Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End (56 page)

MISS AMERICA PAGEANT DEMONSTRATION, 1968
In August 1968, the younger, more radical branch of the movement known as Women’s Liberation organized a protest at the Miss America Pageant to challenge the cultural obsession with women’s sexual attractiveness. Their ability to dramatize this issue gained enormous media attention. Thrilled, furious, or merely curious, people across the country were suddenly talking about women’s liberation. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY, 1970
On August 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, NOW called a “women’s strike” to direct attention to the upsurge of activism on women’s rights. Women staged thousands of demonstrations across the country under the slogan: “Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot.” AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

NATIONAL WOMEN’S POLITICAL CAUCUS, 1971
Keynote speakers at the founding meeting of the National Women’s Political Caucus on July 10, 1971, included, left to right: Betty Smith, former vice chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party; Dorothy Haener, International Representative, Women’s Department, United Automobile Workers Union; Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights leader from Mississippi; and Gloria Steinem, member, Democratic National Policy Council and founder of
Ms.
magazine. © BETTMANN/CORBIS

“UP AGAINST THE WALL”—CHICAGO WOMEN’S LIBERATION ROCK BAND
Women’s rock bands were part of the women’s liberation movement in the early 1970s, anticipating the Riot Grrrl movement by two decades. They used music to advocate women’s rights, to criticize the misogyny of the male-dominated rock music scene, and to showcase women’s capacity for creativity and assertiveness. Like many early experiments, the Chicago rock band dissolved in the mid-1970s over personal and political disagreements. New groups quickly appeared, however, and several women’s music festivals founded in the mid-1970s continue into the 21st century, CHICAGO WOMEN’S’ LIBERATION UNION ARCHIVES LEFT TO RIGHT: PAT MILLER, NAOMI WEISSTEIN, SHERRY JENKINS, SUZANNE PRESCOTT, TANYA MANTALVO. BELOW: SUSAN ABOD

“MANY WAVES, ONE OCEAN”
The Chicago Women’s Liberation Union’s Graphics Collective produced dozens of posters in the 1970s. This one, originally designed by Estelle Carol, emphasizes the multiplicity of the movement as well as its international reach by incorporating the title “Many Waves, One Ocean” in many languages into the poster itself. CHICAGO WOMEN’S LIBERATION UNION, WOMEN’S GRAPHICS COLLECTIVE

JUDY CHICAGO,
THE DINNER PARTY
, PRIMORDIAL GODDESS PLACE SETTING
Judy Chicago’s massive installation,
The Dinner Party
, completed in 1979, has become emblematic of the feminist art movement in the 1970s. A triangular table, 48′ on a side, with 39 place settings for women leaders, both mythical and historic,
The Dinner Party
used imagery that was explicitly female. This place setting, for the Primordial Goddess, highlights the growing interest in spirituality among cultural feminists. PRIMORDIAL GODDESS PLACE SETTING FROM THE DINNER PARTY, © JUDY CHICAGO 1979, MIXED MEDIA. COLLECTION OF THE BOOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, GIFT OF THE ELIZABETH A. SACKLER FOUNDATION. PHOTO: © DONALD WOODMAN

HOUSTON, 1977
In November 1977, 2,000 delegates and 18,000 observers gathered in Houston for a national conference honoring the U.N. International Women’s Year. Racial minorities constituted fully one-third of the representatives selected by conferences in every state and territory. Here Coretta Scott King presents the resolution on minority women’s rights with other spokeswomen from the minority caucus. The passage of that resolution was one of the highlights of the conference. CORBIS, 1977 © BETTMANN/CORBIS

NINE TO FIVE
, 1980
On December 14, 1980, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin arrive at a benefit showing of
Nine to Five
, their new film about life in the secretarial pool. The benefit was dedicated to 9 to 5, a national organization of office workers that had inspired the film. CORBIS, 1980 © BETTMANN/CORBIS

MORMONS FOR THE ERA, EARLY 1980s
When Mormon women began to speak out for the Equal Rights Amendment, church leaders condemned them and even excommunicated their leader, Sonia Johnson, in 1979. These intrepid women, however, refused to be silent. SONIA JOHNSON COLLECTION, J. WILLARD MARRIOT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

GUERILLA GIRLS, “DO WOMEN HAVE TO GET NAKED,” 1989
Guerilla Girls, a group of artists in New York, announced their existence in 1985 with a series of demonstrations and posters protesting the failure of major galleries—particularly the Metropolitan Museum—to include the work of women. To preserve their anonymity, they always appear in public wearing gorilla masks. This poster was originally designed as a billboard for the Public Art Fund in New York in 1989. When the PAF rejected their design, Guerilla Girls rented advertising space on New York’s public buses where the poster circulated for several years. COPYRIGHT © THE GUERRILLA GIRLS, 1989, 2002