Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin- who is to Feminism what Amartya Sen is to Development- asks
How, when, and why did women in the US obtain legal rights equal to men’s regarding the workplace, marriage, family, Social Security, criminal justice, credit markets, and other parts of the economy and society, decades after they gained the right to vote?
Since the same thing happened in the UK and other English speaking nations at about the same time, the answer can't be America specific. The two world wars had a 'ratchet effect' in terms of increasing the female participation rate and Trade Unions and thus Political Parties had a self-interested reason to expand 'legal rights' more particularly because employers could always get around them if they really wanted to. Thus, the reforms were really only permissive in nature.
The story begins with the civil rights movement
which Australia, the UK, and Western Europe did not have
and the somewhat fortuitous nature of the early and key women’s rights legislation.
Which were similar to legislation in other similar countries and thus not 'fortuitous' at all.
The women’s movement formed and pressed for further rights. Of the 155 critical moments in women’s rights history I’ve compiled from 1905 to 2023, 45% occurred between 1963 and 1973.
The same is true of Australia and UK and France and many other similar countries though in particular cases you might chose a starting point a couple of years before or ahead.
The greatly increased employment of women, the formation of women’s rights associations, the belief that women’s votes mattered, and the unstinting efforts of various members of Congress were behind the advances. But women soon became splintered by marital status, employment, region, and religion far more than men.
Because American feminists went kray kray. In the UK, where feminists didn't go kray kray, a woman became the leader of the Tory Party and then a very successful Prime Minister who kicked ass. Her politics may have attracted or repelled voters. Her gender was no handicap even among females because Thatcher was feminine. American feminists tended to be butcher than thou or plain kray kray.
A substantial group of women emerged in the 1970s to oppose various rights for women, just as they did during the suffrage movement. They remain a potent force today.
Because American feminists are utterly shit.
The relationship between the civil rights and the women’s movements finally bore fruit for women in the 1960s.
Why did Australia- which was as racist as fuck back then- get equal pay only 6 years after America? Does Goldin think there was 'Civil Rights' for 'abos' back then? What about Iceland which got equal pay before America? It has a lot of black people- right?
Few ordinary Americans, including those in the corridors of power, had perceived that differences between men and women were due to discrimination even if they perceived that differences between Blacks and whites were.
They also didn't get that rich people have more money than poor people. Ordinary Americans were very stupid. Luckily Goldin studied Econ and became stupider.
That began to change as the civil rights movement advanced in the nation’s streets and in Congress, and as the women’s rights movement followed.
In Britain the Equal Pay act was supported by the powerful Trade Union Congress. America had a less cohesive labour movement but could have pushed through equal pay in 1945. The problem was that demobbed soldiers might not like it and anyway, there was going to be a baby boom one way or another. Pro-natalism gains salience during a war.
It is a convenient myth to mention Civil Rights and hint that White Men are such horrible creeps that they only did justice to their wives and daughters after they were forced to accept the niggah as their equal. This is the 'Title VII' story. But, it simply isn't true. The fact is employers and Unions knew how to evade laws relating to racial discrimination- save where it was in their interest to do so- whereas, they believed, women were smarter and could actually use the law effectively. Fortunately, American women tend to either go kray kray or else focus on scratching each other's eyes out as nature intended. Thus there was no danger of Lysistrata like revolution putting an end to the military-industry complex and three martini lunches and fucking over the shareholders while gradually losing market share to the Germans and the Japanese. That's the real story here. 'Second wave' feminists were smart and wanted to challenge 'monopsonistic' employers to put more cash in their own handbags. Sadly, academic, or pseudo-academic, feminists jumped on the bandwagon and everything turned to sit.
The fact is, if right wing women attack crazy feminist nutters, it is because everybody hates them almost as much as those crazy biddies hate each other. This is not to say that people don't like Lezzas or think there's anything wrong with lots of women sleeping in tents at Greenham Common to protest cruise missiles. We have a soft spot for dotty damsels and understood why Greenham Common kept going even after Tom Cruise took his missiles away. But then English feminists are, after all, thoroughly English and will make you a nice cuppa rather than demand you immediately castrate yourself.
