by Ruth Rosen
Congress passes the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which allows married women to get credit in their own name for the first time.
Over one thousand colleges and universities offer women’s studies courses and eighty have full programs.
Helen Thomas, after covering Washington for thirty years, is finally named White House reporter for UPI and becomes the first woman to hold this position.
Little League, for the first time, allows girls to compete in baseball. Diana Russell publishes The Politics of Rape.
The Mexican American Women’s National Association (MANA) is founded. It is pro-choice, against forced sterilization, and starts a successful Hermanitas (“Little Sisters”) program.
Domestic workers covered by the minimum-wage law.
First Lady Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller, wife of New York’s governer, speak openly about their own mastectomies.
Class action suit against the New York Times is settled in 1978 in favor of five hundred fifty female employees.
First National Women’s Music Festival is held.
Paul Weyrich receives funds from Joseph Coors to organize the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, and Richard Viguerie becomes the organization’s direct mail fund-raiser and establishes the Conservative Caucus. The National Conservative Political Action Committee established by John “Terry” Dolan is created one year later.
The Washington State Court grants a lesbian mother living with her lover custody of her children.
Passport Office allows use of maiden name.
The National Women’s Football League is formed and the All-America Girls’ Basketball Conference is held.
More than 3,000 women from 58 unions attend a Chicago meeting where the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is formed. The group is made up entirely of union members; the goals are to combat sexism within unions, to push for legislation addressing female workers’ needs, and to organize the thirty million women workers who are not in unions.
After a three-year campaign by women’s groups, New York no longer requires a rape victim to give independent corroboration from witnesses of the crime.
1975 The United Nations sponsors the First International Conference on Women in Mexico City.
For the first time, federal employees’ salaries can be garnished for child support and alimony.
National Right to Life PAC organized.
Phyllis Schlafly organizes Eagle Forum as an alternative to “women’s lib,” in support of voluntary school prayer, law and order, and a strong national defense, and against busing, federally funded child care, and abortion.
Tish Sommers, chair of NOW’s Older Women Task Force, coins the phrase “displaced homemaker.”
The Vietnam War ends, after fourteen years and the deaths of 56,559 Americans and millions of Vietnamese.
Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will on the ubiquity of rape is published.
NOW sponsors “Alice Doesn’t” Day, and asks women across the country to go on strike for one day.
Joanne Little, who was raped by a guard while in jail, is acquitted of murdering her offender. The case establishes a precedent for killing as self-defense against rape.
Mississippi court rules that women cannot be systematically excluded from jury duty.
Ten California Chicanas file a suit, charging they were involuntarily sterilized at a county medical center.
The first National Women’s Health Conference, sponsored by the Our Bodies, Ourselves Collective, is held at Harvard Medical School; four thousand women attend.
Time magazine breaks tradition in naming the Man of the Year by designating ten women for cover honors.
The National Congress of Neighborhood Women forms to upgrade the status of working-class women through education, community program training, and college studies. The Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers in Brooklyn brings two hundred women together to run a clothing and baby-sitting cooperative and to share information.
1976 Redbook magazine polls its readers about sexual harassment. Ninety percent of young women say they view the situation as “serious.”
The nation’s first Center for Displaced Homemakers opens at Mills College, Oakland, California, inspired by Tish Sommers.
A bill that defines a “person” as “a human being” from the moment of fertilization is signed by Louisiana’s governor, but does not survive court challenge.
The United Nations Decade for Women begins.
A movement to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, is led by singer Anita Bryant.
ERAmerica is launched to promote the ratification of ERA.
The National Alliance of Black Feminists organizes in Chicago.
The Organization of Pan Asian American Women forms for women of Asian and Pacific American Islander descent.
Barbara Jordan becomes the first African-American and first woman to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Supreme Court decision agrees with General Electric that the company’s failure to cover pregnancy-related disability is not discriminatory.
Both the House and Senate pass the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal Medicaid money for abortions.
Many professional and women’s organizations decide to boycott those states that have not passed the ERA and to hold their conferences elsewhere.
Sarah Caldwell is the first woman to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera after Beverly Sills refuses to sing unless Caldwell conducts.
The International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women is held in Brussels.
NASA announces it will accept women for astronaut training.
New research gives hitherto unacknowledged credit to geneticist Rosalind Franklin for her work in solving the riddle of the DNA molecule.
French prostitutes stage nationwide strike.
Women in Iceland hold a day-long strike to show their importance to the economy, virtually shutting down the country.
