Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women began to vocalize their opinions and desires for the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage movement paved the way to the nineteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution that allowed women that right. The Women’s Suffrage movement started a movement for equal rights for women that has continued to propel equal opportunities for women throughout the country. The Women’s Liberation Movement has sparked better opportunities, demanded respect and pioneered the path for women entering in the workforce that was started by the right to vote and given momentum in the late 1950s.
The focus of The Women’s Liberation Movement was idealized off The Civil Rights Movement; it was founded on the elimination of discriminary practices and sexist attitudes (Freeman, 1995). Although by the 1960s women were responsible for one-third of the work force, despite the propaganda surrounding the movement women were still urged to “go back home.” However the movement continued to burn on, and was redeveloping a new attitude by the 1970s. The movement was headed by a new generation that was younger and more educated in politics and social actions. These young women not only challenged the gender role expectations, but drove the feminist agenda that pursued to free women from oppression and male authority and redistribute power and social good among the sexes (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000).
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at what cost has these advances come with? In America over the past fifty years we have seen the hyper sexualization of women, a dramatic increase of divorce rates and a rise in single parent parting, an increase of women criticizing one another and more so than we have ever seen in our history. In America the Women’s Liberation movement has been embraced by how women are valued for more than baring children, but we often do not consider the ramifications the transition has had on our society.
Feminist Marlene Dixon has said that although women have done wonderful work in ending oppression for themselves, oppression still exist, only in psychological sense of the word. Dixon writes, “Individualized struggles between men and women around the oppressive attitudes and objective sexual and social privileges” is the consequence of the psychological oppression that is taking place in the minds of women, and men, who are being hyper sexualized in the need for attention. Taking into consideration the amount of emphasis is placed on a woman’s sex appeal Dixons ideas cannot be disregarded. With women increasing their assets in the work force and decreasing a mans need in relationships, women are marketing their bodies to...
