“People Now Do Not Realize What It Was Like Then”: Tumblr User Lists What Things Weren't Legal For Women In The 1960s

We have come a long way since the dark times of pre-first-wave feminism when society was wondering “Hmmm, are women maybe human beings?” From 1848 to 1920, 70 whole years, women fought for the right to vote, but it was still a long way to go until women were taken as equals in the broadest, human sense.

Hence, second-wave feminism marked a fight for a wide range of issues, from the workplace, de facto inequalities, family and sexuality, reproductive rights, and many more. In 1949, when the French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir released her book “The Second Sex,” it further fueled the feminist consciousness and paved the way to the more equal society we live in today.

But since there’s still a lot of room for improving the future of women’s and traditionally marginalized groups’ rights, it’s worth reflecting on the past. Especially when the term is often misused or viewed with distrust and criticism these past decades.

So this time, we will be looking into an illuminating thread by one Tumblr user who listed the things that women of the 1960s legally couldn’t do. It does feel a little shocking, to say the least, and shows just how thankful we have to be to feminism and its brave fighters who turned this world around.

The second wave of feminism began with Betty Friedan publishing her The Feminine Mystique book in 1963. The book examined why middle-class women yearned to be more than housewives and mothers, and sparked a quintessential dialogue about gender roles in the United States.

As a result, groups of feminists started mass protests in the streets and at rallies, hearings, marches, sit-ins, legislative sessions, and even the Miss America Pageant. The early '60s initiatives sprung up rapidly and two main feminist groups formed on the East Coast. They were called New York Radical Women and Redstockings, and The National Organization for Women which is still very active today was formed as a direct offshoot of these initiatives.

In 1960, almost 40 percent of American women were in the workforce. They made on average 60 percent less than men, had near to zero opportunity to advance, and were hardly represented in their professions. Most women worked in "pink collar" jobs as teachers, secretaries, and nurses. Up until the 1960s, newspapers even had separate job listings for men and women, and the same job listing indicated a smaller wage for a woman worker.

But three years later, in 1963, congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which required employers to pay men and women the same wage for equivalent work. A year later, another dramatic change happened with the congress passing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Essentially, it banned discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, or gender and paved way to file a lawsuit against discrimination in the workplace.

As a result, more and more jobs became available to women. By 1970, more than 43 percent of women were in the workforce, and it was just the beginning.In 1969, elite all-male colleges like Princeton and Yale began admitting women students.

In the midst of the feminist upheaval of the '60s, many new rulings came to existence. For example, in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that earlier law against birth control violated the right to marital privacy. Many women of the time felt like they were free to take charge of their own bodies, as the federal government approved contraceptives, the pill in particular, in 1960.