1960's: Malala Yousafzai

As a young girl, Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012, but survived.

Watch the Malala story and also her interview 

On another note,

Check out these videos on the many different women who have met their dreams. Watch one of your choosing and then tell us who she is and what she accomplished.

Comment on the blog: Which woman did you find most interesting and why?

Women Around the World

“Women hold up half the sky,” reads an old Chinese saying. 




Indeed, women have traditionally been the world’s farmers, child bearers, and caretakers of young and old – the backbone of families and societies. Women play a central role in the effective development of families, communities, nations, and regions. 

Yet, despite their vast contributions to humanity, women continue to suffer from gender discrimination in much of the world. Being born female in most of the developing

world means a lifetime as a second-class citizen, denied most of the opportunities 

available to males in the areas of health, education, employment, and legal rights.

In many less developed countries, girls and women do much of the hard labor of running a household and a subsistence farm. In rural areas where homes lack indoor plumbing and electricity, it is not uncommon for them to spend hours each day gathering water and firewood and carrying these items long distances. Most of this work is unpaid, domestic labor that takes a toll on women’s bodies.

With little formal education and large families to tend, women are often not able to be employed outside of the home. 

Cultural traditions often dictate what jobs are appropriate for men and women. Where women are able to attain an education and learn job skills, they help their families and communities prosper.

credit: www.worldof7billion.org

First, watch this (3.34) short video, 

"What Are You Carrying?" in which the creator learns first hand how difficult a woman’s burden can be in the eastern Congo.

Then, watch (1.30) “Smart Girls,” and (3.40) "Global Voices."

Play this online game 

Here is the link for your worksheet,"A life of two schoolgirls." 

Comment on the blog: 
What surprised you or did you find sad or interesting in these videos?

1960's: Modern Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced recently that the Pentagon is lifting the ban on women in combat, overturning a 1994 rule that restricted women from infantry, armor, Special Forces, artillery and other combat roles. 

The decision comes after increasing pressure from service women and activists on the Pentagon to acknowledge the reality that many women in the military already face combat on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 200,000 women have served in those two wars; as of last year, more than 800 of those had been wounded and more than 130 killed.

No law bars women from combat, but official military policy has long kept female service members away from the front lines by banning them from artillery, armor, infantry and other combat roles. 

Before 2001, American service women had largely been kept out of ground combat. Over more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, many women have served courageously and skillfully under fire, a reality that female service members have long been pressing the military to acknowledge.

The decision to lift the ban will open up hundreds of thousands of jobs in previously all-male units to women. Defense officials cautioned that the opening of all combat positions will not be immediate, but will proceed through an assessment phase, during which each branch of the armed services will look at all currently non-integrated units and come up with a timetable for integration. The Pentagon is allowing three years, until January 2016, for the services to make final decisions.

credit: http://www.history.com/news/u-s-military-lifts-ban-on-women-in-combat

Watch these CBS News and also this ABC news videos on women in the military.

Complete the worksheet:

 "U.S. allows women to fight in wars ...26th January, 2013"

Comment: What is your personal opinion about this matter? SHOULD women be allowed to fight in combat??

1960's: Equal Pay

April 8 is "Equal Pay Day", a holiday marking the number of extra days into 2014 the average woman has to work to earn as much as her male counterpart did in 2013. 

Full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only 77 percent of what men are paid; for women of color, the gap is significantly wider. African American women on average earn only 64 cents and Latinas on average earn only 55 cents for every dollar earned by white men.

In 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was passed, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average for every dollar paid to men. This means it took 45 years for the wage gap to close just 18 cents -- a rate of less than half a penny a year. This narrowing of the gap has slowed down since the turn of the century.

I'll be glad when we no longer have to observe Equal Pay Day, but until then, we need to educate ourselves about the wage gap between women and men.

To help end pay discrimination Obama is trying to get the Paycheck Fairness Act passed.

The Paycheck Fairness Act will help enforce equal pay for equal work for all Americans. The bill would update the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a law that has not been able to achieve its promise of closing the wage gap.

 The Paycheck Fairness Act would make critical changes to the law, including:

• requiring employers to demonstrate that different wages are based on factors other than gender;
• prohibiting retaliation against workers who ask about their employers’ wage practices or share with others their own wages;
• permitting reasonable comparisons between employees within clearly defined geographical areas to determine what a  fair wage actually is;
• strengthening penalties for equal pay violations;
• directing the Department of Labor to collect wage information from various employers.                   

Credit: https://www.aclu.org/womens-rights/equal-pay-equal-work-pass-paycheck-fairness-act

Watch this one minute video 
on the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Complete the worksheet:

 " Women in the Workforce" 

1960's: Modern Day Women

President Bill Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the Supreme Court of the United States.  She was only the second woman to be named to the Supreme Court, following Sandra Day O'Connor, and was the first Jewish woman to serve.

