Frances Gustafson

May 27, 2021

E period
Women's Rights:
How they changed over time in
France and America:
50s-70s

Welcome and Introduction Section

Women do not have the same rights as men. Throughout the years women have had to
fight for everything that should not have to fight for. Women want and should have the same
rights as men, but in our society now and from the beginning of time, men had a higher role in
society. “It is a man's world.”1 Throughout history, women have stood up for what they believe in
and they have fought for women's rights from the very beginning. It all started with the Women's
suffrage movement which let women have the right to vote. Women had the right to vote but not
the right to make their own decisions in terms of family and jobs. At this time women had to be
housewives. Their role in society was to have children, do laundry, and cook dinner. Girls in the
50’s went to school for a few years and most of them dropped out. The very few who graduated
high school stopped there and started a family. Almost no women went to college. But then
something changed. Women started standing up for themselves and demanding that they get the
same rights as men. They wanted future generations of women to live a happy and fulfilling life.
My grandmother entered the workforce in the 1960s when the women’s liberation movement and
had to live with the discrimantion against women and girls growing. Throughout my paper and
website, I will be comparing life before and after the women’s liberation movement in Europe in
the workplace and at home. The Women's Liberation movement in France and the women's
movements all around the world played a huge role in the growth of women's rights. These
movements changed the way women were viewed in society and the roles women had in society.

1
RaeLynn Farkas, interview by the author, Madison, Connecticut, United States, May 7, 2021.
Women after the movement were able to work, have a proper education, and were able to hold
their own money in their own bank account.

The sources and methods I used to make my grandmother's story come alive was lateral
reading to find great facts about the women's liberation movement in Europe and noodle tools to
sight the sources. A big part of my project is also my interview with my grandmother. To record
this interview, I used Dolby On and uploaded it to SoundCloud. From that interview I made a
transcript that you will see on another part of my website. The transcript is the most important
part of my interview and the most important part to support my claim.

Summary and Synthesis of research and interview

Women deserve the same rights as men. Through my interview I learned about women
and girls rights and how they changed over time in France and in America. To learn more about
this I interviewed my grandmother. To start off my interview, I asked questions about her home
life. She grew up on a farm in Meriden CT. With a younger brother, mother, and father. Then we
talked a little bit about what society viewed as a perfect woman. She told me, “pretty was really
important. And to be nice and obedient and not talk back or make any trouble.”2

Women were not going out, finding jobs, and making money before the liberation
movement. The role of women at the time when my grandmother was growing up was nothing
more than taking care of the children, cooking dinner, and doing laundry. Women felt this
societal pressure to find a man, get married at a young age, and then start a family.3 None of
these women saw their futuring having a job. My grandmother said something very interesting.
None of her aunts worked and when she told people, when she was younger, that she wanted to
be an artist they all laughed.

Before the women's movements in countries like the United States and France, women did not
work. Once the movement was over, women did start working but they were not treated the same

2
Farkas, interview by the author.
3
PBS, "Mrs. America: Women's Roles in the 1950s" [PBS American Experience], PBS, last modified 2021,
accessed May 23, 2021,
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-mrs-america-womens-roles-1950s/.
as men. During my interview, my grandma told me a story about one of her bosses in the jewelry
business. She told me some of her friends growing up did dream of going to college and having a
career, but their dreams were the jobs “meant for women,” like nurses, teachers, and secretaries.
Although growing up with a mom who worked as a beautician, she always told my grandmother
that she would have to get married. She also told me a story about growing up in the late 50s.

My mother always told me when you get married when you get married. everything was
punctuated with that. And I thought without it's kind of a long shot because I didn't know
if I would ever get married. so I said, “Gee, this it's not going to work out too well.4

If women did not get married they would be living life with a lot of financial problems. In the
50s and 60s men were the workers of the home. They would get a well paying job, pay all the
bills, and keep the money; while women stayed at home.

“There was no category as a working woman or a single woman. you knew that you
were kind of destined to poverty in a way because the chances of you getting a good high
paying job as a woman are slim. you will be at a disadvantage financially as
well.”5(6:12-6:57)

Women felt the need to get married and have children because they were not allowed to go out
and have jobs. The men kept the women's money if the women had a paying job.

