Hi, welcome to feminist fridays today
we're going to be talking about second
wave feminism - when it happened, who was
involved, what it accomplished, and why it's still matters
♪ intro ♫
Second-wave feminism is a movement that
started in the early 1960s and continued
into the 1980s.
Second-wave feminists sought to address
not just the legal inequalities, but what
was considered the de-facto inequalities
between genders. Some major issues that
second wave feminists are normally
remembered for are reproductive rights,
fighting against workplace inequality,
and offering protection to those who
face domestic abuse. Notable second-wave
feminists include Simone de Beauvoir, who
was the author of The Second Sex which
examined how women were othered in a
patriarchal society.
Esther Peterson, who worked on the
Presidential Commission on the status of
woman and was the director of the United
States women's Bureau. And Eleanor
Roosevelt who was Eleanor Roosevelt! Now
you might be noticing a trend if you
watch my video on first wave feminism
you may remember  "most of the people
involved in first-wave feminism word
middle-class white woman, not exclusively,
but mostly" one common critique of second
wave feminism is that the narrative of
second-wave feminism has been whitewashed, it has failed to acknowledge the
contributions from women of color, the
working-class women, and LGBT woman.
For example, one thing that second wave-feminism is commonly associated with is
the ability to work outside the home
after marriage. Working-class women and
women of color, particularly black women,
were already doing that and not because
they didn't want to be homemakers
because of generational poverty. When we
talk about second-wave feminism we have
to be including the contributions of
women like Florence Kennedy, a lawyer and
civil rights activists whose protest
summary was summed up by make white
people uncomfortable and who co-authored
one of the very first books about
abortion. Now woman already had the vote,
so you might be asking what did second-wave
feminists actually accomplish? The answer
is a lot, they accomplished a lot. Like
sex education. After the FDA approved
birth control in 1960, feminists began
holding panels and workshops to teach
about contraception, safe abortion, and
STDs. Or for another issue on bodily
autonomy, how about ending sterilization
that happened without consent. In the
1940s, the US government was very
interested in population control of
racial minorities - it's exactly
disgusting as it sounds. Women were being
sterilized without their knowledge or
consent, which was reprehensible. And in
the 1970s, the committee to end
sterilization abuse was founded.
If you have a job you might be familiar with
Title VII. Activists lobbied for the title XII
amendment to be added to the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 which prevented
discrimination based on sex in the
workplace, and made it possible to report
sexual harassment and abuse that
happened within the workplace. Which
should be none, but it occurred and it's
still a really frequent occurrence.
if you know anybody that's ever gone to a
public school in America you might also
be familiar with title IX. which was
passed in the US in 1972 and made it
illegal to discriminate on the basis of
sex in schools receiving federal funding.
First-Wave feminism laid the groundwork
that ensured that women have the right
to vote and the right to property. Second-wave feminism built upon that to pass
legislation to prevent and punish
discrimination on the basis of sex.
Second-wave feminism built upon that to
pass legislation that prevents a
discrimination while also making strides
in reproductive rights. We have the
opportunity to learn from the past and
to learn from the activists that came
before us, some of whom are still around
and still being activists, but we can
learn from their successes and failures
and I hope that they have already
learned from some of them. Second-Wave
feminists looked at the institutions
around them and noticed that the systems
in place have benefited one specific
group and then they introduced
legislation and educated their peers on
the inequality perpetuated by these
institutions in an attempt to dismantle
them. Institutional inequality may not be
as overt as it once was, but that doesn't
mean that it's not there and we should
still be questioning the systems and
laws around us to lessen the inequality in
our society through education and reform.
Second-Wave  feminism was a movement that
took place at the same time as the civil
rights movement and the gay liberation
movement. This isn't just a historical
facts but a call to build communities
with the other activists around us. It is
impossible to put 100% of
yourself into every issue, but you can
connect with other people who are
working on similar issues and we can all
show up in support of each other and the
work that we're doing. And finally we can
learn that there isn't just one easy
solution, if there was
easy solution to any of the problems in
our society we wouldn't have needed a
second wave of feminism and we certainly
wouldn't have needed a third one.
If there was an easy solution I have to
believe that we would have figured it
out already. For example, take
reproductive right one group was
fighting for accessible birth control
another was fighting against forced
sterilization. Both of these issues are
about bodily autonomy and
reproductive rights, but they have different
solutions because they're very different
problems. There wasn't an easy solution
that was going to work for both issues
even though they are intensely related. The
problems we will encounter in our world
are many and they are complex and
interconnected so our solutions have to
be too. Thank you for joining me for this
feminist Friday and learning about
second-wave feminism with me if you want
to see more from me you can subscribe,
watch another video of mine, or support
me on patreon. and hey I love you.