Watch this 4 minute interview with Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 

Lilly Ledbetter was born in a house with no running water or electricity in the small town of Possum Trot, Alabama. She knew that she was destined for something more, and in 1979, with two young children at home and over the initial objections of her husband Charles, Lilly applied for her dream job at the Goodyear tire factory. Even though the only women she’d seen there were secretaries in the front offices where she’d submitted her application, she got the job—one of the first women hired at the management level.

Though she faced daily gender prejudice and sexual harassment, Lilly pressed onward, believing that eventually things would change. Until, nineteen years after her first day at Goodyear, Lilly received an anonymous note revealing that she was making thousands less per year than the men in her position.  Devastated, she filed a sex discrimination case against Goodyear, which she won—and then heartbreakingly lost on appeal. 

Over the next eight years, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost again: the court ruled that she should have filed suit within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck--despite the fact that she had no way of knowing that she was being paid unfairly all those years. In a dramatic moment, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her disagreement with the decision from the bench, urging Lilly to fight back.

And fight Lilly did, going all the way to the President. In January 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act  Today, she is a tireless advocate for change, traveling the country to urge women and minorities to claim their civil rights.
http://www.lillyledbetter.com/about.html

Watch this short video on Lily Ledbetter. 

Comment on the blog: 

Do you think it was fair that Lily was paid less than her male counterparts? Why do you think she WAS paid less? 

1960's: Women's Rights

Tens of thousands of women participated in the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. But none of the female civil rights leaders marched in the procession with Dr. King, nor were any of them invited to speak to the enormous crowd.

Instead, these women were asked to march on an adjacent street with the wives of the male leaders and to stay in the background.

Background: 

On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to vote for the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the movement more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

THE ABOLITIONISTS AND THE SUFFRAGISTS

The campaign for women’s suffrage began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and 30s, most states had extended the right to vote to all white men, regardless of how much money or property they had. 

In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists–mostly women, but some men–gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss the problem of women’s rights.  Most of the delegates agreed: American women were independent individuals who deserved their own political identities. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” proclaimed the Declaration of Sentiments that the delegates produced, “that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What this meant, among other things, was that they believed women should have the right to vote.

The small role allowed female civil rights leaders in the activities of the 1960's Civil Rights Movement was the exact opposite of the central role these women played in planning the strategies, tactics and actions of the movement — including the march itself! 

In fact, many of the most iconic campaigns of the civil rights movement were coordinated by women, including nonviolent sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, forced integration of Central High School by the Little Rock Nine, and the voter registration drives of 1964's Freedom Summer.

The first wave of the women's feminist movement started in the 19th and early 20th century with leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fighting for legal rights for women such as the ability to vote and own property. The second wave of the women's movement, led by women such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, occurred in the 1960s and 70s and attempted to combat further social and political inequalities.

One of the least recognized stories of the Civil Rights Movement is the role of women. This is true despite the fact that women were responsible for many of the achievements of the Movement. They developed strategies, marched in demonstrations, attended mass meetings, registered voters, taught in freedom schools, wrote searing critiques of societal structures, organized boycotts, and risked their lives.

Watch this 3.50 minute video on the history of women's suffrage. 

This is a 5 minute video from Iron Jawed Angels (a modern movie made about Women's Suffrage) that depicts the Parade in Washington.

Look through this slideshow and read the text below each picture.  There are 11 photos. 

Tell us, on the Blog, something that you learned.

Here is the website link for your 
Women’s Suffrage Fact Sheet.

1960's Desegregation Kennedy

On June 11,1963 George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama tried to block two African American students from entering the University of Alabama. 

President John F. Kennedy called in the National Guard and the governor stepped aside. The president informed the country of the event in a speech on radio and television during which he explained why it was so important for all Americans to be treated fairly and have equal rights and privileges. 

He announced that he would be introducing a law that would end segregation in public places, require schools to become desegregated, and protect people’s right to vote.

When the President addressed the country it was seriously divided. Many Americans still supported segregation and were reluctant to acknowledge racial injustice. However, months of escalating conflict that included massive demonstrations, police repression, and even deaths of activists and other citizens, compelled Kennedy to take a clear stand on the issue. In this landmark speech on civil rights, Kennedy presented the case for why racial discrimination had no place in American law. He also announced his plans to introduce a civil rights bill to Congress.

The speech is historically significant for several reasons. It was Kennedy’s strongest public statement to the country (and the rest of the world) on civil rights. Also, historians consider it a ground-breaking speech because Kennedy framed racial injustice as a moral or ethical issue. 

He challenged Americans to ask themselves, how do we want to be treated? What is the right way to behave towards others in a country founded on equality? Finally, the speech was a call to action; Kennedy challenged individuals to act, to treat each other with respect in their daily lives.

credit given to: http://civilrights.jfklibrary.org/

Here is part of Kennedy's speech (5.43). 

Tell us one thing Kennedy said in this video, in your own words, and do not repeat what someone else has said.