24. The Feminist Era
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Summary
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Coming soon!
Draw your own conclusions
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Was the ERA good for women?
The Equal Rights Amendment, written by Alice Paul and not passed in Congress until 1972, resulted in debates as anti-ERA leadership emerged. Leaders of the women's movement did not take her opposition seriously at first, but her work in the STOP ERA movement led to the amendment not meeting it's expiration timeline. In this inquiry, students will watch or read from prominent proponents, the law itself, and from opposition and decide if this amendment was good for women. If you chose to show the debate, you can find it cited in the lesson plan or on YouTube. 
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What was the effect of Title IX and its changing application today?
Title IX transformed modern American society by providing equal educational opportunities and experiences regardless of sex. Title IX has always been controversial and has been interpreted by some to include sexual harassment, transgender, and other topics. In this inquiry, students explore primary material showing the changing impact of Title IX.
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Did the Cold War improve women's rights around the world?
With all the focus on women's rights on both sides of the Iron Curtain, did women's lived experiences actually improve. Sort of.
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How did lesbian bars change the lives of queer women before 1975?
The lives of queer people prior to Stonewall was closeted. For many gay bars provided a sense of belonging and relief, allowing them to be themselves. In this inquiry, students read/watch excerpts from women describing how these bars transformed their lives prior to Stonewall.
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Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- The National Women's History Museum has lesson plans on women's history.
- The Guilder Lehrman Institute for American History has lesson plans on women's history.
- The NY Historical Society has articles and classroom activities for teaching women's history.
- Unladylike 2020, in partnership with PBS, has primary sources to explore with students and outstanding videos on women from the Progressive era.
- The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has produced recommendations for teaching women's history with primary sources and provided a collection of sources for world history. Check them out!
- The Stanford History Education Group has a number of lesson plans about women in US History.
Period Specific Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- Feminism:
- Clio: This lesson plan introduces students to feminism, which is both a historical movement and a political ideology. Its focus is on American feminist activists since 1945. Students have the opportunity to explore various definitions of feminism and to research individual feminist activists. The exercises from this class session can be integrated into lessons investigating the development of democracy, the histories of movements for social justice and equal rights, and social changes since World War II.
- Clio: This lesson introduces students to women activists who helped define and broaden the public discussion of women’s issues in the late 1960s, an era of enormous political upheaval in the United States and around the world.
- Clio: This lesson introduces students to the pioneering woman politician Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who sought to become the first woman President of the United States in 1964. She and other women in the U.S. Congress served as ambassadors for expanding women’s roles in American society in the 1960s and 1970s.
- Clio: In the early 1970s, Boston feminists established a collective to teach themselves and other women about their bodies. Their path-breaking book Our Bodies, Ourselves is now published in 30 languages. In the same era, the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade guaranteed a woman’s right to have an abortion. In the early 1990s, Black women health activists began organizing around the concept of Reproductive Justice, which connects reproductive rights and social justice. Reproductive Justice is defined “as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”
- Equal Rights Amendment:
- Stanford History Education Group: In this lesson, students are presented with a claim made on Twitter about the popularity of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. Students use the internet to evaluate the trustworthiness of the claim and to determine whether the Equal Rights Amendment had popular support in the 1970s and whether it does today.
- PBS: This inquiry kit features Library of Congress sources examining support for and against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). What was the Equal Rights Amendment? Why were people against the ERA? Which parts of the ERA do you think were successful and which parts still need work?
- Voices of Democracy: Students examine a Gloria Steinem’s testimony in Congress defending the ERA. What evidence does Steinem offer to support her claims? Did you find her arguments convincing?
- Voices of Democracy: This speech relates “Women’s Liberation” to social changes that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the anti-war and civil rights movements. Steinem’s address helps students see the connections between these social movements and understand how the movements built upon one another. Steinem breaks with the rhetorical tradition of graduation speeches by urging action rather than celebration. Instead of praising the learning that graduation commemorates, Steinem urges an “unlearning” by refuting several myths about women, several of which are grounded in academic coursework or studies. Steinem’s point of view as a woman who has recently testified before Congress on equal rights is leveraged in this speech, yet she uses this opportunity not just to urge the liberation of women, but to emphasize the broader outlook of a humanist movement that seeks the liberation of all interdependent beings.