Goldin takes a different view.
Assume that preferences exist for either equality (E) between men and women or for a variety of differences (D) between the sexes.
Don't. The thing is stupid. We prefer outcomes favourable to ourselves. We have no interest in abstract notions of equality unless that is what we are paid to pretend to care about.
Assume that at some age, say after schooling is completed, every woman in each birth cohort decides whether she stands for E or D.
Why not assume that everybody prefers what is best for themselves? A woman might want (D) some of the time and (E) on other occasions.
You can think of these as one might religions.
No you can't.
An individual is Catholic or Jewish, rarely both at the same time or ever.
But one can take a job teaching theology in a Catholic school while being Jewish. More importantly, we can pick and mix commandments from different religions. Still, Goldin does have a point. Males created the Abrahamic religions. Similarly, some dudes must have created Feminism and anti-Feminism and then lasses had to chose one or the other because dudes said they had to on pain of burning in Hell fire.
Every woman is endowed with a unit of time that she can devote to either group or use instead for leisure.
Sadly, some women have such horrible personalities that neither group wants them. Equally, both types of group- because they are exclusively female- are intolerable for most women. It is quite possible for you to go to an event organized by one group in the morning- on the basis that they offer good coffee and baked goods- while going to the other in the evening so as to score dope or get some hot Lezza action. In my defence, many people thought my wife and I were a lesbian couple back in the Eighties. This is because people assumed I was Gayatri Spivak- probably because that is how I introduced myself.
Each woman then decides whether to spend this unit of time on one of the movements, once an official organization supporting each has begun. “Differences” include various protections that women have been granted, some of which also limited their ability to work.
and thus limited other people's ability to force them to work.
Some of these protections are still defended. But any protection that differentiates women from men is a deviation from equality, just as any differentiation between whites and Blacks is a deviation from racial equality.
Nonsense! It is perfectly okay to stipulate that you will only marry a person of a particular gender or ethnicity. Employers are not obliged to employ men as lap-dancers nor are Ethiopian restaurants forced to hire Caucasian or Chinese waiters.
The issue of differences was raised at various moments in the history of the movement, such as when NOW supported the ERA against the demands by union leaders to maintain certain workplace protections for women. But workplace protections were soon deemed contrary to Title VII
which NOW insisted on
and many of the working-class feminists became less conflicted.
They were happy to have their wombs removed so as to keep their jobs.
Those who value equality (E) with men will be termed “feminists,” and those who favor differences (D) will be called “anti-feminists” or “traditionalists.”
This is foolish. What people value is what makes their lives better. That is an ideographic matter based on uncorrelated asymmetries. It is foolish to think that ideology matters or that people have preferences of a crazy type.
The latter moniker may seem a bit harsh because, as just noted, many liberally-minded women in the 1960s valued protections even though they also prized the ideals of the women’s movement.
Because it hadn't yet gone totes Shulamith Firestone kray kray.
They would never have been considered anti-feminist or traditionalist and almost all relinquished the demand to retain protections.
Because 'protections' were easy to evade in any case.
Assume that the two groups initially have latent demands that get expressed when a viable organization for their views is formed. Birth cohorts may contain different proportions of the two groups, Feminists in each cohort will not actively work to reduce equality, and traditionalists will not actively work to reduce differences even if the value of E or D is greater than the target value each woman would work towards. The model that follows is highly simplified,
it is nonsense. I have omitted it. The fact is, plenty of academic feminists- like Germain Greer- started off in the Seventies all 'girl! you got drink your own menstrual blood!' before going in the other direction in the Eighties. Today's Lezza militant is tomorrow's Clintonista is day-after-tomorrow's trans-phobe.
The anti-ERA group in the 1970s made a host of wild claims
because 'third wave' nutters were demanding that everybody become a lesbian prostitute preferably after castrating their husbands and sons
about how equality would bring about single-sex bathrooms, compel women to take combat positions, end alimony and support for dependent children, and force women into employment.
all of which would happen any way. Meanwhile why not see if well coiffed women could take over the Republican party the way Thatcher would take over the Tory party? Nixon had shat the bed. Ford was a moron. Reagan's moment had passed- or so it seemed.
