In cultural history, the civil rights movement came before the women's movement.
It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.
In terms of the history of a far reaching movement, 20 years is not that long.
If you look at the history of other movements, whether Civil Rights or environmental rights, these are all decades-long undertakings.
Even in the civil rights movement, there were so many unbelievable women. They never, ever received the credit that they should have received. They did all of the, and I cannot say it, they did all of the dirty work. Hard work.
The people who were really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. And that's true of every movement that ever existed.
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
There's a pattern of the pathway opening in a certain way. We stared thinking, there's so many wonderful films about civil rights movements, but there isn't even one yet about the women's movement? It's hard to capture because it's so sprawling, and it's an ideology.
So May 4th in the labor movement has always been an important date.
The Underground Railroad, which was the first integrated civil rights movement, is a part of our history that not a lot of us know about. And it's actually a very empowering side of our history.
