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women’s rights movement: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As women’s liberation movement
Date c. 1960 - c. 1980

Did You Know?

  • Although the female employment rate had dropped following World War II, by 1954 more women were a part of the workforce than during the war.
  • Within five years of federal approval of oral contraceptives, about six million women were taking them.
  • In 1972 the first shelter for battered women opened, one of the goals of the women's movement.
  • The women's movement was so influential that in 1975 TIME awarded its "Man of the Year" award to "American women."

Photos and Videos

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
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
History of the feminist movement in 1970s West Germany
Carrie Chapman Catt on the fight for women's suffrage
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Related Topics and References

Topics
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Key People

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Sarah Grimké
American abolitionist
Pauli Murray
Pauli Murray
American civil rights activist, lawyer, and writer
Joyce Banda
Joyce Banda
president of Malawi
Waris Dirie
Waris Dirie
Somalian model, author, and activist
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Catharine A. MacKinnon
American feminist and law professor
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Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Nigerian feminist and political leader
American feminist, lecturer, writer, and publisher Charlotte Perkins Gilman, c. 1900
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
American author and social reformer
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
American author and feminist
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Maggie Kuhn
American activist
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
French writer
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago
American artist
Alice Paul.
Alice Paul
American suffragist
Abzug, Bella
Bella Abzug
American politician
Jeannette Rankin, 1918
Jeannette Rankin
American politician
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Huda Sharawi
Egyptian feminist and nationalist
The real “Roe”
Norma McCorvey
American activist
The voice of a movement
Gloria Steinem
American feminist, political activist, and editor
Martin, Anne Henrietta
Anne Henrietta Martin
American reformer and educator
Tawakkol Karman
Tawakkol Karman
Yemeni women’s rights activist
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Australian writer