The American Feminist Movement In The 1970s And 1980s:Backlash And Decline

The second-wave feminist movement rose from the 1960 s and faded into the 1980 s.Liberalism thriving in the 1960 s didn't make America more powerful.Instead,it brought a series of social problems.Thus,conservativism began to rise.Conservatives blamed the relative decline of America power on feminists for promoting issues leading to moral corruption of American society.To safeguard traditional values based on religious and familial structure,conservative forces carried out a series of campaigns targeting at feminism,which were a heavy blow to the second-wave feminist movement.Antifeminist backlash by the conservatives focused on three aspects.Firstly,ERA failed to become a part of American Constitution,short of three state votes.Secondly,women's right of abortion was marred by the Hyde Amendment.Thirdly,due to association with homosexual rights movement,feminist movement was also inflicted with the resistance from homophobic people.The fierce backlash was involved with many social factors ranging from economy,politics,religion to race,which were interlocked and mutually influenced,leading eventually to the decline of the feminist movement.Under conservative backlashes,the second wave of the feminist movement started to ebb.The achievements were reversed,the organizational network jeopardized,the momentum slackened and its proponents demoralized.Apart from that,gender inequality was still widely seen,especially in employment,which led to the “feminization of poverty”.Furthermore,the decline was also indicated by division within women groups.Disagreements and conflicts made up the weakness and decline of the feminist movement.At present,academic research on the backlash against and decline of the movement is unsystematic.By studying the topic,this thesis is dedicated to reveal the practical predicament feminist movement was in.The ups and downs of the feminist movement would provide us an insight into American women and American society at large.Moreover,with the rapid development of Chinese economy and the rise of women's status,many new issues concerning women are arising.Research on the American women would also give us inspirations to understand and deal with the various women-concerned problems in Chinese society today.