Using the documents and your knowledge, compare the movements for equal rights in
France and the US from the 1950’s through the 1980’s
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case involving Mississippi’s law prohibiting
abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy poses a serious threat to abortion rights and weaken
Roe vs Wade, the Landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an
abortion. Moreover, this poses a serious threat to women’s rights in the United States who
have known a serious liberalization throughout the second half of the 20th century.
Moreover, the issue of equal rights does not only concern women but also African
Americans, Hispanic, Native American as well as the LGBTQ+ community. These minorities
have known different forms of liberalization and evolution in their civil rights in both the
United States and France. Civil Rights are guarantees of equal social opportunities (equality
under law, education, employment, or vote) and equal protection under the law, regardless
of race or religion. To analyse, compare the movements for equal rights in France and the
US from the 1950’s through to the 1980’s, we will use two other documents. The First
Document is a photograph of Berea College marchers in Montgomery, Alabama during the
Selma March of March 1965 where the SNCC and the SCLC organized a march to publicize
the need for a Voting Rights Act which would allow more political power to the African
American community. The picture targets the American people who need to be made aware
of the importance of this type of Act. The Second Document is an extract of Simone Veil’s
Speech in front of the French Parliament on Abortion Law of 1974. Simone Veil was the first
women minister and served as Minister of Health during Valerie Giscard d’Estaing’s
presidency, she is a key figure in the emancipation of women in France and inspired
different political activists around the world.
The struggle for a more equal society led to comparable movements in the US and in
France, both dealing with women and LGBTQ liberation movements and a renewed fight
against racism, however France’s society was more deeply impacted by these movements of
liberalization and leaned towards liberalism and socialism whereas the US would embrace
conservatism in the 1980’s.
The French and American feminist movements’ main goal was the greater control
over their sexual life and took different steps to ensure a liberation of their body and a
rejection of traditional ideas and views. These feminists’ movements fuelled each other and
were like the LGBTQ+ liberation movements in that they rejected traditional ideas and were
both done in different steps to ensure a more equal society regardless of the sexual
orientation.
, Churchill Thomas
Despite their key role in the home front during the Second World War, women were sent
back home with only a small advancement in their political power. France had granted
voting rights to women in 1945 whereas the US had granted it in 1919. The women’s
movements that followed WW2 were in the “second wave” of feminism and represented a
cut in the normal picture of American popular culture. Women began identifying themselves
to the minority group even though they represented 50% of the population, this was to
show their treatment as second-class citizens. The birthplace of this second wave of
feminism was in France with the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex in 1949.
The wife of Jean-Paul Sartre, she shows the constraints of the patriarchy upon women with
the famous quote “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Another book which
deeply fuelled the feminist movements was Betty Friedan’s The Feminine mystique (1963)
where she interviewed affluent housewives to shed light on their unhappiness and their
frustration. Friedan and de Beauvoir both inspired their respective women’s movements
and these two authors both took active roles in the liberation of women. With the
emergence of the New Left and counterculture, the National Organization for Women was
created in 1966 with Friedan being one of the key founders. It sponsored the Women’s
Strike for Equality which took place the 26th of August 1970 in New York gathering over
50,000 women. It campaigned for free abortion on demand, equal opportunity in the
workforce and free childcare. This movement inspired the creation of the Mouvement de
Libération des Femmes (MLF) which first saw light with the demonstration at the Arc de
Triomphe where nine women laid wreath with the inscription “There is one person more
unknow than the unknow soldier, his wife”. The MLF was a bit more radical than NOW as it
was part Marxist revolutionary something that was fought harshly in the US during the
entire Cold War, but which had emerged especially after the May 68 movements. Even
though, they did not have the same political orientation they both fought for greater control
over their sexual and reproductive rights. This process was taken in different steps.
JFK had set a Commission on the Status of Women in 1961 and Equal Pay in 1963 and his
successor LBJ had also ensure protection against discrimination in the Civil Rights Acts of
1964. France also changed its written legislature with the revision of the Civil code in 1965
where women were financially independent from their husband. Their status also changed
in 1970 with the eradication of the notion “head of the family”. There was also a change in
the higher education sector with Yale and Princeton opening its doors to women in 1969
and the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibiting based-sex discrimination.
Professional equality was guaranteed in both the US and France and this allowed for a
deeper liberation of women’s bodies. In France, the Manifeste des 343 (1971) where famous
figures publicly admitted that they had had illegal abortions resulted in the decriminalization
of abortion in 1972 and the adoption of the Veil law of 1975. In her speech to Parliament of
1974, Simone Veil urges “a profound change to the legislation on abortion” in order soothe
“a situation of chaos and anarchy that cannot go on”. Veil highlights the importance of free
choice regarding abortion for women as it offers them sexual freedom. This speech gives
insight on the importance of Simone Veil in the legalization of abortion and the type of
rhetoric (provoking questions) used to urge this legalization as well as the growing role of
women in politics. She had been appointed Health Minister becoming the second woman to
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