Sex and Second Wave Feminism

How second wave feminism changed sex

(school paper)

Second Wave Feminism started around the 1960s and ran until the 1980s. The women at that time fought for many things. They fought for equal pay and to be able to move up in the work force. They also fought for the right to be able to have an orgasm. They did not hold signs and scream for orgasms but they did cause a sexual revolution that changed the world.

There is much debate about how the wave of feminism came to be referred to as a “wave”. It is known that it really stuck after being published in The New York Times by Martha Weinman Lear in 1968 in her article entitled “The Second Feminist Wave” (Hewitt 660). However, it was a popular metaphor well before it is believed that she secured it’s place in history with her article. Some believe it goes back to the year 1884. An Irish Activist explained social movements as a tide and that the women’s movement was a wave in the tide (Hewitt 660). No matter where it came from and for better or worse, it is now referred to as the waves of feminism.

The first wave of feminism brought about major changes, most notably the addition of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The second wave of feminism was an extension of the first. At the time of the 19th Amendment, passing feminism had to slow down due to two things. The first thing was the Great Depression. The second thing that slowed down feminism was the start of the Second World War. During this time, the world’s priorities was not placed on feminism but rather survival. At the end of WWII, society tried to revert to what was considered normal with the 1950’s gender stereotypes, such as the man working outside of the home and women taking care of the home and raising children. However, women were uneasy with this. During the Second World War, they had the mindset of Rosie the Riveter and the “We Can Do It” slogan to move them forward. To get them working in what at the time was prodomently men’s fields and men’s work, After that experience, they wanted to be able to do more than go back to the traditional gender stereotypes. (Encylopedia.com)

One book in particular takes credit for starting the second wave of feminism. That book is “The Feminine Mystique” written by Betty Frieden. According to her book, society said that women should be “truly fulfilled,…by being a full time homemaker who completely devoted herself to her husband and children.” Frieden however felt that “something important seemed to be missing from her life” and she found that most women related to that feeling (Salem Press). Friedan concludes in her book with what she believed the problem was. Friedan theorized that when a woman immerses herself “in the domestic work, [she] lose [her] self-Identity. They stop growing emotionally and intellectually” (Salam Press). She closes her book by calling on women to action to start developing themselves. She said that women need to get a career, work in politics and develop talents for themselves. This is a general synopsis of the book using the Salem Press Encyclopedia. However, this is what most Encyclopedias explain the book “The Feminine Mystique” to be in their own words. It is only in taking a deeper look in a full book review do we find more. Friedan also says in her book that women have “little control over their sexual and reproductive lives” (Weinter). The book also questions gender stereotypes such as women only taking care of the home.

It is important to note that different feminists had very different experiences. While middle class white women had time to question and focus their oppression as coming from gender and sexuality other women did not. Black feminists added that racism compounded and complicated the issues of feminism even further. It was not until the 1980s that minority women were able to get their voices heard on a major scale (Grehard 17). This changed feminism from that time forward. This paper is not speaking to that experience. This is important to understand because the women’s movement split in several directions but for this paper the research is only going to be on two directions.

One of the directions that movement went in led to the more political stage. One of those things bring awareness of equal pay for equal work. During the 1960s the work force was made of 40% women however, they made drastically less than their male counter parts. Women were able to get the Equal Pay Act passed in 1963. The bill for equal pay faced very little troubles with passing. However, no noticeable changes were made for the women of the 60s (Pass). Another issue the movement addressed was the “glass ceiling” that women were finding in their careers. The term glass ceiling started during the second wave feminism movement. It was used to describe an invisible barrier that stopped women from being able to advance in their careers due to their gender. While this was an issue brought up by second wave feminism sadly it was not until the third wave of feminism that change actually started to happen on this topic with the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (LeMaster).

The other direction it led women to was corporeal empowerment. It seems that “The Feminine Mystique” did not argue for just sexual change with a quote from the book:

American women are suffering, quite simply, a massive sickness of sex without self. No one has warned them that sex can never be a substitute for personal identity; that sex itself cannot give identity to a woman, any more than to a man; that there may be no sexual fulfillment at all for woman who seeks her self in sex. (Betty Friedan)

Women were not being encouraged to find themselves in sex but they were definitely being encouraged to find power in their bodies and in sex. Breanne Fah did an excellent job of explaining this in her paper “The Body in Revolt: The Impact and Legacy of Second Wave Corporeal Embodiment”. She explains that the women of the second wave of feminism used their bodies as a form of personal empowerment. Her paper explains that women used their “bodies as political entities” and can be used as a shared language for rebellion in five ways (388). Four of the five ways have to do with sex or gender, with the fifth being self-defense classes.

