Women’s Fight for Equality

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Women’s Fight for Equality
In 1848 women started the fight for equal rights with the Suffrage movement. In 1920 women were celebrating the passage of the 19th amendment that declared “…women and men deserved all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship” (History.com, 2009). The fight for equal rights did not end with the passage of the 19th amendment; women were still viewed as second class citizens and were not treated equally. Significant steps in journey to give all women the same rights as men came in the 1960’s. The world was changing and the number of women in the workplace was growing. Women were being paid less than their male counterparts and were subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace (Walsh, 2010). Things needed to change and this paper will review four major events in the fight for women’s rights that affect the world we live in today.
Esther Peterson a labor activist convinced President Kennedy to create a Presidential commission on the Status of Women whose purpose was to create recommendations for achieving equality for women. In February of 1963, Ester brought a draft of the Equal Pay Act before Congress on behalf of the President and on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. The Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay women working in the same location less than their male counterparts (National Park Service, 2014). This was the first step by the federal government to recognize the differences in wages between the genders and helped pave the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The following year congress was brought a new act that would make discrimination based upon race, religion and national origin illegal. A Virginia Democratic Senator by the name of Howa...

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National Archives and Records Administration. (2014). Reagan's Nomination of O'Connor. Retrieved from National Archives and Records Administration: http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/oconnor.html

National Archives and Records Administration. (2014, May 25). Teaching With Documents:Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Retrieved 2014, from National Archives and Records Administration: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act/

National Park Service. (2014, May 7). Equal Pay Act of 1963. Retrieved from National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/equal-pay-act-1963.htm

Walsh, K. T. (2010, March 12). The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women. Retrieved May 25, 2014, from U.S. news: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/03/12/the-1960s-a-decade-of-change-for-women

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