Women's Movement Lecture

0:02 Hi everyone. Welcome back. This week we are looking at the women's movement, particularly the second wave that developed during the 1960s and 70s. So as usual, I want to begin with the history before we turn to art, literature, and music. Let's start by thinking back to our discussion of World War II. So women worked in factories, they worked in shipyards and offices while millions of men served overseas. Rosie the Riveter became an image of patriotic female labor, but the government's message was not necessarily that women should have permanent access to those jobs. It was that they were needed during an emergency. So after the war, returning veterans

0:49 were given priority for many industrial positions and the women were pushed toward lower-paid work or encouraged to return to the home. Of course, many women had also worked before the war and they continued to work afterward, particularly women of color and working-class women. So let's keep that distinction in in mind as we talk about the idealized post-war family. In our post-war unit, we discussed suburbanization, consumer culture, and the ideal of the nuclear family. The image was a husband who earned the household income and then a wife who raised the children, kept the house, and made domestic life comfortable for her family.

1:35 Advertising and television really helped make that arrangement seem natural and universal. A new refrigerator or a new washing machine would be marketed not just as this convenience, but also as part of being a successful wife. Notice the contradiction here. Labor-saving appliances were supposed to make women's lives easier, but then the standards for housekeeping and mothering would just then become more demanding. However, this was never the experience for every American family. Um, a single earner household depended on access to things like high wages, good housing opportunities, and social advantages that were never distributed equally. Um, yet this ideal still shaped what women

2:21 were told they should want out of life. Now, let's look at what independence meant in practical terms. So, women could own property and they could maintain bank accounts well before the 1970s. So, it would be inaccurate to say that they had no financial rights. Um, but having a legal right and being able to actually exercise it without discrimination are really two different things. Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, lenders could legally discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status. So, women might be denied a credit card without having their husband or father co-sign for it, or they could have their income discounted when they're applying

3:07 for a mortgage. So, think about what this meant for women who are trying to, say, leave an unhappy marriage. Um, they were trying to purchase a home on their own or establish their own business. Financial dependence was not simply a personal choice. Um, it could be reinforced by institutions that assumed that a man was the real economic head of a household. Women also face significant restrictions in employment. Um, many occupations were divided into men's jobs and women's jobs. So, women were concentrated in secretarial work, uh, teaching, nursing, retail, um, and domestic service.

3:52 Employers could advertise positions by sex, so they could say we're only looking for a male candidate. They could pay women less. Um, they could also assume that married women or mothers wouldn't remain committed to their careers. So, things like pregnancy could lead to dismissal or to mandatory unpaid leave. Black women faced um additional barriers of racial discrimination and they were often concentrated in especially poorly paid work, um, particularly as domestic laborers in white households. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 started to challenge these practices, but what we see is that passing a law does not

4:39 immediately change the workplace or its structures. Um, enforcement and litigation would become central to feminist organizing. Women's legal dependence on men extended beyond just employment and finances. So, historically under this legal doctrine that's called coverture, um, married women's legal identity was absorbed into that of her husband. So, we do see some of these restrictions starting to disappear in the 20th century, but husbands continued to enjoy considerable legal and social authority over their wives. Divorce, for example, was very difficult to obtain. So, we did not have no-fault

5:24 divorce until 1969. So, spouses had to prove grounds for divorce such as adultery, um, physical cruelty or abandonment. So, for women who didn't have their own independent income, leaving a marriage could be especially difficult. Child custody was another major concern. So, although courts, um, increasingly favored mothers of young children, if a woman was accused of adultery or any other behavior that was considered immoral, they could lose custody of their children. Um, a woman's perceived respectability could determine whether she was considered to be a fit mother. Um, women would also need to prove financial security to win custody of their children. And this is especially difficult when employers could

6:10 discriminate against single mothers in hiring. Then finally, domestic violence was usually treated as a private family matter. Um, feminists would challenge this assumption and they would establish women's shelters and demand stronger legal protections against domestic violence. There was also a very powerful sexual double standard. So, men and women could engage in the same sexual behavior, but then face very different social consequences. Um, women were expected to preserve their reputation for sexual respectability and unmarried pregnancy brought severe stigma. But then at the same time, men were encouraged to sow

