<\/p>\n
FILE – Gloria Steinem of the National Organization for Women attends an Equal Rights Amendment rally outside the White House on July 4, 1981, in Washington.<\/p>\n
Scott Applewhite\/AP Photo\/Scott Applewhite<\/p>\n
FILE – Leading supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment march in Washington, July 9, 1978, urging Congress to extend the time for ratification of the ERA. From left are: Gloria Steinem; Dick Gregory; Betty Friedan; Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-N.Y. (partially obscured); Rep. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.; and Rep. Margaret Heckler, R-Mass. The women at far left and right are unidentified.<\/p>\n
Dennis Cook\/AP Photo\/Dennis Cook<\/p>\n
It was the fight for abortion rights that launched Gloria Steinem into feminism.<\/p>\n
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The idea that women couldn’t reach equality without the ability to decide whether or when to have children was central to the feminist movement of the late 1960s, which Steinem came to embody until her death at age 92 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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The victories of that movement dramatically transformed American culture and family life, leading to a surge of women into the workforce, even as advocates continue to fight against a persistent gender wage gap, sexual harassment and unequal representation at the top ranks of companies and political office.<\/p>\n
But Steinem lived to see the rise of a powerful backlash against her vision of feminism, with reproductive rights, motherhood, childbearing and gender roles once again at the center of the country’s culture wars.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion; 13 states have since instituted total or near-total bans. Another four bar it after about six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women realize they are pregnant.<\/p>\n
Steinem called it a setback for democracy. But for Christian conservative activists, it was a huge victory and helped embolden a movement to encourage men and women to embrace traditional gender roles while often blaming feminism for the decline in birthrates, a rise in divorce and a devaluation of marriage and motherhood.<\/p>\n
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Family versus career<\/p>\n
Through policies and rhetoric, Trump administration officials \u2014 including Vice President JD Vance \u2014 as well as influential conservative groups have launched a campaign to encourage young women to marry quickly, have more children and prioritize family over career.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeminism did a grave disservice to women, and men by extension, by promoting the idea that marriage and family are lesser pursuits and should be deprioritized,\u201d said Delano Squires, a co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s report, “Saving America by Saving the Family,” which lamented that \u201cthe disruptions to American family life caused by bad public policy in the 1960s were exacerbated by cultural upheavals that radically changed social norms around sex, sexuality, marriage, children, and gender roles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report, which among other ideas proposes that Congress create investment accounts with a $2,500 deposit for men and women who marry before the age of 30, was also co-written by Emma Waters, a Heritage Foundation analyst who has emerged as an influential voice for young conservative Christians criticizing what they see as a career-first culture created by feminism to the detriment of female happiness.<\/p>\n
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In a recent article<\/a>, Waters took a dig at \u201cMs.\u201d \u2014 both the title and the magazine founded by Steinem.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, the most countercultural thing a 28-year-old woman can do is take her husband\u2019s name and be open to the gift of motherhood,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Surge of women in the workforce<\/p>\n Steinem herself never had children, a decision she said she never regretted while calling it a great choice for others. And she continued to fiercely advocate for reproductive choice as a cornerstone of women’s empowerment.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Steinem pivoted into activism in her 30s after attending a meeting in 1969 where women discussed abortion rights and hearing stories that empowered her to speak up about the secret abortion she had in London at age 22.<\/p>\n At the time, abortion was illegal in most of the U.S. The Supreme Court had only recently guaranteed the right to birth control in the 1965 landmark Griswold v. Connecticut ruling.<\/p>\n Fewer than 50% of women were in the labor force back then, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was legal to fire a woman for becoming pregnant, remaining so until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. Banks routinely asked for a male co-signer when women applied for credit cards. There were only 11 women serving in Congress.<\/p>\n The landscape is drastically different today. About 58% of women 20 and older are in the labor force, and that number jumps to 77% for women at prime working ages between 25 and 54. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 \u2014 championed by the small number of women then serving in Congress \u2014 made it illegal to deny credit cards and loans to women on the basis of sex. There are now 152 women serving in Congress.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Many of those hard-fought rights, at least in principle, remain unassailable even among staunch conservatives. Squires, of the Heritage Foundation, said he would never question the right of women to own property, credit or be able to vote or work, even as he champions traditional gender roles.<\/p>\n Still, even the most radical ideas have been amplified by some in power. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for example, reposted a video about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote, sparking widespread outrage.<\/p>\n For those on the religious right, feminism upends the \u201cgodly\u201d ideal of a father who leads and protects the household and encourages women to put their own needs before those of their husband and children, according to Beth Allison Barr, a women\u2019s history professor at Baylor University. \u201cIt makes it directly oppositional: that to be a good Christian, you can\u2019t be a feminist.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfinished business<\/p>\n Women’s advocacy groups warn that both the curtailing of reproductive rights and the characterization of feminism as an attack on families are at their core attempts to disempower women and limit their freedom to choose their own life paths.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said progressive proposals \u2014 such as expanded and longer paid family leave and better access to affordable child care \u2014 are in fact about championing families and making childrearing easier without pushing women to abandon careers and financial independence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are really in a bigger cultural fight about who we are going to be as a nation and what women’s role will be,\u201d said Goss Graves.<\/p>\n Despite setbacks like the reversal of Roe v. Wade and unfinished business such as the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment, Stanford University women\u2019s history professor Estelle Freedman said feminism in the United States is so embedded in modern life that its momentum \u201cmay be unstoppable.\u201d<\/p>\n The economy, for one thing, now depends on women continuing to work, she said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The feminist movement since the early 19th century \u201chas gone through periods of mobilization and gains, and periods of backlash and losses,” but throughout “there has been continuous reorganization, rethinking to get stronger,” Freedman said.<\/p>\n Steinem, Freedman said, lent the movement crucial continuity for more than half a century.<\/p>\n \u201cThe visibility that she\u2019s given will help people not forget it\u2019s a long haul. And it\u2019s work that just has to continue,” Freedman said. ___<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 women in the workforce coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Gloria Steinem of the National Organization for Women attends an Equal Rights Amendment rally outside the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1042380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,417404,69,417403,212312,417402,2066,184754,364538,6986,184751,184752,364535,364534,417405,324520,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1042379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-beth-allison-barr","tag-donald-trump","tag-emma-waters","tag-gloria-steinem","tag-gloria-steinem-feminism-trump-feminist-equal-rights","tag-jd-vance","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100505-member-choice-news-analysis-option","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-33351-ap-online-analysis","tag-product-41019-news-analysis-dsa","tag-product-41020-news-analysis-dsf","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1042380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}