Fundamental Changes in the United States

This strike marked the peak of second-wave feminism and paved the way for fundamental changes in the United States society, culture, economy, politics, and legislation. It has mixed results; in the short – term, it made the feminist movement visible everywhere while in the long-term, activists worked hard to turn the strike’s goal into reality. Protests continued in the 1970s and led to gaining many rights.

The National Organization for Women lobbied congress with the support of other groups to convince them to provide childcare centers that would make it easy for women to work without worrying about their children or sacrificing their ambitions to be active citizens in a society in favor of their children.

The first time that NOW took an action to apply this right into reality was during the Ladies Home Journal sit-in in 1970 when they proposed child care centers for all employees in the magazine. The struggle for getting this law lasted for 3 years. It was proposed again in 1971 and got the approval of Congress, with a senate vote of 63 to 17.

The Child Development Bill was addressed to economically disadvantaged women such as children of working mothers, housewives, and single parents. According to this Bill, the children would get many services such as nutrition, education, and medical care. Congress passed the Bill and sent it to President Richard Nixon to sign it as expected. However, Richard Nixon vetoed it the pretend that it was too costly but in reality, President Richard Nixon refused because he connected this Bill to communism and at the same time it was a kind of resistance against women’s demands for total equality with men.

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In 1970, after mass marches, NOW activists succeeded to secure abortion right through the passage of Roe wade by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, and made it a constitutional right. This act made abortion legal and protect the lives of women from unsafe and illegal abortions. It encouraged women to continue their struggle to gain more reproductive rights. However, this act was limited and restricted as the act only gave the right to women to terminate their pregnancy during the first trimester allowing the state to intervene in the second and third trimester and it did not address the cost of the operation which was so high and made it difficult for women to access to it. In the following years, opposition to this act increased and led to the introduction of new legislation that put more restrictions on women’s access to abortion. However, NOW resisted this opposition and continued its fight for reproductive rights in 1989 when Missouri’s anti-abortion laws were pending before the Supreme Court and with the support of the Bush administration of abortion foes. The National Organization for Women organized a massive march that drew 600000 people in April 1989 and attracted the public again to the importance of securing reproductive rights.

During the early 1970s, NOW and other groups lobbied Congress to add sex in Title VI of 1964 which banned discrimination in any federally funded institution based on race, color, and nationality. So, NOW strived to secure equality at any educational institution and succeeded to gain the support of Congress which passed Title IX as a part of the Education Amendment on June 23, 1972. Title IX prohibited sex stereotypes in any federally funded educational institution. As stated in the following which was written in 1972 by Nixon “No person in the United States shall, based on sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance’’. This Title had a great impact on schools and college campuses. It played the main role in making women more involved in education and athletics. In fact, during the 1950s and 1960s universities had discretionary practices against women. They only accepted men and refused women. However, after the introduction of Title IX, women had equal access to education which opened the doors for them to get good jobs and entered some fields that before were restricted to men such as science, physics, and medicine. It also provided pregnant and parenting students with separate programs. It changed gender stereotypes in the classroom by eliminating economic courses that taught women how to be good mothers and housewives. It also fought sexual harassment and the Education’s Office for Civil Rights was created to enforce Title IX, evaluate, investigate and address complaints that were related to sex discrimination.

From 1970, the NOW continued the long-winded fight for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment which would guarantee equality for all women. The ERA was first introduced by Alice Paul in 1923 and it called the ‘ Lucretia Mott Amendment”.It stated that “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction’’.After 20 years, Alice Paul changed the name of the amendment to “Alice Paul Amendment’’ and the new version stated that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any station on account of sex’’ but it hadn’t ratified by the constitution. However, during the 1970s, NOW made the ratification of the ERA a top priority because it would guarantee equality for women in all fields, payment, job opportunities, education, health, politics, society, and media under the protection of the USA constitution. In February 1970, NOW’s members occupied the Senate hearings on vote rising posters that demanded hearings on the ERA. After a large campaign, the House passed the ERA and the NOW directed its effort towards attracting opponents to get the support of Congress which accepted to pass it in 1972.

From 1972 to 1982 NOW strived to achieve its goal of ratification through lobbying work, mass marches, boycotts, and rallies. In 1977, NOW organized a large march of four thousand people to convince President Jimmy Carter to take action to ratify the ERA. As the 1979 deadline approached, NOW organized another march of 100000 people to ask for an extension of the time limit. This march was successful because congress accepted to the extent the time limit to June 30, 1982. To get the support of the states which refused the ratification, NOW members engaged in large marches, countdown rallies, hunger strikes, White House picketing, and economic boycotts, and many organizations supported NOW’s actions such as the United Auto Workers, the Democratic National Committee, the League of Women Voters. However, the opposition to ERA was as strong as the support. Among these groups were the STOP-ERA led by Phyllis Schally, the insurance industry, Anti-ERA, and States -rights advocates. Moreover, the political change of 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan, made the Republic Party remove their support for the ERA. This led to the defeat of ERA in June 1982, NOW did not succeed to get the support of 38 states.