Events NOW founder and national treasurer Inka O’Hanrahan died on January 15, 1970. A clinical biochemist, she owned and directed her own laboratory in San Francisco until she suffered a first heart attack in 1969. She was vice chairman of the California Commission on the Status of Women (1965-67) and lectured in the U.S. and […]
Events The “Chicago Seven” were found not guilty of plotting to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. (02/28/69) Los Angeles NOW member Judith Meuli designed “The Brassy,” the woman’s symbol with the equality sign across the circle. The original version was handwelded of brass rod. (03/69) Canada passed an omnibus crime bill that […]
Events “Women’s Liberation” groups began to emerge around the country as a spin-off of the male-dominated student movement. (1968) The United Nations inaugurated the International Year of Human Rights. (01/01/68) Three Black students were shot to death and 30 wounded by police on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. (02/68) Walter Cronkite, […]
Events Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in Washington. (1967) Blacks rioted in Cleveland, Newark (07), Detroit (07/30). (1967) The National Organization For Women (NOW) was formally incorporated in Washington D.C. The initial registered office of the corporation was 1629 K Street, NW, Suite 500. (02/10/67) At the American Medical Association’s (AMA) annual meeting, the House of […]
Events At the Third Annual Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women in Washington, D.C., the failure of the EEOC to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prompted the formation of NOW. Twenty-eight women contributed $5 each to help fund its organization. (06/28-29/66) NOW Founding Membership 28; NOW Startup Budget $140 (06/28-29/66) […]
Events Malcolm X was assassinated. (02/21/65) 25,000 demonstrators for civil rights marched from Selma, AL, to the state capitol in Montgomery, challenging the state to end racial discrimination in voting rights and segregation. (03/28/65) 15,000 students marched in Washington, protesting the war in Vietnam. (04/17/65) U.S. forces, previously in Vietnam only as military advisers, were […]
Events The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, ending the poll tax. (01/23/64) The Beatles arrived for their first tour of the United States. (02/07/64) President Johnson submitted a proposal to Congress for a $1 billion “War on Poverty.” (03/16/64) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress and signed by […]
Lifestyles Eight-year-old Nancy Lotsey joined the New Jersey Small-Fry League – the first girl to participate in organized all-boy baseball games. Her superior pitching and batting skills enabled her team to win the League Title. (1963) The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan became a best-seller. Debunking the myths that women, particularly housewives, were totally fulfilled by […]
Events The Soviet Union won the race to put a man in space. (04/12/61) The invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba by anti-Castro exiles supported by the United States was a fiasco. (04/25/61) A wall dividing East and West Berlin was erected by East German soldiers to stop the flight of refugees – […]
Events Four Black freshmen from North Carolina’s Agricultural and Technical College were refused service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro. Within weeks the tactic of sit-ins had been taken up by 50,000 people across the South. The sit-ins and picketing resulted in riots in some major cities and in numerous arrests. (02/01/60) The U-2, […]
Events Pope Pius XII died (10/09/58) and Pope John XXIII succeeded him. (10/28/58) According to a Gallup Poll, Eleanor Roosevelt was the most admired woman in the United States. (1958) Lifestyles The Hula Hoop was a national fad for 25 million Americans who paid $3 for the hip swiveling experience. When the city commissioner of […]
Events The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first space satellite. (10/04/57) President Eisenhower ordered troops to Little Rock, AR, to keep order during school desegregation. (09/25/57) Lifestyles Althea Gibson was the first Black to win the All England title in tennis at Wimbledon. (07/06/57) Economic The National Manpower Council (NMC) at Columbia University published its […]
The Feminist Chronicles, 1953-1993 The charts are divided into three major sections: Events, Issues, and The Backlash. Events lists the major public events that constituted the context in which the feminist movement operated. The seven issues are essentially among those that the President’s Commission on the Status of Women first explored and the founders of NOW specifically chose to pursue. A […]
Cardinal George Pell’s conviction for sexually assaulting two young boys in the 1990s has been overturned by the Australian High Court. Because the court found reasonable doubt of Pell’s crimes, the former Vatican chief financial officer and adviser to Pope Francis will be released with no possibility of a retrial. He was convicted in December […]
Colorado passed a bill this week to replace Columbus Day with Cabrini Day in an effort to better represent the diversity of its community. It will now be the first paid state holiday in the country to celebrate a woman. The holiday now honors Frances Xaxier Cabrini or Mother Cabrini, an Italian American Roman Catholic […]
In the coming days, a high court in Colombia could rule to legalize abortion within the first few months of pregnancy. In a region known for restrictive abortion laws, this could be a landmark decision in Latin America. Generally seen as a regional legal trendsetter, the Colombian high court could shift abortion access in an […]
President Alberto Fernández is expected to put forward a bill to legalize abortion in Argentina when the legislative session opens on March 1. The bill would be a victory for the country’s abortion rights activists who began a grassroots movement in 2018 to push for a legalization bill. Fernández made abortion access a focus of […]
This Thursday, Pope Francis named Francesca Di Giovanni the Undersecretary of Multilateral Affairs for the Secretariat of State, an important Vatican office. Di Giovanni will be the first woman to hold a management position in the Roman Catholic Church. Leadership positions in the Vatican are largely male-dominated, in part because many are reserved for priests, […]
Obria Medical Clinics, a Christian chain of family health facilities, has received $1.7 million in federal family planning funding. The program, known as Title X, is meant to help low-income families and individuals prevent unplanned pregnancies. Additionally, clinics that receive this funding are expected to prevent and treat sexually transmitted diseases and provide resources like […]
This Monday, the Vatican released an attack on the LGBTQ+ community after they issued an official document from the Congregation for Catholic Education that rejected the idea of gender fluidity and gender identity, furthering the harmful and scientifically inaccurate understandings of gender. The document is intended to be used as guide for sex education for […]