The first thing Fahs talks about is cervical viewings. At the time, women knew very little about their bodies. This lack of knowledge started with not even knowing basic anatomy. Feminists believed that if women were more informed and comfortable with their bodies that they would be more empowered to talk about their sexual health and their bodily rights. This led to cervical viewings where women would gather and use mirrors to look at their own vulva, vaginas, and cervixes. This gave way to the organization Our Bodies, Ourselves which was another feminist organization. Unfortunately by the 1980s and 90s this practice fell to the way side, which led to women being extremely uncomfortable with this practice and it is done now only regularly for medical reasons. (Fahs 389)

Next Fahs lists menstrual extraction a practice started in the 70s. After women learned about their vulvas, vaginas, and cervixes, they were encouraged to take control of their reproductive health. The FDA had just approved birth control pills in the 1960s and this finally gave women the ability to control reproduction (New World Encyclopedia). Menstrual extraction was a way to help give women control over reproduction and their cycles. Menstrual extraction was a process for women to manually extract the lining on the uterus so that they would not have menstrual cycles for up to 8 weeks (Fahs 389). It would and could work for an early abortion as well. This was taking place leading up the pivotal Roe. Vs Wade case in 1973 (Lewis). Women’s rights and abortion to this day are still very controversial this right and birth control has made menstrual extraction fall to the way side for at home use.

The next way women came together after learning about their anatomy was to learn about genital diversity. In 1973, Betty Dodson presented slides of hand drawn vulvas at the national chapter of the National Organization for Women (Fahs 390). According to Fahs paper, this was met with a questionable response with some women walking out and others cheering her brave move (390). Dodson’s goal in this was to help women not feel shame about their bodies, particularly those who may have been taught that their body was dirty. “Her work had given voice and imagery to the collective silences around women’s sexuality in the early 1970s” (Fahs 300).

Building on all of this awareness the next step for women was to start enjoying sex and even orgasm. Orgasms was Fahs forth point. Anne Koedt published “The Myth of Vaginal Orgasm” in Notes from the First Year in 1968. It was published again in an expanded form in Notes from the Second Year in 1970. Until this time, women’s orgasm from intercourse was considered the only normal way for a woman to experience an orgasm and it was also considered a sign of good health (Gerhard 449). In Koedt’s second publishing, which is available online now, is a scathing review of orgasm for women relating why most women are left “frigid” without orgasm. She states that the separation of vaginal and clitoral orgasm is wrong. She goes into to detail that the vagina is not that sensitive and that it is only due to clitoral stimulation that causes women’s orgasm. Clitoral stimulation does not happen often during vaginal sex making women “frigid” and without orgasm. Failing to orgasm was something that until this point experts claimed to be a psychological problem of women.

Some of the work that second wave feminism started was not completed during that time. Women today are still fighting for equal pay although the pay gap between men and women is not as much as it was during the 60s. Hillary Clinton talked about smashing the glass ceiling during her presidential campaign in 2015. The changes that they made with corporal empowerment are still felt today. The means that made them popular like cervical viewings may have fallen by the wayside but more women today know what their anatomy looks like. Thankfully, menstrual extraction is not a home use tool any more. However, women have more control over their cycles through the use of birth control which has been expanded greatly since the 60s. They also have more control over their bodies and reproduction. With all of this knowledge and empowerment by women and for women, women are more able to enjoy sex and orgasm. This shows that what started out as a women’s movement did also cause a sexual revolution.

“The Women’s Liberation Movement caught men off guard. They thought women had already been liberated by the Sexual Revolution.” –Anselma Dell’Olio, Ms., 1972 (Cohler 15)

Works Cited

Barger, Susan Green. “The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89311933&site=eds-live.

Biklen, Sari, et al. “Experiencing Second-Wave Feminism in the USA.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 29, no. 4, Dec. 2008, pp. 451–469. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01596300802410185.

“Birth Control.” Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, Jan. 2018, p. 1; EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=funk&AN=bi101600&site=eds-live.

Cohler, Deborah. “Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920 to 1982.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 12, no. 1, Jan. 2003, p. 140. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.107835469&site=eds-live.

Fahs, Breanne. “The Body in Revolt: The Impact and Legacy of Second Wave Corporeal Embodiment.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 71, no. 2, June 2015, pp. 386–401. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josi.12117

“Feminism and The Sexual Revolution.” Encyclopedia.com, March 15,2020. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/feminism-and-sexual-revolution. Accessed April 19, 2020

Gerhard, Jane. Desiring Revolution Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of America Thought 1920 to 1982. Columbia University Press, 2001.

Hewitt, Nancy A. Feminist Frequencies: Regenerating the Wave Metaphor. Feminist Studies; Fall2012, Vol. 38 Issue 3, p658-680, 23p. Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson). http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=3d5e5802-8323-4ec2-a814-ee4d5529e47d%40sdc-vsessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=ssf&AN=84686316

Koedt, Anne. “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.” The CWLU Hersrtory Website Archive, 1970. https://web.archive.org/web/20130106211856/http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html. Accessed April 19, 2020.

LeMaster, Sharon M. “Glass Ceiling.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89103005&site=eds-live.

Paas, David E. “Equal Pay Act of 1963.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89311772&site=eds-live.

Weiner, Lynn Y. “A Strange Stirring: ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 23, no. 2, May 2014, p. 301. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.368850793&site=eds-live.