6:57 their wild oats, um, and their sexual exploits were considered a normal part of being a young man. So, this double standard rests on the assumption that some women were marriage material and others could just be thrown away by young men that were looking to experiment sexually. Access to reliable contraception was also uneven. Um, the birth control pill was approved in 1960, but access to it depended on age, marital status, um, what medical providers were available to you and what your individual state law was. Um, birth control was largely seen as a family planning method for married people. Um, in most states abortion was also illegal or heavily restricted. So, we need to

7:42 recognize the legal treatment of marriage. Um, many states still exempted husbands from prosecution under rape laws and the assumption was that marriage gave a husband sexual rights over his wife. Feminists would later argue that bodily autonomy does not disappear, uh, just right after your wedding. We should consider the fact that the women's movement did not emerge in isolation. So, we've already looked at the civil rights movement, student activism, the anti-war movement, and the Chicano movement. Women in all of these movements organized meetings, they registered voters, they attended marches, and they took on dangerous

8:28 political work. Um but women often discovered that organizations devoted to equality still expected men to lead and women to do clerical or supportive work. And that contradiction became a political education in and of itself. So, remember our discussion um of Chicana feminism. Uh women could support the struggle against racism while also criticizing sexism within that struggle. Similar tensions uh to this helped inspire independent women's organizations. So, the women's movement of the '70s is known as second-wave feminism. First-wave feminism is usually associated with those long campaigns for

9:15 women's suffrage, so women's voting rights. Um although it did involve other issues as well. But second-wave feminism expanded the question from whether women should be able to vote to whether women uh could live as equal participants in every uh part of society. So, the movement challenged discrimination in education and employment, but also in marriage sexuality reproduction domestic labor, and general cultural representations of women. Um this was an unusually broad agenda because it questioned practices that many Americans regarded as um natural or personal rather than overtly political. Um it's important not to imagine one

10:00 unified women's movement, though. So, different organizations disagreed about political strategy, um issues of class and race, um issues of sexuality, and then what liberation for women really should ultimately look like. In 1966, Betty Friedan helped establish the National Organization for Women, NOW. We're going to discuss Friedan's landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, in the next section of the lecture. The goal of NOW was to bring women into full participation in American public life. NOW pursued legislation, court cases,

10:48 political issues, and enforcement of civil rights protections. It addressed employment discrimination, educational opportunity, child care, and reproductive rights. This approach assumed that existing institutions could be made fairer for women. So, if a woman was qualified to become a lawyer or a professor, or business executive, then discriminatory barriers shouldn't prevent her from being able to do so. But other feminists would start to ask whether gaining access to those institutions is truly enough. At this point, it might be helpful to distinguish two influential approaches to feminism.

11:33 Liberal feminism generally sought equal rights and opportunities through legal and institutional reform. Radical feminism, on the other hand, argued that women's subordination was built into much deeper structures of power, including conventional family life and sexual relationships. So, radical feminists used the term patriarchy to describe those systems in which men held disproportionate authority. From that perspective, women could not be liberated simply by getting better jobs if they still performed nearly all the unpaid labor at home. The distinction between the two is really not always that neat, and individual activists could agree with either approach or both.

12:19 And it helps us ask whether the goal is to give women equal access to existing systems or if it is to really change those systems themselves. One of the movement's most important slogans was the personal is political. So, what does that mean? Um it means that a problem experienced privately can be produced by social structures, rather than by an individual's personal shortcomings. So, women formed these consciousness-raising groups where they discussed marriage and housework, their sexuality, um discrimination, and their frustrations with their lives. And many

13:04 women described similar experiences. Um and so, in hearing women describe these similar experiences, it really became harder to dismiss um the that each experience wasn't some kind of isolated or personal failure. So, think for example about unpaid domestic work. Um a couple might treat the division of housework as a private arrangement. And feminists asked how that arrangement was shaped by expectations about gender, money, and power. Um they were able to claim that the home is not somehow outside of politics. In 1968, protesters gathered outside the

13:52 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, and they criticized the idea that women's worth could be measured through beauty, youth, and conformity to this very narrow set of standards. Um protesters, you can see in the image, placed symbolic items so that included cosmetics, um their bras, in uh what was labeled a freedom trash can. Um the familiar story is that they burned their bras, but this is uh actually a media myth, which was created um by conservative media to make feminists seem overly radical. Then in August 1970, the Women's Strike for Equality brought huge demonstrations to American cities. Um, activists demanded equal opportunity in employment and in education, reproductive freedom,

