Talk:Social feminism

Social feminism in the later years (1920-1960s)

I am a student in Feminist Economics and Public Policy planning to make revisions to this article as part of a class project. This article focuses on the activities of social feminists in the late 1800s and early 1900s, particularly the women’s suffrage movement. It draws some distinctions from “equity feminism,” or equal rights feminism, but due to its historical focus on the early twentieth century, it glosses over the activities of social feminists in later years, mainly their opposition to the ERA. I propose adding content to this page about the activities of labor feminists, who advocated for social rights in the decades prior to the rise of equal rights feminism, and the debate between labor feminists and equal rights feminists over the ERA. The revisions will primarily affect two areas of the article.

First, I will add an overview of labor feminism to the social feminism introduction section. This section currently equates social feminism with the women’s suffrage movement, but labor feminists continued to advocate for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women after women won the right to vote. Second, I will add under “America” a new sub-section on the activities of labor feminists from 1920 through the 1960s, with a specific focus on the ERA. Labor feminists opposed the ERA because they did not want to end all distinctions based on sex. I will address in more detail 1) the labor feminist position, 2) the legal debate whether there could be a model of equal rights and special protections, and 3) the decline of labor feminism due to divisions within labor and the broader historical environment.