- Title IX:
- Gilder Lehrman: The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judicial system and has both original and appellate jurisdiction. Historically, the Supreme Court’s most influential role has been through the exercise of judicial review. The court’s power to declare acts of the legislative and executive branches unconstitutional, and therefore null and void, has enabled Supreme Court Justices to act as policy makers. Title IX is a United States law enacted on June 23, 1972, that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Looking at the issues and concerns that prompted Congress to pass gender equity legislation will enable students to debate the significance of judicial review and the Supreme Court regarding interpretation and reinterpretation of the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
- Gilder Lehrman: Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to analyze gender equity during the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Students will be able to identify the major social and economic trends of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. Students will be able to examine the effects of activism in the twentieth century and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.
- Teaching Tolerance: This lesson uses the text of Title IX as a jumping-off point for students to explore how girls’ and women’s experiences in education have and have not changed in the 40 years since this landmark 1972 legislation became law.
- Shirley Chisolm:
- National History Day: Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) was born in New York City to immigrant parents. After high school, Chisholm attended Brooklyn College and began a career in education after graduation. After finishing her masters in early childhood education in 1952, she worked for the New York City Division of Day Care before being elected to the New York State Legislature in 1964. After a court-ordered redistricting changed the congressional boundaries in Brooklyn, Chisholm ran for the new seat and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968. She was the first African American Congresswoman. While in Congress Chisholm protested against the Vietnam War and advocated for programs to help the poor, women, children and minorities, causes that she would fight for throughout her seven terms in the House. In 1971 Chisholm became a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. In 1972, she declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for presidency. Although she received assassination threats and ran a small campaign, Chisholm received 152 delegate votes (10% of the total) but ultimately lost to George McGovern. In 1977 Chisholm helped establish the Congressional Women’s Caucus. After leaving Congress in 1983, Chisholm taught at Mount Holyoke and was nominated to serve as the ambassador to Jamaica by President William J. Clinton, although she declined due to poor health. Chisholm died in 2005 in Florida and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.
- Voices of Democracy: The push for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) marked the beginning of what many scholars identify as the birth of the contemporary women’s rights movement. Shirley Chisholm was a political icon who used this speech to carefully build an affirmative case for change, demonstrating how both women and men were harmed by laws that perpetuated sex discrimination. Her opposition to the status quo made her seem radical to some, but she was the first African-American woman elected to Congress. As a member of Congress, she earned a reputation for candor and political courage as she used her public speaking and debating skills to champion the interests of women, people of color, and people living in poverty at a pivotal time in U.S. history. The ERA addressed an important political question: do society’s attitudes affect laws, or do laws shape society’s attitudes? By arguing that laws shape popular thinking, Chisholm advocated for a constitutional amendment, the ERA, that would guarantee federal protections to both women and men, overriding state laws with the goal of also changing national attitudes towards the capacities and rights of both sexes. Chisholm used her considerable debate skills to demonstrate that the ERA would benefit both men and women, as well as the nation as a whole, by assuring that the U.S. lived up to its founding ideals of equality and justice for all.
- LGBTQ+ Rights:
- National Women’s History Museum: Should LGBTQ history be required by all states? This lesson seeks to explore the Stonewall Riots, the media interpretation of them, and inclusion and exclusion in the LGBTQ movement through the life of Marsha P. Johnson, including the connections to the present day. Students will examine news articles from the time, reflections from trans activists, and explore the ways the impacts of intersectionality on the LGBTQ community. Through a set of activities, students will explore how Stonewall has been understood and some of the unsung heroes, ultimately seeking to ask why they were unsung. As a summative assessment, students will complete a writing exercise in which they seek to connect the debate over the film Stonewall to what they have learned in class and reflect on what they have learned.
- Teaching Tollerance: Most history textbooks lack inclusion of the significant contributions LGBT African-Americans made to the civil rights movement. This series introduces students to four LGBT people of African descent with whom they may not be familiar, yet who were indispensable to the ideas, strategies and activities that made the civil rights movement a successful political and social revolution.