14:39 and childcare. Um, these protests were very effective, partly because they made everyday expectations placed on women into public controversies. Um, a beauty pageant or a household chore could now become the subject of a political debate. Women also challenged barriers in education. So, some colleges and professional programs restricted admission to women, or they steered women away from fields like law or medicine or engineering. Um, Title IX, which was enacted in 1972, prohibited sex discrimination in education programs that received federal financial assistance. Um, it's often associated

15:25 with sports, um, and its effect on athletic opportunities really has been enormous, but it it reaches much further than just athletics. Um, the broader question was whether schools should prepare women for the same range of futures as men. Um, a common joke at the time was that women only went to college to earn their MRS degree, so meaning to find a husband. Um, and so their educational and professional goals were trivialized. Uh, access to education mattered not only for their future careers, but also for their own sense of independence and the the the ability to to define your own life on your own terms. And Title IX prevents all forms of educational discrimination at colleges and

16:10 universities. The ability to decide, um whether to have children or when to have children became a central issue of the women's movement. So, the pill, as we discussed, came out 1960 and it offered a pretty reliable contraceptive method, but um legal and practical barriers really still mattered in this issue. Uh so, in Griswold v. Connecticut 1965, the Supreme Court protected married couples' access to contraception. Um but in 1972 in uh Eisenstadt v. Baird, the court extended that protection to unmarried people. Uh prior to these cases, access to contraception often rested on a male

16:56 doctor's discretion. And male doctors might refuse birth control to an unmarried woman simply because they felt that doing so was encouraging sexually loose behavior. For many feminists, reproductive freedom was closely tied to education and to employment. Um if women had little control over pregnancy, then their opportunities in other areas of life could be severely limited, particularly when workplaces had the right to fire women for being pregnant. So, before Roe v. Wade, abortion was prohibited or sharply restricted in most states, although some states had become began reforming their laws. Um restrictions didn't mean that

17:42 abortions never happened. What it meant was that access to an abortion depended on whether you had enough money um or you could travel to a state that allowed abortion um and the overall ability to find um procure and pay for a safe provider of abortion. Um in 1973, the Supreme Court's Roe decision recognized the constitutional protection uh for abortion. Um supporters understood it as a major victory for bodily autonomy, but opponents argued that fetal life required greater legal protection. This conflict obviously did not end in 1973. And we know now that Roe was overturned by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022. And

18:28 that returned much of those abortion regulation rights to the states. This is one reason that this history remains so politically relevant today. The Equal Rights Amendment or ERA had first been proposed in 1923. And its central aim was to guarantee the equality of rights under the law regardless of sex. Congress did pass the amendment in 1972 and they sent it to the states for ratification. Supporters believed that constitutional language would offer stronger protection than just a patchwork of different statutes and court decisions. But constitutional amendments require ratification by 3/4 of the states. And

19:16 the ERA did not secure the required ratifications before the deadline that was recognized by Congress. So the campaign became one of the defining political conflicts of the 1970s. Fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment really is not over even today. And propositions to put the issue back on the table have popped up repeatedly since the 1970s. But we need to remember that not all women supported second wave feminism. Phyllis Schlafly, who's pictured here, became a very prominent leader of the campaign against the ERA. She argued that it could remove legal distinctions that benefited women and it could it could threaten traditional family roles.

20:01 Conservative opponents raised concerns that passing the ERA could require women to say be drafted into the military or that it would threaten the traditional family structure. Some women viewed homemaking not as oppression but as a valued role that they wanted society to protect. This is a useful reminder that the debate was not simply men against women. Women disagreed about what freedom meant. Was equality the ability to live like men, the ability to choose traditional domestic life, or is it the removal of constraints that make either path difficult?

