Changes in Family and Sex Roles
in Twentieth Century America
The Rights Revolutions of the 1960s
The Challenges….
• To White Supremacy – Civil Rights
• To Patriarchy -- Second Wage Feminism
• To Sexual Orthodoxy – Sexual Revolution
and Gay Rights
Civil Rights Movement
• 1940s-1950s: NAACP, Urban League,
Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
attack the “separate but equal” doctrine in
American law and social practice.
– 1954: Brown v Bd of Ed overturns Plessy v
Ferguson
– Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the
bus and starts a movement of nonviolent civil
disobedience.
Civil Rights Movement Goals
• Integration of institutions of public and
economic life
• Equality of opportunity for all Americans
• End of theories of racial inferiority and
white superiority
• ….
• Principles of “rights talk” expands to other
avenues of life….
Civil Rights Legal and Legislative
Changes
• First the courts: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
desegregated public schools.
– Repudiated the theory of “separate but equal”
• Equal Pay Act of 1963:
– Men and women must be paid the same for the same
jobs.
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Nondiscrimination in public accommodations
– Title VII: Nondiscrimination in the labor market
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Housing Act of 1968
– non discrimination required in housing markets
Second Wave Feminism
• Challenges the patriarchal family
• Challenges the sexual control of women
• Challenges roles of masculinity and
femininity and women’s place in society
The Baby Boom
Sexual Revolution of the 1960s
and its Legacy
• “Playboy” culture for men and….
• Birth control pill for reliable contraception
for women
• Lead to new possibilities for and debates
about gender relations….
Second Wave Feminism
• Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
(1963) signaled new challenges to the
limitations on women’s roles
• New organizations appeared:
– National Organization for Women (NOW)
(1966)
– Women’s liberation and consciousness raising
groups – late 1960s and later
Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem
Sexual Revolution of the 1960s
and its Legacy: Gay Rights
Same Sex Relations
• We have examined the history of sexuality
primarily in the context of the history of the
family.
• Western religious traditions conceptualize same
sex sexual relations as deviant and/or sinful, and
classify same sex physical relations with other
forms of deviant, sinful, or prohibited sexuality
(e.g., fornication, adultery, bestiality,
masturbation).
• The logic behind such a conception is that the
purpose of sexuality is procreation, and such
behavior is not potentially procreative.
Movements for Sexual Liberation
• Come from a variety of interests, e.g.,….
– Heterosexual Men and Women
– Science and Medicine
– Gays and Lesbians
Science and Medicine...
• Challenge the authority of law and religious
authorities to define the “normal” and the
“deviant” in sexuality.
– Psychologists: Freud
– Sociologists
• Alfred Kinsey
– Physiologists
• Masters and Johnson
Sociologists...
• ...begin to survey sexual practices.
• The Kinsey Reports of the 1940s and 1950s
demonstrated the discrepancy between
morality and practice
• For example, 1/3rd of men acknowledged a
sexual relationship to orgasm with another
male
Physiologists...
• Masters and Johnson conducted
‘experiments’ to study human sexuality by
putting people in a laboratory, wiring them
up and recording physiological responses.
• When: 1950s and 1960s
Gays and Lesbians….
• And the the right to sexual autonomy.
• In the US, cities developed gay and lesbian
subcultures (turn of the 20th century),
including bars and restaurants, and
networks of jobs and relationships of
support.
• These communities were periodically
harassed and prosecuted under local vice
laws.
Gay Rights Organizations
1924 The Society for Human Rights in Chicago
becomes the country's earliest known gay rights
organization.
1951 The Mattachine Society, the first national gay
rights organization, is formed by Harry Hay,
considered by many to be the founder of the gay
rights movement.
1956 The Daughters of Bilitis, a pioneering national
lesbian organization, is founded.
Gays and Lesbians...
• In 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in
Greenwich Village, NY, the patrons fought
back when the police attempted to raid the
bar and arrest patrons. A street riot broke
out and led to an open movement for the
rights of gays and lesbians, patterned on the
civil rights and women’s liberation
movements.
Stonewall Inn
Making Gay
Culture
Visible
Changes...
1973 The American Psychiatric Association removed
homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.
1982 Wisconsin became the first state to outlaw discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation.
1980s AIDS Epidemic
1993 The “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy was instituted for the U.S.
military, permitting gays to serve in the military but banning
homosexual activity. President Clinton's original intention to
revoke the prohibition against gays in the military was met with
stiff opposition; this compromise, which has led to the discharge
of thousands of men and women in the armed forces, was the
result.