1977 Houston, Texas, witnesses the First National Women’s Conference, at which twenty thousand representatives, women from all states, gather to pass a far-reaching National Plan of Action.
National Association of Cuban-American Women formed.
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence established.
Eleanor Smeal, president of NOW, demands that homemakers should have their own Social Security accounts.
The American Civil Liberties Union asks the Rhode Island Supreme Court to allow women to use their own names, rather than that of their husbands.
Joanie Caucus, the runaway wife turned feminist made famous in Doonesbury, graduates from law school.
The Air Force graduates its first women pilots.
AT&T announces its willingness to allow dual listing of married people in phone books.
1978 Congress passes the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that prohibits discrimination against pregnant women in all areas of employment.
Laura X founds National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape to lobby for changes in state law.
Proposition 6 in California attempts, but fails, to prohibit gays and lesbians from teaching in California schools.
Women Against Pornography is founded in New York City.
Congress extends ratification deadline for ERA to June 30, 1982. Over 100,000 people demonstrate in Washington, D.C., to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
More women than men enter American colleges and universities. Congress passes a bill prohibiting the introduction of the victim’s reputation in cases of rape or attempted rape.
New York is the first state to pass a bill to locate the children of women who have taken the synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES).
Women sports writers are no longer barred from major league baseball locker rooms.
Congress allocates $5 million to the Department of Labor to set up centers for displaced homemakers.
The first national feminist conference on pornography is sponsored by Women
Against Violence in Pornography and the Media in San Francisco. They sponsor the first “Take Back the Night” march to draw attention to a woman’s right to walk the streets at night without fear. Soon thousands of women across the country stage similar marches.
John Rideout, the first man charged with raping his wife while they were living together, is acquitted by an Oregon Court.
1979 The Moral Majority is founded by Jerry Falwell, television evangelist.
President Jimmy Carter fires Bella Abzug from the Advisory Committee on Women because she insists that unemployment, the federal government, and inflation are all women’s issues.
The National Weather Service decides to follow a new policy of naming hurricanes after both women and men.
National March in Washington, D.C., for lesbians and gays draws 100,000 participants from all over the country.
Judy Chicago’s collaborative art work The Dinner Party, with thirty-nine place settings for famous women, creates a stir in the artistic community.
Rose Kushner, author of Why Me?, persuades the National Institutes of Health to endorse a two-stage breast biopsy procedure, enabling women to have a choice in their breast surgery for cancer.
1980 Ronald Reagan is elected president of the United States in the first demonstration of the “gender gap,” with more men than women voting for Reagan.
Copenhagen, Denmark, hosts the UN’s Second World Conference on Women.
National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts begins to educate judges about gender bias.
The EEOC publishes new guidelines on sexual harassment.
For the first time, the Republican platform no longer supports the ERA and goes on record as being against abortion.
The National Women’s History Research Project is established and Molly Murphy MacGregor is named as executive director. Its goal is to promote the multicultural study of women’s history in the k-12 classroom. It lobbies successfully for the National Women’s History Week in 1981.
1981 Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jesse Helms introduces Human Life Bill, in order to make abortion illegal.
1982 The Equal Rights Amendment is unable to gather the necessary number of states for ratification.
The Family Protection Act is introduced in Congress. It would have established prayer in the schools, forbidden federal funding for schoolbooks that depicted women in unconventional roles, repealed federal laws against child and spouse abuse, and prohibited coed sports. It doesn’t pass.
1983 Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
Congress passes the Retirement Equity Act that gives equal benefits to women in private pension systems.
In City of Akron v. Akron Center, the Supreme Court upholds parental consent requirement for minors seeking abortions.
U.S. feminist peace activists establish Seneca Falls encampment against nuclear arms.
Alice Walker receives Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple.
1984 Walter Mondale chooses Geraldine Ferraro for his vice-presidential running mate. They lose to Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
Mothers of East Los Angeles organize to oppose violence and to battle against environmental racism.
Leontyne T. C. Kelly becomes the first African-American ordained as a bishop in the United Methodist Church.
1985 The UN’s Third World Conference on Women is held in Nairobi, Kenya.
The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its category of mental illnesses and disorders.
Bella Abzug founds Women’s Foreign Policy Council, which, along with Women for Meaningful Summits and the Jane Addams Conference, struggles to promote women’s interests in foreign policy.
Amy Eilberg becomes first woman Conservative Rabbi.
Ellen Malcolm starts EMILY’s List to give financial backing to pro-choice Democratic women candidates for state and federal office. EMILY stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast.”
