While “the American feminist movement had . . . “ chiefly lain idle since the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, “in the 1960s, a new spirit of self-awareness and dissatisfaction stirred middle-class women” (Boyer et al. 673).
Encouraged by feminists like Betty Friedan who dared to make the flawless middle class veneer crumble by openly addressing “the problem that has no name,” American women joined forces and more vigorously than ever restart-ed to claim gender equality. Taking their demands for women’s liberation in terms of education, occupation, sexuality and self-determination in general to the street and forming several activist groups, second wave feminism was born. The first step to escape domestic servitude, the feminists said, was to be-come financially independent (Chafe, Paradox 194 ff.; Boyer et. al. 673 f, 705.).
Accordingly, more and more women strived for higher education and new occupational possibilities. As McLaughlin et al. point out, the 1960s witnessed
“sharp increases in women’s educational attainment” (50). Not only did the number of female enrollment at colleges rise, but also the variety of subjects broadened. While women in the 1940s and 1950s were often restricted to typi-cal female fields of study, such as “home economics, child development and interior decoration” (Chafe, Paradox 180 f.), in order to prepare for their careers as mothers and wives, they now increasingly entered disciplines like law, medicine and business administration that had usually been reserved for men (McLaughlin et al. 38 ff.). As a result, women’s career choices and possibilities were enhanced and the number of women participating in the labor force steadily advanced. This entailed both more self-fulfillment as well as more fi-nancial independence and above all it made them more self-confident and
“full and equal partners in the family community” (Chafe, Paradox 196;
McLaughlin 47 f., 93). Furthermore, in the early 1970s, many states passed laws that prohibited occupational discrimination on grounds of sex. Hence, wages increased (though still not measuring up to men’s), and more and more educated women could actually enter the (male) professions they had studied for (Boyer et al. 705 f.; McLaughlin 48, 90, 102; Chafe, Paradox 223). Indeed,
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“[d]omesticity remained an option, but it was no longer the only option”
(Boyer et al. 674).
Accordingly, women’s life course and the significance of the family in it largely altered. Instead of marrying and having children at a relatively early age, women now concentrated first of all on their careers. As a result, marriage and motherhood were delayed or even completely skipped which brought women’s lifestyle especially during early adulthood closer to men’s. The fami-ly in general became less important and ceased to be the primary means of female identification as women started to concentrate more on their personal fulfillment and individual needs. Being financially independent, they did not need to marry anymore, making a living on their own. Hence, more and more women remained for a longer time or even life-long single, marriage and birth rates, correspondingly, declined, divorce rates skyrocketed, and the number of single mothers rose. Indeed, many women still did not reject relationships and men per se; however, the institution of marriage had become redundant from an economic point of view. A growing number of couples, therefore, preferred to live in common law marriage in order to maintain their independence and avoid obligations that might restrict individual longings and eventual person-al reorientation (McLaughlin et person-al. 32, 42 f., 51 ff., 63 ff., 69, 89, 135). Further-more, women who decided to start a family were no longer supposed to quit working but could now combine career and family (Chafe, Paradox 200;
McLaughlin et al. 90 ff.). While women in the past had usually worked before and/or after having had children, “the 1960s marked the beginning of a shift away from the traditional sequencing of family and employment roles” to-wards a combination of both (McLaughlin et al. 97). Additionally, an increas-ing number of couples refrained completely from havincreas-ing children which shows that men and women did no longer “have to have children to fulfill their union as husband and wife” (McLaughlin et al. 154). Most important for all of these developments is the fact that the public approval of such life choic-es steadily increased, both on part of women and men (McLaughlin et al. 149, 172 ff.; Chafe, Unfinished 420).
One of the most drastic changes in women’s lives that was achieved dur-ing the 1960s and 70s concerned their sexuality. The sexual revolution brought female as well as sexuality in general from the bedroom into the open. Free love was practiced, sex unrestrainedly talked about and homosexuality in-creasingly lost its stigmatization. Magazines encouraged women “to enjoy rec-reational sex” (Boyer et al. 685), movies, television and theaters openly depict-ed and discussdepict-ed nudity and sexuality, and more and more women engagdepict-ed in pre- and extramarital intercourse, in part even to a larger extent than men (Boyer et al. 684 f.; Chafe, Unfinished 422). While during the 1960s premarital sex was for many Americans still only acceptable in connection with love and a subsequent marriage, during the 1970s it became an integral and natural part
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of the lives of both men and women without a necessary involvement of love, relationship or marriage (McLaughlin et al. 86). “Individual sexual fulfillment”
was now deemed “healthy and very important” for both sexes (Udry qtd. in McLaughlin et al. 86), and the invention of the birth control pill and the legali-zation of abortion revolutionized in particular women’s degree of sexual free-dom and self-determination at that time. However, not everybody was fond of these developments; especially the older generation complained about the de-cay of family and moral values (Boyer et al. 685).