1996 In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court strikes down Colorado's
Amendment 2, which denied gays and lesbians protections
against discrimination, calling them “special rights.” According
to Justice Anthony Kennedy, “We find nothing special in the
protections Amendment 2 withholds. These protections . . .
constitute ordinary civil life in a free society.”
Changes...
2000 Vermont became the first state in the country to legally recognize civil
unions between gay or lesbian couples. The law stated that these
“couples would be entitled to the same benefits, privileges, and
responsibilities as spouses.” It stopped short of referring to same-sex
unions as marriage, which the state defined as heterosexual.1
2003 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sodomy laws in the U.S. are
unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “Liberty presumes an
autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression,
and certain intimate conduct.”
• In November, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that
barring gays and lesbians from marrying violated the state constitution.
The Massachusetts Chief Justice concluded that to “deny the protections,
benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage” to gay couples was
unconstitutional because it denied “the dignity and equality of all
individuals” and made them “second-class citizens.” Strong opposition
followed the ruling.
2004 On May 17, same-sex marriages became legal in Massachusetts.
2005 Civil unions became legal in Connecticut in Oct. 2005.
Wisconsin in 2006
• Should the State Constitution ban same sex
marriage?
• The November Ballot
• Pro
• And
• Con
• The amendment passed, November 2006
Same Sex Marriage: A
Contested Issue?
• US Defense of Marriage Act (1996) defines
marriage as a union of one man and one
woman.
• Obama administration is currently refusing
to enforce it or defend it in court
• Same sex marriage is legal in CT, IA, MA,
NH, NY, NT, DC. Partially recognized in
other states.
Same Sex Households
• How many are there?
• The 2010 census provides reports for the
first time:
– 131,729 same-sex married couple households
and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner
households in the United States.
Later Developments
• Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), provided constitutional
protection for birth control and articulated a right to
privacy
– Struck down CT law making contraception illegal for married
couples.
• Roe v. Wade (1973): Legalized abortion
– Defended by “pro choice movement” to define the right to
“choose”
– Attacked by “pro life movement” on the grounds that abortion
takes the life of a fetus.
• Sexual Harassment defined as illegal form of
discrimination by courts in late 1970s.
Challenges to Patriarchal Social
Relations
• Equal Rights Amendment: But it fails in late
1970s
• Gender Gap in voting since 1980
– Women and men vote differently
• Changes in family structure:
– dual earner family
– single parent family
– same sex marriage
If the Past is Prologue…..
• Will Congress repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell?
• Will the Supreme Court declare the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act
unconstitutional?
• How many “same sex marriages” will be
counted in the 2010 Census?
• Will there be a woman president in 2012,
2016, or 2020
And in your lives….
• How have family and sex roles changed in
your lives?
• How will they change in the future?
• Thank you
• Take more History and Women’s Studies
courses to continue the conversations!
Remaining Issues…
• Health Care and Insurance?
• Support for Job Training and Higher
Education?
• Food Security?
Additional Provisions
• Food Stamps: 1964
– Locally administered program providing means tested
support
– Also supported by farming interests
• Medicare and Medicaid: 1965
– National Health Insurance for Elderly
– Health Insurance for the indigent administered locally.
• Higher Education Aid:
– GI Bill of Rights, post World War II, subsidized
education for veterans
– National Defense Education Act (1950 and 1960s)
began grant and loan programs for higher education.
Has the Welfare State Accomplished
its Goals? Should it Continue?
• Debate begins in the 1970s:
– The Welfare State has guaranteed Americans
the highest living standards in the world….
– Or…
– The Welfare State has outlived its usefulness,
taxes are too high, and once again families and
the private sector should shoulder the burden of
care.
Examples of the New Understanding
• 1994: The Clinton Administration’s proposals for
national health insurance collapsed, and
Americans elected a Republican Congress for the
first time in 60 years.
• 1996: Congress repealed Aid to Families with
Dependent Children, one of the original provisions
of the 1935 Social Security Act.
– PRWORA: Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunities Reconciliation Act
• Bush administration proposed privatizing the
BOASI system in 2005 but no further action
taken.
National Health Reform
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
passed, March 2009
– End to denial of coverage for pre existing
conditions
– End to limits on coverage
– Insurers cannot cancel coverage
– Mandated coverage and “Health Exchanges”
created for individuals without employer access
to health insurance
National Health Reform
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
passed, March 2009
• Provisions phased in over a number of years
• But law is controversial and being
challenges in court
• Current prognosis is unclear….
Contemporary Issues in Family
and Sex Roles
What’s next….?