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women’s rights movement
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Women's Strike Day, 1970 Black-and-white portrait of Betty Friedan, feminist and author of The Feminine Mystique, looking toward the camera with a neutral expression. NOW: Rally for Women's Lives
History of the feminist movement in 1970s West Germany
Gloria Steinem NOW demonstration for abortion rights Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects Declaration of Sentiments
Carrie Chapman Catt on the fight for women's suffrage
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Women's Strike Day, 1970
Women's Strike Day, 1970 Women's Strike Day march in Washington, D.C., for equal employment and educational opportunities as well as accessible child care, August 26, 1970.

women’s rights movement

political and social movement
Also known as: women’s liberation movement
Written by
Elinor Burkett
Professor of Journalism, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Author of The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America and others.
Elinor Burkett
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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•History

women’s rights movement, diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, that in the 1960s and ’70s sought equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women. It coincided with and is recognized as part of the “second wave” of feminism. While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote (see women’s suffrage), the second-wave feminism of the women’s rights movement...

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