The sexual liberation found its end in the mid-1980s with the emergence of AIDS, the latter “chill[ing] the ardor of open sexuality” (Boyer et al. 685;
McLaughlin et al. 87). Indeed, sexual activity per se did not cease, but both men and women became more careful and moved from free love to “’Safer Sex’” (Boyer et al. 710). However, not only sexuality was slowed down during the conservative Reagan-era in the 1980s and beyond. Feminists complained about a backlash. Even though “[e]xtraordinary changes continued to occur in the family and workplace . . .,“ women received several setbacks, such as the failed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, new obstacles and opposi-tion on the part of conservatives concerning their right of aboropposi-tion as well as persistently minor payment and job distribution (Chafe, Paradox 214 ff.; Boyer et al. 706). Additionally, more than a few men as well as women felt threat-ened by the evermore progressing mergence of traditional gender roles. Thus, many women were less activist and rediscovered domestic values (Chafe, Paradox 214, 237). As Maasik and Solomon point out, “It became culturally fashionable to embrace a ‘new traditionalism’ . . . [and] by the late 1980s Time had declared that feminism was dead . . . “ (441). Even though working wom-en by the 80s had become a largely accepted normality and evwom-en movies, for instance, had started to side with them, the media still depicted them for the most part in negative terms, i.e. as unhappy and unfulfilled (Haskell, Reverence 390 f.). Female sexuality, too, was on the one hand embraced by the media, especially in order to spur consumerism, but women who were not only “sex-ually available,” but rather self-determinant or aggressive, were depicted as
“monster[s]” (Maasik and Solomon 443). Furthermore, “the very word femi-nism itself was demonized” (Maasik and Solomon 442), and many women re-frained from typically feminist attributes, such as a natural outward appear-ance and plain clothes. Instead, they again embraced typically female attrib-utes, such as wearing makeup and attractive clothing in order to feel and ap-pear more desirable to men. And although many men claimed to not feel threatened by successful women, they mostly continued to marry women less successful, and women often complained to not find a man due to their higher education and profession (Dowd).
Despite all these setbacks and turn backs to conventional gender roles, at the end of the 20th century, women had as many possibilities and liberties as
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never before. Even though the sexual double standard had not yet been com-pletely overcome, female non-marital sexual activity both almost equaled that of men’s and was approved of by the majority of Americans (McLaughlin et al.
85 ff). Gender segregation in terms of income, working fields, and position, indeed, continued to exist (Chafe, Paradox 223 f.). However, college enrollment and labor force participation likewise continued to grow as well as women’s
“entry . . . in the traditionally male professions . . . “ (McLaughlin et al. 102) so that in the first decade of the 21st century, women “make up almost half of American workers . . .,“ occupy to some extent also high-prestige and manage-rial occupations and even earn in a higher number than men college degrees (“Female” 49 f.). Hence, while career women during the post-war period were largely stigmatized and an exception to social norms, they had now become a part of everyday life (Chafe, Paradox 222). Also in terms of lifelong singleness, delayed marriage, divorce, cohabitation and single-parenthood, the increasing trend of the 1960s and 70s proceeded. Likewise, the fertility rate declined to an all-time low, and large numbers of women even postponed the birth of the first child up until their thirties in order to first concentrate on themselves and establish themselves an independent standing within society (McLaughlin et al. 53 ff., 70, 123 ff.).
Hence, even though marriage and/or children were still an integral part in the lives of most women and considered essential to lead a fulfilled life (McLaughlin et al. 186), the family was by no means the only goal anymore.
Women now wanted to have it all and combine both their old and their new roles and were mostly not willing to give up either the one or the other. At this point, however, new problems emerged. While men, indeed, had also started to engage more in the domestic sphere, “their roles as fathers and husbands . . . [remained] secondary to their role as providers.” Women, on the contrary, not only remained in major charge of the household and child-rearing, but were also supposed to equally respond to their public and domestic roles which however proved often a problematic task: “With heavy demands on her to be successful at both endeavors, the employed mother finds her roles in conflict” (McLaughlin et al. 121, 149). Moreover, women were often denied their right to freely choose which lifestyle they wanted to lead since holding an occupation over the years had become an economic necessity instead of a longed for liberty, especially for single women and mothers, but not exclusive-ly (“Feminist” 50; Friedan, Second 23, 72 ff.).
Accordingly, women at the end of the century were on the one hand more liberated and manifold in their opportunities and lifestyles than ever. On the other hand, however, society still perceived them primarily in their roles of mothers and wives even though female occupation was largely approved of.
In addition to that, new problems that had evolved out of the altered social structures still prevented them from being equal to men, but instead kept them
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struggling between old and new gender roles as will become clear in the fol-lowing chapters.