In the 19th century, a combined social movement for the women’s equality took place in the United States (Elmuti et al. 2003). The first movements for women’s right started in Europe and USA in the 19th century, before this movement women did not have the right to vote. However, in 1920s women gained the right to vote (Barry, Chandler and Berg, 2007).
In 1848 the first conference organized in New York by feminist and social reformer Elizabeth Candy on the issue of women’s rights and attendee’s sentiments was on that occasion “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” (Elmuti et. Al, 2003a, pp. 40).
The second movement started in the 1960s remained continued until 1970s tackled the different issue regarding gender inequality, the term feminism was not commonly used until the 1910s and organizing and activism did not get the feminism’s label until 1960s to 1970s (Brandwein and Kemp, 2010).
The ILO has been working for women’s rights since 1919; in 1979 ILO started the campaign for women’s equal pay and all eliminations of all forms of discrimination against women in the workplace (ILO, 2014). Woman status has been improved in the western world in past 150 years, but inequality between men and women still exists. In the 1970s to 1980s, women labor force started to increase in organizations (Lorber, 2000).
Rhode (1988) argues that numerous researchers have focused on gender inequality and thereby changes came concerning social, political, cultural and also important transformations in gender roles over the last quarter century. From the early 1960s in America the legislations were passed against sex base favoritism and due to these legislations women’s representation in the workplace increased in 1960s from three to seven percent and went thirty to forty percent in the late 1980s (Rhode, 1988).
Source: Mälardalen University
Authors: Amin, Mahgol | Kubo, Tomomi