20:47 Now, we need to ask whose experiences were being treated as representative of all women. Betty Friedan's portrait of this dissatisfied suburban housewife really resonated with many readers, but it didn't describe the circumstances of everyone. Women of color and working-class women had long worked outside of the home, and this was often because their their families really depended on their earnings. And so, their concerns included things like low wages, racist hiring practices, housing discrimination, and inadequate child care. They weren't concerned simply with the opportunity to enter professional employment or higher education. Lesbians also criticized movements that assumed heterosexual marriage was the

21:34 universal experience of womanhood. These criticisms didn't mean that sexism in traditional heterosexual relationships was unimportant, but what they mean is that sexism did not operate in exactly the same way for every woman. Black feminist activism developed out of this much longer history of black women's political organizing. Black women confronted racism in American society, sexism within black political organizations, and exclusion within predominantly white feminist spaces. The Combahee River Collective, which was formed in Boston in the 1970s, had made a statement in 1977 that argued

22:20 that racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression were all interconnected. Um and the collective insisted that black women's lives couldn't be understood just by discussing race in one room and then gender in another room. Uh one of the statement's most striking arguments is that liberating black women would require dismantling all of the systems of oppression. Notice uh how much broader that goal is than simply allowing a few more women to reach positions of authority. At this point, I want to talk a little bit about the concept intersectionality. So, intersectionality is a term that was introduced by legal scholar Kimberlé

23:05 Crenshaw in 1989. Um but the ideas behind it were developed much earlier by um black feminists and other feminists of color. Crenshaw was able to show how legal systems could fail black women when they treated racial discrimination and sex discrimination as entirely separate categories. A black woman's experience might not match the experiences of either white women or of black men. So, think back to our Chicana feminism lecture slide from last week. So, Mexican-American women could confront racism, sexism, and class inequality at the same time. Uh intersectionality does not simply mean that people have several identities. It goes further to ask how

23:51 systems of power interact to produce particular experiences and particular disadvantages. Now, before we move on, I want to consider a criticism of second-wave feminism that is different from questions of race or sexuality. Much of this movement sought women's entry into paid employment. Um that was an enormously important expansion of freedom, particularly for women who wanted financial independence or a professional life. But some critics argue that the movement's victories were absorbed into this capitalist economy without a comparable redistribution of domestic labor. So, more women entered

24:37 paid employment, yet women still performed a disproportionate share of things like child care, housework, and caregiving. So, in other words, many gained a second job without actually losing the first. There's also a contemporary argument that the shift toward two-earner households help normalize an economy in which one income is insufficient to support a family. Um we need to be careful about causation here, but things like rising housing costs, wage stagnation, inequality, policy choices, um there are changes in family structure, all of these things also matter, and it would be inaccurate to say that feminism alone caused the disappearance of the single-income household, um which really was never equally available to all families in the

25:24 first place. Um but the deeper question is whether economic independence has become confused with the expectation that every adult must participate in paid labor. Um a movement demanding more choices for women shouldn't end in a system where families have fewer practical choices about work and caregiving. I think this is especially relevant considering the high cost of child care in the United States. Um so, many families find that one entire income goes to child care alone. So, then it makes more sense for one parent to stay home with the children. Uh so, a good example of this is my own sister. So, her husband is a casino manager, but he only makes about $50,000 a year. Um but $50,000 a year is still too high of an

26:10 income for them to receive free daycare for their daughter. Um so, my sister works at the daycare so that her child can attend for free. Because if she worked anywhere else, um they would be even less likely to be approved for free child care. But then, if she doesn't work at all, they wouldn't be able to afford rent or groceries. To end the history section, let's bring the debate into the present for a moment. So, um you might know that on social media, the term tradwife describes [snorts] women who uh either embrace or perform a traditional domestic ideal. Um they often emphasize homemaking, marriage, motherhood, and having a husband who is

26:57 uh the financial provider. Some creators present this as their own personal life lifestyle preference, um but others connect it more explicitly to their religious beliefs or um political conservatism. The appeal of this is truly worth taking seriously. So, in a world where many people are exhausted by paid work and caregiving, the promise of this slower, more family-centered life can be very attractive. Um but the imagery can obscure the financial resources, unpaid labor, and dependence required to sustain that lifestyle. Some influencers also earn money by producing content about not working outside the home.

27:42 The political question of this is really not whether a woman should be allowed to stay home. Of course, she should if she wants to, um but the question is whether staying at home is a freely available choice, and whether laws and social expectations also protect women who choose differently. Contemporary battles over issues like abortion, contraception, child care, divorce, employment protections, um and gender roles all show us that the issues raised by second-wave feminism still remain unsettled. Um we should learn to distinguish individual preferences from efforts to impose one model of family life on everyone. So, when I was in grad school, I read this wonderful book called Engaged

28:28 Surrender by Carolyn Rouse. It interviews black Muslim women in America who have chosen traditional gender roles. Um these women argue that African-American women have historically had to take care of white women's children and have not had the option to be housewives and stay-at-home mothers themselves. They ultimately see being taken care of by a man as a privilege. Um I consider myself a feminist, but I was very moved by their arguments. It really helped me see feminism from a different perspective. Um ultimately, we have to learn how to see all women's choices as valid, but we also must fiercely protect a woman's right to choose a lifestyle for herself.

