American Decades
Feminism Flounders
Backlash.
In the early 1980s the initial agenda of the women's movement was carried over from the 1970s, but there was renewed opposition to that agenda, not only from traditionalist men but from antifeminist women, an opposition more influential as the decade progressed. The two triumphs of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s were the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, protecting a woman's right to choose abortion, and the congressional approval of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1972. Both these victories came under heated attack in the resurgent political and social conservatism of the Reagan era. A decisive sign of the power of the backlash against the women's movement was the defeat of the ERA in 1982.
"THE GREAT AMERICAN MAN SHORTAGE"
In June 1986, in the midst of public discussions of "family values," at a time when young women were urged to...
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1980's Lifestyles and Social Trends
The 1980's
