Fish Without Bicycles: The Second Women’s Movement in America, 1963-1983

Fish Without Bicycles:
The Second Women’s Movement in America, 1963-1983

DATES

Four Wednesdays: Oct. 31, Nov. 7, 14, 28, 2012 (note break for Thanksgiving), 1-3 p.m.

RECOMMENDED READING

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, Gail Collins

Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970, Lynne Olson (chapters 7-23)

Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, Stephanie Coontz

The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem, Caroline Heilbrun

In the midst of civil rights protests and anti-war marches the second women’s movement arose in the 1960s. This course will chart its progress and setbacks, its supporters and opponents, from publication of The Feminine Mystique and passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963 to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1983. Which had more impact on women’s lives, Title IX or Roe v Wade or the Equal Credit Act? Was this a movement with stars like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan but no leaders? Did it succeed or fail? We will have lots of questions to answer and issues to discuss.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Elisabeth Griffith, PhD, loves to teach women’s history because it is outrageous and annoying that it took so long to secure the rights and roles we now take for granted. She enjoys spending time in the company of courageous women change agents who took such risks to earn us access to education, employment, voting rights and reproductive freedoms. Her biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, In Her Own Right, praised by both the New York Times (“one of 15 best books of the year”) and the Wall Street Journal (“one of five best books on women’s history”), inspired Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “Not for Ourselves Alone.” Recently retired as Headmistress of the Madeira School, Betsy is working on a history of the Equal Rights Amendment.