
The women's movement before the 1920s was characterized by the suffrage movement that led to women gaining the right to vote. From the 1890s and early part of the 20th century, much of the women'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 prostitution. Black women in the Southwest of the United States, during the 1930s, for instance, joined labor unions such as the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU and UCCAPAW ) to protest poor wages and work environments they had to endure. <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 as men left overseas to fight in World War II. 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 as women became increasingly employed, particularly in manufacturing jobs required to support the war effort. During the 1940s, new work benefits became available to women, including maternity leave, daycare, and counseling. These benefits developed more substantially in Europe, as many countries there were devastated by war, where much of the male 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> 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 deserved the same types of rights as men in jobs they filled. This was highlighted by the fact that many men who came back and retook their old jobs from women who were doing them during the war also were given higher salaries, further highlighting this inequality.<ref>Milkman, Ruth, <i>On Gender, Labor, and Inequality, Working Class in American History</i>. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Pg. 83.</ref>
In the 1950s, the economy began to expand and the height of the red scare or anti-communist sentiment began to diminish 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> 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 civil rights movement, that began to question establish social constructs such as segregation and inequality in the work place. By the early 1960s, the social atmosphere began to be conducive for a major feminist movement.<ref>Gilmore, Stephanie, ed., <i>Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, Women in American History (.</i> Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.</ref>
== Ideology that Shaped the Movement ==
