This is an essay about the New Women's Movement in the United States that emerged in the 1960s. The question: What did the New Women's Movement seek to achieve and was it successful?

Essay by hobaUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, May 2004

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What did the New Women's Movement seek to achieve and was it successful?

The New Women's Movement emerged in the 1960s with a reconditioned society. Women were moving into the labour force, their education levels were increasing, the birth rate was decreasing and the divorce level and single motherhood were rising, leaving behind new situations and experiences that opened up many unanswered questions and a new consciousness . The Kennedy Administration provided the atmosphere in which feminist roots could flourish. By establishing a Commission on women's affairs, Kennedy highlighted gender inequality. Then 'with the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women became the subject of national legislation for the first time since the 1920s' . Feminists gained strength as women who had never before realised their oppression took notice and wanted change . And bore the slogan, 'the sexes are equal; therefore sex roles must go' .

Feminist built strategies and proposed goals about what would have the greatest potential for change, and began working on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), female representation in politics and recognition of women's history . Believing 'sexual politics created a model of gender based on class welfare and racial oppression' , they tried to find a solution. Their solution involved creating individual identity negotiated through life outside the home . They comprised objectives and imposed strategies to achieve goals. The New Women's Movement achieved little success and suffered failure at the hands of increasing opposition.

Feminists began to construct objectives to 'openly fight against the exploitation and oppression of women' . They set out first of all to destroy implanted ideology that women were ultimately weaker than men due to childbearing. By proving 'that women's and men's difference in roles were...