Most of the anti-feminists wanted to maintain a more traditional family. They probably would have supported fairness in hiring, pay, and treatment in the labor force, but those issues were not paramount to them. The women’s movement seemed too extreme and appeared to denigrate their lives.
Basically, if you weren't a drug addicted prostitute who had castrated all her previous babby-daddies, then you were nothing but a robotic Stepford wife. How do you expect to overthrow Capitalism if you drive your kids to soccer practice?
The other big issue was abortion. Clearly Mummy's duty is to drive her teenage daughter to an abortion clinic every few months while being harangued on how its totes uncool that she isn't a lesbian and anyway I'm sure my real Mommy is Angela Davis.
Still the defeat of the ERA came down to the actions of Phyllis Schlafly- an ex-John Bircher whose bitter attacks on Rockerfeller Republicans hadn't helped her get a seat in Congress. She saw her opportunity to make her mark on history by showing the feminist nutters they were shit at politics. I suppose the older feminists could have countered by doing something for older, divorced, women but, it is said, the younger activists wanted to focus on 'minorities'.
Feminism like Wokeism or anti-Feminism or anti-Wokeism is about gaining power or, at the least, boring the tits off anybody you meet. Passing laws seldom makes much difference.
Goldin concludes-
Did this flood of women’s rights legislation make a difference with regard to their earnings? There isn’t much statistical confirmation that it did. Bailey, et al. (2023) find some evidence that the Equal Pay Act and Title VII raised female earnings at the bottom of the distribution but not that they moved the rest. Similar legislation, however, did far more for Blacks than for women. The reason is probably that
Blacks were good workers
it changed the sectors and the jobs in which Blacks were hired, especially in the south. But even if the laws didn’t change women’s earnings, it made their lives better and expanded their options.
because not earning more money makes your life better provided you take up the option of being as stupid as shit.
Workplaces became safer for them. They were no longer barred or excused from juries because of their presumed household responsibilities.
Women, unlike men, love jury duty- right? They also enjoy going to jail. Many are now clamouring for an opportunity to be taken hostage by Hamas because, even if this does not increase their earnings, still they have expanded their options regarding what sort of hideous torture they might undergo before being decapitated.
They could not be fired when pregnant and could not be refused a job because they had children.
Which is why the pay-gap persists.
They received better education and more resources even as girls.
But trans athletes will take all the benefits from their Title IX sports programs.
The story I have told began with the civil rights movement and the somewhat fortuitous nature of the early and key women’s rights legislation.
It couldn't have been fortuitous if it was happening in other similar countries which had no Civil Rights movement.
A straight line has taken us from the fact that the women’s vote became more important than ever before
when they got it and voted for Prohibition
in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election
a very narrow victory
to the formation of the Commission on the Status of Women and, in turn, to the greater ability of women to organize for their own rights.
People like Phyllis Schlafly were scaring the pants of Nelson Rockerfeller. Ayn Rand was growing in influence. Why did America not produce a Thatcher? I suppose, the truth is, American women simply had too much testosterone. After all, it was only relatively recently that they had stopped wrestling grizzlies or punching steers in the jaw.
Additional formal organizations and mobilization produced an even larger movement that rapidly filtered down to the streets, individual homes, and even bedrooms.
Orgies? Is that what Goldin means? American women really are different from those of the Old World.
But it also produced a powerful anti-women’s rights movement
no. Schlafly made a bid for power but was way too butch. Thatcher and Merkel showed how the thing should be done.
that rapidly joined with the anti-abortion and anti-gay/woke lobbies to remain a potent force in America to this day
Schlafly backed Trump. She had great instincts but her habit of biting the heads of bats and drinking their blood somewhat damped her feminine charm and mystique. I'm kidding. Not about the bats. American women have no mystique. That's cool because they can cold-cock a grizzly.
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