1986 The Meese Commission produces a list of all the films it deems to be pornographic “social menaces.”
The Supreme Court rules in EEOC v. Sears that Sears did not discriminate.
Margaret Atwood publishes her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, in which the religious Right has won electoral power and creates the theocracy and republic of Gilead.
The New York Times finally agrees to use Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.
Barbara Mikulski, from Maryland, becomes first Democratic woman elected to the U.S. Senate who hasn’t succeeded her husband. The number of women in the Senate doubles from one to two.
A Newsweek poll reveals that 56 percent of women consider themselves feminists; 71 percent say that the movement has improved their lives; only 4 percent describe themselves as antifeminist.
1987 Eleanor Smeal and others found the Fund for the Feminist Majority, in part to encourage feminists to run for office.
Congress declares March “Women’s History Month.”
Court rules against Mary Beth Whitehead in “Baby M” case, highlighting the issue of surrogate mothers.
1988 In Webster v. Reproductive Services, the Supreme Court allows Missouri’s prohibition of the use of public funds for abortion.
Toni Morrison receives the Pulitzer Prize for all her work, including Beloved.
Methodists create a gender-neutral hymnal.
Congress approves a memorial for the 10,000 women who served in Vietnam.
1989 African-American Barbara Harris is ordained as the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church.
1990 Congress passes the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.
1991 The country is mesmerized by the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, who is accused by his former special assistant Anita Hill of sexual harassment.
The American Association of University Women publishes a groundbreaking critique, How Schools Shortchange Girls.
The Supreme Court rules that the U.S. government can deny foreign aid to any overseas health organizations that promote abortion.
The president of NOW, Patricia Ireland, is vilified when she reveals that she lives with a female companion.
NOW sponsors a Young Feminist Conference in Akron, Ohio, which draws eight hundred young women, who also rally against the Gulf War.
The Senate overturns the “gag rule” that bars federally financed family planning clinics from discussing abortion with women.
Susan Faludi publishes Backlash, which documents how and who helped create a backlash against the women’s movement in the 1980s.
The film Thelma and Louise strikes a nerve among women viewers that baffles film critics.
1992 In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey, the Supreme Court affirms a woman’s right to abortion but allows certain restrictions based on a state’s “compelling” interest in potential human life.
Colorado and Oregon pass antigay ordinances, which are overthrown by the Supreme Court in 1996.
Some 750,000 women, men, and children turn out for the Pro-Choice March in Washington, D.C., with the slogan “We Won’t Go Back! We Will Fight Back.” The march attracts labor unions, celebrities, and students from six hundred campuses. A similar march is held in Los Angeles the next week.
EMILY’s List, the Women’s Campaign Fund, and other groups raise money for a record number of women running for electoral office.
Barbara Bush and Marilyn Quayle try to promote “family values” at Republican National Convention.
Five major women’s clinics in Buffalo become the target of Operation Rescue.
Vice President Dan Quayle attacks the fictional television character Murphy Brown for having a child with no husband.
The State Farm Insurance Company agrees to pay $157 million to 814 women who were denied jobs as agents in the largest sex discrimination settlement in U.S. history under the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
“The Year of the Woman” in politics results in more women elected than in any prior year.
1993 Congress passes the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives men and women protected unpaid leave to respond to family emergencies.
Bill Clinton appoints a record number of women to his cabinet and as heads of agencies, but withdraws the candidacies of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood for attorney general because of the “Nannygate” issue.
The Tailhook scandal, in which naval aviators are accused of sexual harassment and lewd behavior, is exposed.
The United Nations World Conference on Human Rights meets in Vienna and, after hearing the testimony of women from all over the world, accepts the “Vienna Declaration,” stating that violence against women or girls is a violation of their human rights. The General Assembly accepts the resolution.
1994 The Supreme Court rules that obstructing the entrance to an abortion clinic is illegal.
Congress passes the Violence Against Women Act, which provides funds for services for victims of rape and domestic violence, allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes, and trains police and judiciary.
The United Nations Conference on Population and Development in Cairo passes a resolution that education for women (instead of industrial development) is a precondition for population control.
1995 Beijing, China, hosts the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. The conference calls for women’s rights as human rights, and endorses a far-reaching and radical plan for peace and equality for women.
The Glass Ceiling Commission reports that white men hold 95 percent of senior management positions.
The O. J. Simpson trial, in which he is accused of killing his estranged wife and her friend, results in his acquittal, but the lengthy drama also teaches the nation about domestic violence.
The University of California Board of Regents ends affirmative action in admissions, hiring, and contracting on all campuses.
At the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks out against abuse against women. “It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.”