The Researching Of The Secend Feminist Movement In America

America has witnessed two waves of feminist movement on a massive scale since the 1850s. The first wave was marked by the women's pursuit of right to education and work at the very beginning. It transformed into a struggle for women's suffrage right in the late part of the century and ended with the victory of the women's suffrage in the 1920s. The feminist movement lost momentum after the campaign. A revived feminist movement emerged amidst the Second World War and the rising activism in the post-war era. The thesis, confined to the second feminist movement, is intended to be an exploration of the outline of the movement, the women's endeavours, the underlying limitations and the insight into such questions as whether the equality between the two sexes has been carried out.Chapter one is a review of the social background of the second feminist movement. The Second World War mobilized the woman as a member of the labour force. Women's employment and education rate increased steadily, which helped them to raise their consciousness of their lives and prepared them for the upcoming feminist movement. In sharp contrast to the tone during the war, the American government and its propaganda called for women to return home. The press, advertisement and television programs combined to bring about a revived traditional feminism. The conservative views of the gender and the roles most women played in the modern economy made them at a loss and served as another catalyst for the movement.Chapter two is a review of the movement as its first stage, that is, from the early 1960s, when the Kennedy administration set up the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and called the attention to the female issues, to the middle 1960s. The research by some scholars and feminists raised the issues to a higher level. Women's involvement and the gender-based discrimination stirred their self-consciousness and the feminist movement emerged.Chapter three is a review of the two groups, namely, the moderates and the radicals in the middle 1960s and early 1970s, which was characteristic of its development. Moderates asked for the equality in employment, education and...