29:23 All right, now let's turn to art. The first piece I want to look at is Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. So, this was created between 1974 and 1979 um and there were also several other female collaborators on this piece. Um it's a very large uh triangular ceremonial table uh with 39 place settings all honoring women from history and mythology. Chicago asks us to imagine a history in which women's contributions are not just relegated to the margins. They actually have a seat at the dinner table. Um let's look first at the primordial goddess setting. So, rather than commemorating one identifiable

30:09 historical woman, it's evoking prehistoric female divinity and creation. Um Chicago begins her alternative history before the written traditions that so often center men. The next one I've highlighted is Hildegard von Bingen's table setting. So, she was a 12th-century abbess. Um she composed music. She was a writer and also a spiritual visionary. Um her setting recognizes intellectual and artistic authority exercised by women within medieval Catholic religious life. Um, notice how this complicates the idea that women were absent from intellectual history simply because conventional surveys often leave leave them out.

30:54 The next one I want to look at is Sacagawea's table setting. So, you probably remember Sacagawea from elementary school history. She participated in the Lewis and Clark expedition um as an interpreter and a guide. And she's often remembered primarily in relation to those male explorers. Um, here's the question uh of how history changes when we place her at the center. And how we avoid reducing her into a symbolic helper while overlooking her indigenous identity and circumstances. Finally, Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate who had once been enslaved. And her setting brings the histories of

31:39 slavery, race, and women's liberation all together. Um, it also allows us to ask whether Chicago's vision of women's shared history fully accounts for the differences between women. You might also notice one important visual similarity in all of these place settings here. Um, they all look a little bit like female sexual organs. Now, let's take a look at Dollhouse by Miriam Shapiro. Uh, she created created this piece for the 1972 Womanhouse exhibition. Um, it looks like a familiar miniature domestic interior. But, the rooms combine expectations of femininity with anxieties, contradictions, and

32:27 experiences that don't necessarily fit that cheerful housewife ideal. Um, the dollhouse is a useful object because children learn ideas about social relationships, so about family, gender, um and domestic space through play. Um Shapiro turns that seemingly harmless object into a way of questioning the roles that women are expected to inhabit. This is also part of a larger feminist challenge to a hierarchy between fine art and crafts. So activities that are associated with women, so like sewing, um arranging domestic objects, um needlework, these are have often been dismissed as less important um than

33:15 higher art forms like uh painting or sculpture. So feminist artists ask who decided that hierarchy in the first place. Is it accurate? Can we take a beautiful work of say needlework and say that it is fine art? Finally, Faith Ringgold created for the Women's House um in 1971 uh for the Women's Correctional Facility at Rikers Island. Um this painting presents women in a variety of roles and occupations, including activities and positions of authority from which women had often been excluded. Uh Ringgold was responding to the women who would actually encounter this artwork. Instead

34:00 of presenting prisoners only through the fact of their incarceration, she offers images of women's capabilities and their imagined futures. Um compare this one to the dinner party. So Chicago in The Dinner Party restores women to an imagined historical table. While Ringgold in For the Women's House imagines possibilities for women living under very real institutional constraints. So the comparison raises questions about race, class, and who gets access to the freedoms that feminism promises. All right, let's move on to the poetry and literature assigned for this week.

34:47 So, for the literature section of this lecture, you should have read the opening chapter of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, um called The Problem That Has No Name. Friedan begins uh by describing a dissatisfaction that many suburban housewives were struggling to articulate. Um they've been told that having a husband and children and a comfortable home should provide them with complete fulfillment. Um yet, many felt very restless or empty. So, notice how Friedan constructs the problem. She gathers anecdotes and reports from women who can't explain why they feel unhappy. And because each woman uh thinks that that feeling is personal and only belongs to herself, it's really

35:33 difficult to recognize it as a shared social condition. Um this really connects directly to that feminist idea that the personal is political. Friedan also describes the cultural messages that taught women to stop aspiring to intellectual or professional achievement. Her argument is not that caring for children is inherently worthless or unvaluable, but that women should not be told that it's the only legitimate source of fulfillment and identity. So, as you read this, keep asking which women Friedan is describing. Uh what assumptions is she making about a family's ability to survive on one income? Uh how might this chapter sound to a woman who has always needed to work?

