International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

The first wave of feminism in the US was an outgrowth of the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement, and the second wave was an offshoot of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s. In both cases, women activists, disheartened by the male dominance of these struggles, decided instead to agitate for their own rights. As in the first wave of the prior century, the founders of the second wave movement were mostly, but not exclusively, white, middle-class women. Likewise, just as in the century prior, the movement divided into moderate and radical factions. Within the civil rights and Black Power movements , women suffered criticism when trying to lead rallies. Women did much of the organizational work but did not get credit for it. In 1967 organizers of a Black Power conference stated that African American women should not use contraception, as it was tantamount to race-suicide. This decree outraged affiliates of some African American women's organizations, such the New York Black Women's Liberation Group. Women in the Black Panthers had resisted this proclamation, but they were overruled or changed their minds. Similarly, in the New Left, some women felt that the men treated them as either sex objects or servants. Crude harassment of women at New Left events drove many female recruits away. In 1966 the men in the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) threw ... log in or subscribe to read full text