What were the key historical events of feminism in 1964? The so-called second wave of feminism spread across the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. What was happening at the beginning of that wave? Were there signs of the imminent women's liberation movement?
Here are a few important events that related to women's history and feminism in 1964:
- President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- A prohibition on sex discrimination was added to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, along with race, color, religion and national origin.
- The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to enforce the Civil Rights Act. It began operations the next year.
- Betty Friedan's bestselling book and feminist classic The Feminine Mystique came out in paperback.
- Activist and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer helped to organize the Freedom Summer in Mississippi.
- Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate, became the first woman to run for a major political party's presidential nomination.
- Phyllis Schlafly, who later became a leader of the anti-feminist backlash, wrote her book A Choice Not an Echo and served as a Barry Goldwater delegate at the Republican nominating convention.
- Rachel Carson, author of The Silent Spring, died. Her work was a major influence on the environmentalism movement that grew during the 1960s and 1970s.