second-wave feminism — Bunk History

A large crowd of women marching in New York City for the Women's Strike for Equality in 1970.

When the Personal Was Political

Second-wave feminists meant business—but they had a lot of fun at it, too.

by Jill Filipovic via Democracy Journal on December 17, 2024

A crowd of Feminist protestors marching in New York.

A New Look at the Feminist Earthquake

How women's liberation transformed America and why our understanding of 1963-1973 needs to include more voices.

by Sara Bhatia via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024

Betty Friedan

The Abandonment of Betty Friedan

What does the academy have against the mother of second-wave feminism?

by Rachel Shteir via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 11, 2023

Ruth Ehrlich and Aileen Hernandez sitting next to each other at a National Organization for Women event.

Labor Union Radicals Built the US Feminist Movement

Labor radicals played a crucial role in organizing the struggles to topple gender hierarchies, and should serve as an inspiration for labor feminists today.

by Katherine Turk via Jacobin on August 9, 2023

A women's liberation group marches in Boston on April 17, 1971.

The Reproductive Rights Movement Has Radical Roots

Abortion rights in the US were won in the 1970s thanks to militant feminist groups. As those rights are repealed, the fight must return to the streets.

by Nancy Rosenstock, Anne Rumberger via Jacobin on May 11, 2023

Poster featuring a red fist and text "Women Unite"

What Was Women’s Liberation?

The short-lived radical movement within feminism has gotten a bad reputation for centering white women's experiences. Is that deserved?

by Livia Gershon, Sara Evans via JSTOR Daily on September 11, 2020

Women's march in front of the U.S. Capitol.

How Second-Wave Feminism Inexplicably Became a Villain in the #MeToo Debate

Talking sexism, ageism, and progress with Katha Pollitt.

by Katha Pollitt, Isaac Chotiner via Slate on January 24, 2018

50 Years Ago, Protesters Took on Miss America and Electrified the Feminist Movement

Miss America pageant has a long history of controversy—including the 1968 protests.

by Roxane Gay via Smithsonian on January 1, 2018

Marlo Thomas holding hands with children.

'Free To Be You and Me' 40th Anniversary: How Did a Kids Album By a Bunch of Feminists Change Everything?

Forty years ago this fall, a bunch of feminists released an album. They wanted to change … everything.

by Dan Kois via Slate on October 22, 2012

A Wages for Housework protest on Boston Common, June 1977.

The Fight for Wages for Housework

In the Seventies, one feminist movement campaigned to make domestic labour both visible and recompensed.

by Alice Vincent via New Statesman on March 5, 2025

Photo of men holding sign that says "end token equality draft women."

The Debate About Men Being Left Behind Is Decades Old

It's crucial to understand the real history behind claims that men are being marginalized.

by Theresa Iker via Made By History on December 12, 2024

Group of doctors in lab coats holding pro-choice signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

Abortion Is More Than Health Care

Across the history of the U.S. abortion-rights movement, it has also been a matter of equality.

by Christen Hammock Jones via Made By History on December 9, 2024

Judith Jones

The Woman Who Made America Take Cookbooks Seriously

Judith Jones edited culinary greats such as Julia Child and Edna Lewis—and identified the pleasure at the core of traditional “women’s work.”

by Lily Meyer via The Atlantic on May 28, 2024

Women at National Organization for Women demonstration

Betty Friedan and the Movement That Outgrew Her

Friedan was indispensable to second-wave feminism. And yet she was difficult to like.

by Moira Donegan via The New Yorker on September 11, 2023

American blues singer and guitarist Leadbelly performs for a room full of people, 1940.

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.

by Lynne Feeley via The Nation on July 31, 2023

A women's suffrage demonstration with banners on the steps of the US Capitol in 1917.

Feminism in the Dock

Can (and should) conservatives reclaim feminism from the radicals?

by Brenda M. Hafera via Law & Liberty on June 26, 2023

Illustration of a 1950s woman surrounded by orange flames, pink background

Reading Betty Friedan After the Fall of Roe

The problem no longer has no name, and yet we refuse to solve it.

by Tis Lyz via Men Yell At Me on September 21, 2022

Combahee River Collective holding sign that reads 3rd World Women: We Cannot Live Without Our Lives

Annotations: The Combahee River Collective Statement

The Black feminist collective's 1977 statement has been a bedrock document for academics, organizers and theorists for 45 years.

by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on March 24, 2022

Third World Women's Alliance member demonstrating in crowd

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on February 22, 2022

Book cover of Feminine Mystique

The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique'

The acclaimed reformer stoked the white, middle-class feminist movement and brought critical understanding to a “problem that had no name”

by Jacob Muñoz via Smithsonian on February 4, 2021

A group of people striking with 9to5.

The Labor Feminism of 9to5 Should Guide Our Organizing Today

The vision of feminist labor organizing that guided the women’s white-collar organizing project 9to5 should still be our north star.

by Marianela D’Aprile via Jacobin on February 1, 2021

A collage featuring early feminists.

Pointing a Way Forward

The history of suffrage in the South—indeed, the nation—is messy and fraught, and more contentious than is typically remembered.

by Jessica Wilkerson via Southern Cultures on October 1, 2020

Vibrators Had a Long History as Medical Quackery

Before feminists rebranded them as sex toys, vibrators were just another medical device.

by Kim Adams via The Conversation on June 8, 2020

Andrew Yang and the Failson Mystique

America has already witnessed the largest UBI experiment known to history — the postwar middle-class housewife. And she was utterly miserable.

by Amber A'Lee Frost via Jacobin on September 19, 2019

Black and white image of Alice Paul, broadcasting from her desk at the Capitol, 1923.

Why the Fight Over the Equal Rights Amendment Has Lasted Nearly a Century

Passage of the ERA seemed like a sure thing. So why did it fail to become law?

by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on November 26, 2018

'We Dissent' and the Making of Feminist Memory

Understanding the politics behind Cooper Union's 'We Dissent' exhibition.

by Haley Mlotek via Jezebel on November 26, 2018

How ‘No More Miss America’ Announced a Feminist Upheaval

A bold protest 50 years ago put a renewed women’s liberation movement on the public map—and offers lessons for today’s resistance.

by Laura Tanenbaum, Mark Engler via The Nation on September 7, 2018

Sex, Pong, And Pioneers

What Atari was really like, according to the women that were there.

by Cecilia D'Anastasio via Kotaku on February 12, 2018

Roe v. Wade Lawyer 'Amazed' Americans Still Fighting Over Abortion

On the 45th anniversary of the famous decision, Sarah Weddington reflects on what has – and hasn't – changed.

by Sarah Weddington, Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on January 20, 2018

Peggy Noonan’s Willful Blindness

Her latest column suggests that harassment is a product of the sexual revolution. She can’t possibly believe that.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on December 1, 2017

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