Women were expected to stay home and take care of the children. Although the women's
movement helped women get equal opportunities, women were still not treated the same as men.

Even though I was a designer in the design Department I wasn't called a designer. I was
called Eugene's girl. Eugene was a top designer and I was his girl. but people would say,
“oh she's one of the designers.” but it was not my official job title.6 (7:16-9:25)

4
Farkas, interview by the author.
5
Farkas, interview by the author.
6
Farkas, interview by the author.
She did end up getting married to a fantastic man who always had her back, but at the time
women were not seen as strong and independent and it was clear in my interview with my
grandmother. Even when talking about entering the workforce and her experience with society's
eyes alway on women, she sounded confident and you could tell that she was proud of herself for
not following the norm growing up and while at work. Then in the 1960s, women had enough
and they started to fight for their rights all over the world. One big country that impacted the
women's rights movement was in France. The movement in France was called the Women
liberation movement and it was started in the 1960s and went on to the 1980s. Their goal was for
women to have equality.7 Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, also known as MLF, was the
first group of women in France to start fighting for their rights. A woman named Antoinette
Fouque was the founder of the group and her main goal was to have women have a voice in a
world where men silence them.8

Even if women wanted to work in the 1950s or before then they did not have the
education to get a well paying job. When my grandmother was growing up she always dreamed
of becoming an artist, but when she told people this they all laughed. Women were only nurses
and teachers, there were no female artists, politicians, or scientists. In Europe and in America in
the early 60s less than 1 in 10 women went to university and if they did they mainly studied
humanities.“Working-class girls have never been encouraged to further their education for the
sake of it.”9 A major part of the Women's Liberation movement was for men and women to have
equal education. During and after the liberation movement, women and girls started to get back
to school and got college degrees in the US. Women started working and providing for their
families and men and women started feeling more equal. Women in France started to work full

7
Women's liberation movement in Europe, Wikipedia, last modified March 12, 2021, accessed May 12, 2021,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement_in_Europe
8
Dr. Karen Hagemann, "Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (Women's Liberation Movement), 1968," Towards
Emancipation?, last modified 2021, accessed May 18, 2021,
https://hist259.web.unc.edu/womensliberationmovement/#:~:text=The%20French%20Mouvement%20de%20Lib%
C3%A9ration,new%20women's%20movement%20in%20France.&text=The%20MLF%20was%20particularly%20d
edicated,encouraged%20them%20to%20take%20action.
9
Sisterhood and After Research Team, "Education and the Women's Liberation Movement," British Library, last
modified March 8, 2013, accessed May 24, 2021,
https://www.bl.uk/sisterhood/articles/education-and-the-womens-liberation-movement.
time jobs and open a bank account without their husbands in 1965.10 In both countries women
started to get a proper education which then made the women thriving. But women were still not
treated the same as men.

If women got jobs before the women's movement, they were not able to keep the
money;they had to give it to their husbands. One big inequality that women fought during the
liberation movement was money. When my grandmother entered the workforce for the first time
she had a few opportunities and one of them was taking a test to work for the NCR, National
cash register company, to see if they could be a computer Factory programmer. She went on to
say that two of her friends passed the test and got chosen to work in Chicago, one a male and one
a female. When they got their first paycheck that man got paid a lot more than the woman even
though they started in the same spot, they got the same training, and they had the same
qualifications.11 A few years later President John F. Kennedy enacted a law called the equal pay
act, passed in 1963 in the United States. This law states that “men and women in the same
workplace be given equal pay for equal work.”12 In France they had a different view on women's
rights in regards to equal pay. The Women's Movement in France did bring awareness to the
issue with unequal pay, it did not change a lot. Although America came up with laws, France
thought that women did not deserve to get paid the same as men.