36:25 Next, we're going to look at two poems by Maya Angelou. They were both published in 1978. Uh Angelou was a poet. She was also a memoirist and a civil rights activist, um whose writing frequently explored themes of race, gender, identity, um and the legacy of slavery. Angelou's work is particularly relevant to our discussion of the women's movement because she approaches liberation from the unique perspective of a black woman. Her poetry reminds us that black women's experiences cannot be separated from the histories of racism and racial oppression. The two poems you read, "Still I Rise" and "Kin", um approach these questions very differently. Um one is this defiant

37:11 declaration of independence and self-worth, while the other is offering a more complicated reflection on relationships, violence, and shared history. So, let's begin by looking at "Still I Rise". This is one of Angelou's most famous and recognizable poems. Throughout the poem, the speaker addresses an unnamed antagonist who is attempting to humiliate, diminish, or silence her. Um but no matter what this person does, she insists that she will rise above it. So, notice how Angelou begins by addressing the way that history is written. The speaker accuses her oppressor of recording her story through lies and degradation.

37:57 This is really significant when we consider how black Americans, especially black women, have historically been misrepresented or excluded from dominant historical narratives. The repeated declaration that she will rise um becomes increasingly powerful as the poem progresses. So, at first, it appears to be a statement of personal resilience, but by the time we get to the final stanza, when Angelou invokes the history of slavery and her ancestors, it becomes this bold declaration of collective survival. I also want you to notice the speaker's attitude. She doesn't simply ask to be treated with dignity. Instead, she is confident, she's provocative, and she

38:43 almost mocks her oppressor. Um she repeatedly asks whether her confidence, her wealth, and her sexuality offend the person that she's addressing. Angelou uses these images of wealth, uh, so oil wells, gold mines, and diamonds, uh, to suggest abundance and prosperity. But, this kind of wealth is not material. It's her confidence and self-worth that are the things that the oppressor cannot take away. I want you to notice, too, the references to her body and her sexuality. The speaker challenges the expectation that women should feel ashamed of their bodies or suppress their sexuality to be considered respectable. Um, by the end of the poem, the speaker

39:28 identifies herself with the hopes of her enslaved ancestors. Her freedom is not simply an individual accomplishment, but it represents the fulfillment of aspirations that earlier generations were denied. Okay, now let's take a look at Kin, which is really a much more ambiguous poem. So, unlike Still I Rise, where the relationship between the speaker and her oppressor is relatively straightforward, here we can't be entirely certain who the speaker is addressing. So, the title refers to kinship or, um, relationships based on family and shared ancestry.

40:14 The poem begins by describing this connection that seems to predate recorded history. Angelou invokes Eve, Sheba, and Lilith, which are all figures who are associated with different representations of femininity and female power. Before the speaker identifies herself as the addressee's sister. Um, but what we see in the poem is that the relationship with her sister has been damaged. Uh, the speaker accuses the person she addresses of imposing impossible demands on her and others. Uh, the language suggests coercion or exploitation, maybe even violence. The poem then introduces the idea that destruction might produce something new. And the speaker neither entirely accepts

41:01 nor rejects this possibility. And that raises questions about whether violence can ever bring about something meaningful or some kind of meaningful transformation. We might interpret this relationship in several different ways. It could represent a relationship between a woman and a man, between family members, or maybe between communities that are connected by um some form of shared history. Angelou purposefully leaves the relationship ambiguous. And in the final stanza, the speaker remembers childhood experiences in the South. Um images of quiet conversations, laughter, and fireflies contrast very sharply with the violence that had been described earlier.

41:48 So, despite everything that's happened, the speaker still feels affection for the person that she addresses. This makes Kin a really interesting companion to the poem Still I Rise. Um in Still I Rise, liberation involves refusing the power of an oppressor. But in Kin, the relationship is much more complicated because the speaker remains emotionally connected to someone or something that's associated with suffering. We can connect um this to the tensions within the civil rights and women's movements. Um black feminists challenged sexism within their own communities, while also continuing to recognize the importance of racial solidarity. The poem raises a very similar question.

