In the early 1950s women made up about one third of the western European workforce. Unlike in the communist east, most of the jobs women did were low skilled and low paid. The countries that hadn’t already given women the right to vote, did so - France (1944), Belgium (1948) Italy (1946) and Greece (1942) – but women’s participation in politics remained low and much lower than in the East. When French President Charles de Gaulle when asked about the possibility of creating a Minister for Women’s affairs, replied ‘A Ministry? Why not an Under-Secretaryship for Knitting?’ Some countries even went backwards. Spain had extended the franchise to women in 1931 but Franco’s regime (1939-75) subjected women to the authority of the father or husband and effectively took away their political rights.
 

Throughout western Europe in the 1950s, the traditional women’s role was domestic. Legal barriers existed everywhere. They were denied the right of equal pay for doing the same work as men and in law the man was considered the ‘head of the household’. In France for example, before 1964 Women had to have her husband’s permission to get a passport or open a bank account. And all the while, the domestic ideal was reinforced in popular glossy magazines that encouraged a feminine ideal of beautiful wives and caring mothers. Women in the communist countries of central and eastern Europe enjoyed greater equality with men, but they lacked the freedom that living in a democracy brings.

Activity 1

Read the text above and watch the films. Explain with examples how women faced discrimination and did not enjoy the same civil rights as men.
 

It was now time to launch a new campaign because:

Since 1945 the gains made by the first wave of feminism had been eroded by the return to a male-dominated society after the war.

Changes in the laws alone did not end sexual discrimination against women.

Attitudes and behaviours would have to be transformed, as sexism was part of everyday life. Women themselves, often unconsciously, had come to accept society's stereotype of women as inferior to men.

The ideas of Friedan and Greer struck a chord with many women in Western Europe. The vast majority of these women were well educated and middle-class. In the immediate post-war years, 15-30 per cent of all students in most Western European countries were women. By 1980 their numbers had risen to 50 per cent or more. More women attended university in Eastern bloc countries than in the West. By 1960 the number of female university students in Bulgaria stood at almost 50 per cent of the entire student population.

In the immediate post-war years the majority of women in paid employment were single. From the 1960s onwards there was a dramatic increase in the number of married women working outside the home. The average woman worker was older, married and a mother. Paid employment was no longer considered something single women did to make up the time between finishing school and getting married. The availability of good child care facilities in Scandinavian countries gave married women employment opportunities, as did tax incentives that encouraged women to return to work after having children. A study of married women working outside the home in Britain in the early 1960s showed that most of them saw their work as an extension of family duties. They worked to supplement family income. From the mid-1960s on, many families came to increasingly rely on the extra income from wives to pay for a range of consumer goods and contribute to the more affluent lifestyle that most Europeans were now enjoying. However, in the world of paid employment women’s traditional roles were often reinforced. The majority of women were employed in the service sector (catering, cleaning, retail, tourism, etc.), caring occupations (teaching, nursing, social work, etc.) or office work (banking, civil services, etc.). In Germany 77 per cent of low-grade civil service jobs were done by women. In France in 1973, 96 per cent of typists, 88 per cent of receptionists and 78 per cent of cashiers were women. In Britain in the 1970s, 74 per cent of service workers and 67 per cent of office workers were women. Throughout Europe women increasingly dominated primary and secondary teaching.

Simone de Beauvoir argued that society, not biology, determined women's roles. Once pregnant, the vast majority of women had no choice but to give birth and raise their children. The birth control pill was invented in 1952. By the 1960s it was widely available in most Western European countries. From 1974 women in Britain were able to get contraceptives under the National Health Service. In Scandinavia family planning services were provided by the state. In France the laws on contraception were slower to change, partly because of traditional Catholic views, but also because of French paranoia about falling birth rates. In 1920 the French government had passed a law forbidding the sale of contraceptives and banning the distribution of birth control information. The law was not based on religious objections but on demographic (population) needs. France had suffered huge population losses and the government wanted to encourage couples to have more children. This law was reformed in 1967, and since the mid-1970s contraceptives have been available from the national health service in France. When contraception was legalised in most Western European countries, feminists and their supporters turned their attention to campaigning for the right to have legal abortions. In the 1960s in France it was estimated that there were between 700,000 and 800,000 illegal abortions performed annually. Often women faced huge health risks, even death, when having these "back-street" abortions.


In April 1971, French feminists published a manifesto demanding free and legal abortion. Three hundred and forty-three leading French women, including Simone de Beauvoir, announced that they had had illegal abortions. They challenged the authorities to prosecute them. In November that year women took to the streets singing "Travail, Famille, Patrie, y en a marre" (work, family, fatherland, we've had enough of them). A pro-abortion organisation, Choisir (Choice), was set up. As a result of its campaign the French parliament passed laws legalising abortion in 1974. In 1971 Stern magazine published an article declaring that 375 well-known West German women had had abortions. A petition with 86,500 names was presented to the Minister for Justice calling for the liberalisation of the existing abortion laws in West Germany (GFR). Abortion was legalised in Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.

Laws on abortion and contraception were more liberal in the Eastern bloc countries. Abortion was frequently used as a method of birth control in the Soviet bloc. The 1960s and 1970s was a time of great change in sexual attitudes and behaviours. Sex was no longer exclusively linked to marriage and procreation. Developments in medicine seemed to remove the major risks that went with sexual promiscuity. Venereal diseases were now treatable with antibiotics and pregnancy was avoidable by the use of the pill. The shift in attitudes and behaviours was so dramatic that it has been described as a sexual revolution.

Women in politics campaigned on a range of social issues. They fought for maternity leave for working mothers, forcing governments to introduce legislation on this issue. They demanded the setting up of women's aid refuges and rape crisis centres. They brought the issue of violence against women in the home and in society to the forefront of politics. The revival of feminism in the 1960s also had an impact on women's 'consciousness’ or way of thinking. Women became more assertive about their rights. The feminists preferred to use the word gender rather than sex, e.g. gender inequalities, gender issues, etc. 'Consciousness-raising' sessions had begun in the US in the 1960s. During the 1970s they became common in the UK, France and Germany. These sessions encouraged discussion and debate on sexism. They also promoted self-esteem among women. Their slogan became 'the personal is political". This emphasised that sexism was present in personal relationships between men and women, even within marriage, in 1970 a group of feminists laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The inscription read: "There is someone more unknown than the Unknown Warrior: his wife". A whole new academic study emerged. In universities around Europe, courses in Women's Studies were offered. Academic research challenged many cultural assumptions that implied that the masculine experience is the central form of human experience. In the study of history the focus moved away from the ‘great men’, military campaigns and political developments, which had dominated the history books. The new focus turned to social history and the lives of ordinary men and women who up to now had largely been omitted from the history books. Women who generally went unnoticed in the study of history before the 1960s were now given recognition for the parts they played in the past.


Activity 2