Since the President established the agency, his centrist majority in the National Assembly
has proposed no legislation that would significantly change such conditions as the
traditional imbalance in the pay given to men and to women, who often receive less for

10
"The evolution of women's rights in France," video, FRANCE 24 English, posted by FRANCE 24 English,
February 25, 2019, accessed May 25, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bxI3U1X0Eo.
11
Farkas, interview by the author.
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "Equal Pay/Compensation Discrimination," U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, accessed May 23, 2021,
https://www.eeoc.gov/equal-paycompensation-discrimination#:~:text=The%20Equal%20Pay%20Act%20requires,th
ey%20must%20be%20substantially%20equal.&text=If%20there%20is%20an%20inequality,sex%20to%20equalize
%20their%20pay.
 the same sort of work. A comprehensive equality law, proposed by the League for
Women's Rights, has not found sponsorship in the Government.13

France did not pass an equal pay Act until 2019. That is about 56 years after the United States
passes their law. The French law was aimed to stop sexual violence, sexist acts, and getting rid of
the pay gap between men and women in the work place. 14

One big part of the movement that got people to join and start the movement was the
publication of literature. One of the books was written by a French author named Simone de
Beauvoir. Her book was called The Second Sex and was published in 1949. The book goes in
depth about women's rights and women's equality in society.15 Although this was written many
years before the movement started, womens were inspired by her words, and impacted the
movement for many years. Some people even call it the “feminist bible.”16 One thing that really
stood out was that she was a woman entering the 1950s, who challenged existential and political
theories. Another author who had a similar take on women at the time of the women's movement
was named Betty Friedan. She was an American author whose most famous book was called The
Feminine Mystique in 1963. The book was about women's role in society while touching upon
topics such as marriage, housework, and child rearing alone. This book gave women all over the
world a voice about the struggles and frutions they were going through. After the book was
published it “helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality.”17 Both of these

13
James F. Clarity, "The Women's Movement in France: A Cause That Is Not Yet Celebre," New York Times (New
York, New York/ US), December 17, 1975, Unequal Pay, [Page #], accessed May 24, 2021,
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1975/12/17/issue.html.
14
Wiki, "Framework Conditions in France," Equal Pay Day, last modified January 14, 2020, accessed May 24, 2021,
http://www.equalpay.wiki/Framework_Conditions_in_France#:~:text=In%20January%202019%2C%20the%20Fren
ch,calculate%20their%20Gender%20Equality%20Index.
15
Judith Thurman, "Introduction to Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex,'" The New York Times, last modified
May 27, 2010, accessed May 23, 2021,
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/books/excerpt-introduction-second-sex.html.
16
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Simone de Beauvoir," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, last modified
March 27, 2020, accessed May 23, 2021, Dr. Karen Hagemann, "Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (Women's
Liberation Movement), 1968," Towards Emancipation?, last modified 2021, accessed May 18, 2021,
https://hist259.web.unc.edu/womensliberationmovement/#:~:text=The%20French%20Mouvement%20de%20Lib%
C3%A9ration,new%20women's%20movement%20in%20France.&text=The%20MLF%20was%20particularly%20d
edicated,encouraged%20them%20to%20take%20action.
17
Debra Michals, ed., "Betty Friedan," National Women's History Museum, last modified 2017, accessed May 23,
2021,
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/betty-friedan#:~:text=Her%201963%20best%2Dse
lling%20book,public%20activism%20for%20gender%20equality.
amazing books brought light to the issue of women's rights. These books also inspired my
grandmother to follow her dreams and go against society's norm.

Analysis of Research and Sources

I found that interviewing my grandma was interesting and eye opening. I never knew the
struggles of being a woman in the time of her upbringing. But it also opened my mind in the
sense that I am so grateful for all the women who stood up for women's rights. I found the
interview was hard because I am not used to speaking with someone with a mic in front of our
faces, but overall I feel that it turned out amazing. Another hard part of the project was trying to
connect my grandmother's experience with a larger world historical event. However, once I had
my topic and sections for the essay, I knew exactly what to write and research. I found another
amazing source. It is a newspaper from 1975 and a political cartoon from 1909. All of these
sources are Primary sources, they have different perspectives of the movements, and they all
have something new. One is a drawing, one is an interview, and one is a newspaper article. I
made sure that I had three different medians for my sources because I think it adds something
new that people may not have thought about. If I did this project again I would find an
interviewee then find a topic and then do the research. The way I think would make this project
just a little easier.