42:34 Uh how do we confront oppression when it exists within relationships and and communities that we still deeply value? So, now let's turn to Audre Lorde's The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House. So, Lorde delivered this um as an address at the 1979 conference on feminist theory. Um she begins by pointing out an important contradiction. We have a conference that's claiming to discuss women's experiences, but it's given very little serious space to black women, to lesbians, or to poor women. And this is not an abstract complaint

43:20 about diversity. Lorde is asking what happens when feminist theory treats the experiences of relatively uh privileged women as the standard for everyone else. Um on page 100, she points out that the women cleaning homes and caring for children while others attend feminist conferences are often poor women and women of color. Throughout the piece, Lorde argues that differences between women should not be ignored or merely tolerated. Um they can become sources of knowledge and collective strength. Her famous metaphor about the master's tools is asking whether institutions built on exclusion can be used unchanged to create genuine liberation.

44:07 Notice that she's not arguing that women should abandon solidarity. She is instead asking for a more demanding kind of solidarity, uh one that doesn't require some women to erase their experiences just for the comfort of others. Our final reading is Gloria Anzaldúa's La Prieta um from her collection This Bridge Called My Back. Uh the title refers to dark skin, and the essay begins with Anzaldúa remembering how colorism shaped her childhood even within her own family. The essay then moves through experiences of poverty, farm labor, family

44:54 expectations, um sexuality, and exclusion. Anzaldúa describes the pressure to fit into categories that are imposed by different communities. She's not simply excluded by an outside dominant culture. She is also confronting expectations within the communities to which she belongs. If you look at page 228, she describes herself as a bridge and a crossroads. She resists the demand that she choose one single side or one single allegiance. On the following page, she insists that insults directed at women, gay people, or feminists can't be neatly separated from her own identity.

45:40 That which is insulted, I take as part of me. Toward the end, Anzaldúa also challenges women of color to examine their own prejudices and asks how people with different histories might build solidarity without pretending to just be exactly the same. Compare this with Audre Lorde. So, both writers reject a feminism that requires women to conceal the differences that shape their lives. All right, let's finish this lecture by taking a look at three of the songs from the women's movement that were in your playlist for this week. So, Lesley Gore recorded You Don't Own

46:26 Me in 1963 before the women's liberation movement had fully emerged as a national force. I think it's important to note, too, that Lesley Gore was a closeted lesbian for most of her life. The song rejects the idea that a romantic partner has the right to control a woman's behavior, her appearance, or her independence. It's really interesting to hear this message in a mainstream pop song that was very popular and was marketed to quite young listeners. The music makes a demand for autonomy sound direct and accessible. Think about the difference between singing about romantic heartbreak and insisting that another person does not own you.

47:16 Loretta Lynn's The Pill, which was released in 1975, addresses reproductive control from the perspective of a married woman who's exhausted by repeated pregnancies and domestic demands. This is especially interesting in genre because country music is usually associated with traditional family values. But Lynn uses humor and this everyday kind of voice to make a serious argument about a wife's ability to control her body and the conditions of her marriage. So compare this with our history of contraception. The legal availability of birth control was not merely a medical issue. It could truly transform the balance of power within a household.

48:04 Now finally I want to look at Nina Simone's Four Women. This was released in 1966 and it presents four black female figures whose lives and identities are shaped by different histories of race, color, sexuality, and exploitation. So rather than presenting one universal experience of black womanhood, Simone is giving us contrasting figures. As you listen to this song, pay attention to how the characterizations reveal stereotypes that were imposed on black women while also suggesting the anger and pain beneath those stereotypes. I think this is a particularly useful final example because it returns us to intersectionality. Race and gender do not operate as

48:51 separate stories in this song. The characters experiences are shaped by both along with the histories of slavery and colorism. Now, to sum things up, second wave feminism challenged legal discrimination, and it also challenged the everyday expectations that restricted women's choices. Um its victories were very significant, but the movement also contained disagreements about things like race, class, sexuality, and economic freedom. So, as you consider the readings for this week, keep returning to one central question. Who is included when a movement says that it speaks for women, and who is being left out?

49:39 All right, that's it for lecture today. Um don't forget to take the quiz by the end of the week, and I will see you all next time.