- Lesson One: James Baldwin: Art, Sexuality and Civil Rights discusses how James Baldwin’s identity shaped his art and political activism. Students will read a New York Times obituary, written the day after Baldwin’s 1987 death from cancer, and listen to an interview conducted by National Public Radio. Far ahead of his time, Baldwin was “out and proud” before that term became a popular cultural idiom. Baldwin’s life illuminates not just the intersection between gay rights and civil rights, but perhaps more important, the connections among self-identification, artistic expression and political activism.
- Lesson Two: Lorraine Hansberry: LGBT Politics and Civil Rights examines the battle over how history has remembered one of the United States’ important mid-20th century playwrights. Some scholars consider Lorraine Hansberry to be a literary genius because she masked radical black politics through the construction of seemingly unthreatening African-American characters. Her 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, blazed a trail for African Americans into mainstream theater and entertainment. While Hansberry has long been recognized as a significant figure in black history, less is known about her advocacy for lesbian and gay rights. Hansberry never publically shared her sexual orientation, but she is often described as a closeted lesbian by those who have studied her life and politics. Hansberry’s sexual politics and advocacy for LGBT rights is the subject of this lesson.
- Lesson Three: Pauli Murray: Fighting Jane and Jim Crow focuses on issues of justice. Murray was an accomplished lawyer and intellectual. In this lesson, students will study Murray’s biography and delve into the distinctions she made between Jim Crow and Jane Crow. This lesson explores the life, activism and ideas of a woman, African American and lesbian who fought discrimination in the areas of race, gender and sexuality. Murray, an overlooked figure, was instrumental in connecting civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights.
- Lesson Four: Bayard Rustin: The Fight for Civil and Gay Rights addresses the issue of activism. Rustin was not only dedicated to orchestrating the civil rights movement; he was also one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors, and the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. In this lesson, students will read Rustin’s words and engage with a historian’s assessment about his activism and legacy. Rustin’s life elucidates the similarities between the modern civil rights movement and the current gay rights movement. Earlier in his life, Rustin was open about his homosexuality in private circles, but remained publicly silent about it. Later in life, Rustin was more vocal and became an advocate for gay rights in ways that had eluded him in his earlier years. In this lesson, students will discuss the similarities and differences between the civil rights and gay rights movements.
- Stanford History Education Group: In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn exploded into a riot when patrons of the LGBT bar resisted arrest and clashed with police. The Stonewall Riots are widely considered to be the start of the LGBT rights movement in the United States. In this lesson, students analyze four documents to answer the question: What caused the Stonewall Riots?
Bibliography
Collins, Gail, America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. New York, William Morrow, 2003.
DuBois, Ellen Carol, 1947-. Through Women's Eyes : an American History with Documents. Boston :Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.Indians Editors. “NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN.” Indians. N.D. http://indians.org/articles/Native-american-women.html.
Ware, Susan. American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
DuBois, Ellen Carol, 1947-. Through Women's Eyes : an American History with Documents. Boston :Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.Indians Editors. “NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN.” Indians. N.D. http://indians.org/articles/Native-american-women.html.
Ware, Susan. American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Primary AUTHOR: |
Mary Bezbatchenko
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Primary ReviewerS: |
Kelsie Brook Eckert
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Consulting TeamKelsie Brook Eckert, Project Director
Coordinator of Social Studies Education at Plymouth State University Dr. Barbara Tischler, Consultant Professor of History Hunter College and Columbia University Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Consultant Assistant Professor of History at La Sierra University Jacqui Nelson, Consultant Teaching Lecturer of Military History at Plymouth State University Dr. Deanna Beachley Professor of History and Women's Studies at College of Southern Nevada |
EditorsReviewersColonial
Dr. Margaret Huettl Hannah Dutton Dr. John Krueckeberg 19th Century Dr. Rebecca Noel Michelle Stonis, MA Annabelle L. Blevins Pifer, MA Cony Marquez, PhD Candidate 20th Century Dr. Tanya Roth Dr. Jessica Frazier Mary Bezbatchenko, MA |
Remedial Herstory Editors. "24. THE FEMINIST ERA." The Remedial Herstory Project. November 20, 2022. www.remedialherstory.com.