One of my favorite sources that I used to help me with this project was my interview with
my grandmother. I knew from the beginning that my grandmother would be a great person to
interview because she has experienced so much in regards to entering the workforce. We are also
very close so I knew that she would not sway away from the brutal truth about being a girl in the
50s and entering the workforce in the 60s. But because she is a person who has experience
discrimination in her life she does have a bias. One good thing is that it is a primary source, with
a good memory. So although she is an older woman she can convey her story. This source is
showing that just because girls in the 60s were told that they can’t work and they can’t be
independent, they can grow up and prove them wrong. She is a great example of growing up in a
household where girls were not allowed to dream of being artists or doctors. She overcame this
world thanks to the women's movements.She is now a strong independent woman who had a full
time job, went to college with two kids, and got pay checks that supported her family. She told
me so many stories to convey her message, from growing up to enticing the workforce in the
height of the liberation movement and not knowing better when she was being discriminated
against.18

Another source that I found was a newspaper article from December 17, 1975. This
newspaper was written by The New York Times and talks about the women's movement in
France. From the very beginning the reader could tell that there is a bias in this source. Although
journalism is supposed to be unbiased when the author starts talking about unequal pay he is
trying to prove that it is an issue. Also, when writing about a big topic like unequal payment
between men and women at the time when people were picking sides it is hard to not pick a side.
This source is good because it comes from a very reliable source. The New York Times is known
all over the world to have thorough and reliable information. Although this newspaper was
written at the time of the event it was written talking about a different country. The newspaper
goes into detail about the pay gap between men and women in France and the struggles that
women had to go through. The author's purpose of writing this article was to convey information
to people in the United States about the Women's Liberation Movement in France. Although the
Women's Movement in the US was almost done, ending in the late 70s, the Liberation Movement
in France lasted much longer, starting and ending much later than the US. 19

18
Farkas, interview by the author.
19
Clarity, "The Women's," Unequal Pay, [Page #].
The last artifact that I found was a political cartoon drawn by E.W. Gustin, an artist. The cartoon
was drawn in 1909 and was named Election Day. The drawing conveys a woman going out of
the house, leaving her kids with her husband, and voting. The house is a mess and the kids are
crying as the husband looks at his wife with a worried expression. The woman is holding a piece
of paper which I assume is a voter registration and the picture on the wall says, “Votes For
Women.” This is a primary source and is now in The Library of Congress. This cartoon
represents what happened after women started getting the same rights as men such as voting. The
cartoon shows a shift in responsibilities between the man and the woman. The woman is now
showing her dominance over her husband. The purpose of drawing this cartoon was to show the
drastic changes in women over the years by switching the man and the women's role in a
cartoon. It also shows that women do have power and men can not stop them from doing what
they want to do. By using a cartoon it really shows the tension between the man and the women
but it also shows that power that the woman has over the man. It is really powerful.20

Further research and study

Throughout this project I have learned about women's rights throughout history and how
women's roles changed over time. The largest takeaway for me after doing this project is that I
should be thankful that I have the rights I have right now. Women fought for the later generations
to be able to have the same job opportunities as men and be able to do whatever they want, even
if they have a husband. I feel that women and girls don’t understand the struggles the amazing
women in the 60s and 70s went through to get us where we are now. I feel that I did a great job
20
E. W. Gustin, Election Day!, 1909, illustration, accessed May 25, 2021,
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.13248/.
connecting my grandmother's story to the topic. I think that her perspective brings the
movements to life and it adds an extra interesting layer on top of the research I showed through
my paper. My interview is also a primary source which makes my paper even stronger. In the end
I am very proud of all the sources I found, I think that my analysis is clear and concise, and I
think that I gave a great background of what happened during the movements that I discussed. I
wish that I spent more time researching and finding even more background and information. If I
had a little more time I feel that it would have been even better than it is now.

If I had more time I could do a million things but what I think would be so cool is if I
could interview even more people about women's rights in history and I can talk about other
people's stories. I could maybe even compare their stories to my grandmothers. I think it would
be also really interesting and cool if I could have written a whole section on political cartoons
and the roles they played in society at the times of the movements. I find that using art to convey
all sides of history is really interesting and I think that analyzing cartoons is really, really fun. If I
could only use two cartoons I would have loved to find one from France at the time of the
Women's Liberation movement and compare that cartoon to the cartoon I used. I feel like this
would make my argument stronger and my essay stronger.