The Second Wave of Feminism was a 1960s-1980s movement in which feminists mobilized for legal, economic, and social equality, moving beyond the suffrage focus of the First Wave to fight for workplace equality, reproductive rights, and an end to traditional gender roles (APUSH Topics 8.11 and 8.14).
The Second Wave of Feminism was the burst of feminist activism that ran from the early 1960s into the 1980s. The First Wave had won the vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920, but legal and economic inequality stuck around. Second Wave feminists went after the rest of it. They targeted workplace discrimination, unequal pay, reproductive rights, and the cultural expectation that a woman's place was in the home.
The movement's unofficial starting gun was Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963), which named the quiet dissatisfaction of suburban housewives and argued women deserved fulfillment beyond domestic roles. Friedan then co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 to push for legal and economic equality. In the CED's words, feminist activists "mobilized behind claims for legal, economic, and social equality" (KC-8.2.II.A), and feminists in the counterculture rejected their parents' values and pushed for changes in sexual norms (KC-8.3.II.B.i). The movement scored real wins, including Title IX (1972) and Roe v. Wade (1973), but it also triggered a powerful conservative backlash that killed the Equal Rights Amendment.
This term lives in Unit 8 (Cold War and Social Change, 1945-1980), specifically Topics 8.11 and 8.14. It directly supports learning objective APUSH 8.11.A, which asks you to explain how and why various groups responded to calls for the expansion of civil rights from 1960 to 1980. Feminism is one of the CED's named movements there, alongside LGBTQ+, Latino, American Indian, and Asian American activism. It also feeds APUSH 8.14.A and 8.14.B, because the Second Wave is half of the story of the 1970s culture clash. The other half is the conservative and religious backlash against it (KC-8.2.III.E and KC-8.3.II.C). For the exam's social structures theme, the Second Wave is your go-to evidence that the rights revolution of the 1960s spread far beyond Black civil rights, and that every expansion of rights produced an organized response.
Keep studying APUSH Unit 8
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Unit 8)
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banned employment discrimination based on sex, not just race. When the government dragged its feet on enforcing the sex provision, Friedan and others founded NOW in 1966 to demand it. The Black civil rights movement basically handed Second Wave feminists both a legal tool and an organizing playbook.
19th Amendment and First Wave Feminism (Unit 7)
This is your continuity-and-change pairing across periods. The First Wave ended when suffrage was won in 1920; the Second Wave picked up forty years later arguing that voting alone never delivered equality. A question asking about change over time in women's rights wants you to contrast these two waves.
Title IX (Unit 8)
Title IX (1972) banned sex discrimination in federally funded education and is one of the Second Wave's most concrete legislative wins. Use it as specific evidence when an FRQ asks for the effects of feminist activism, since it shows the movement actually changed federal law, not just attitudes.
Rise of the New Right and religious conservatism (Units 8-9)
The Second Wave provoked its own counter-movement. Conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly organized against the Equal Rights Amendment and helped defeat it, and evangelical churches grew more politically active partly in response to feminism and Roe v. Wade (KC-8.3.II.C). You can't fully explain Reagan-era conservatism in Unit 9 without the feminist movement it was reacting to.
Multiple-choice questions usually anchor this term to a source. Expect an excerpt from The Feminine Mystique or NOW's 1966 Statement of Purpose, then a question asking what movement or trend it reflects, what Friedan's goal was, or how it connects to other 1960s activism. For short-answer and essay questions, the Second Wave is high-value evidence for prompts on the expansion of civil rights from 1960 to 1980 (LO 8.11.A) or the cultural conflicts of the 1970s. No released FRQ has used the phrase verbatim, but a continuity-and-change essay on women's rights across the 20th century practically writes itself with the two waves. The strongest move is pairing causes (Friedan, the civil rights model, Title VII) with effects (NOW, Title IX, Roe v. Wade, and the conservative backlash against the ERA).
The First Wave (roughly Seneca Falls in 1848 through 1920) had one central goal, winning the vote, and it succeeded with the 19th Amendment. The Second Wave (1960s-1980s) assumed the vote and went after everything else, including equal pay, workplace access, reproductive rights, and traditional gender roles. Quick test for the exam: if the source is about suffrage, it's First Wave; if it's about jobs, family roles, or sexuality, it's Second Wave.
The Second Wave of Feminism (early 1960s-1980s) pushed for legal, economic, and social equality, going beyond the First Wave's focus on suffrage.
Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) sparked the movement by arguing women deserved fulfillment beyond traditional domestic roles, and Friedan co-founded NOW in 1966 to fight for enforcement of equal rights.
Concrete wins included Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964), Title IX (1972), and Roe v. Wade (1973).
The movement borrowed strategies and legal tools from the Black civil rights movement, making it part of the broader rights revolution the CED covers in Topic 8.11.
Second Wave feminism triggered a conservative and evangelical backlash in the 1970s, most visibly the campaign that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, which sets up the rise of the New Right in Unit 9.
On the exam, use the two waves as a continuity-and-change pairing for women's rights across the 20th century.
It was the feminist movement of the early 1960s through the 1980s that fought for workplace equality, reproductive rights, and an end to traditional gender roles. In APUSH it falls in Unit 8, Topics 8.11 and 8.14, as part of the broader expansion of civil rights from 1960 to 1980.
The First Wave (1848-1920) centered on winning the vote and ended with the 19th Amendment. The Second Wave assumed voting rights and targeted economic and social inequality instead, like job discrimination, unequal pay, and reproductive rights.
No. Congress passed the ERA in 1972, but a conservative counter-movement led by Phyllis Schlafly stopped it from getting ratified by enough states. That defeat is key exam evidence for the 1970s clash between liberals and conservatives over social issues.
Published in 1963, it argued that suburban domestic life left many women unfulfilled and that women deserved opportunities beyond the home. It is widely credited with launching the Second Wave, and AP questions often pair it with NOW's 1966 Statement of Purpose.
Several forces converged. The Black civil rights movement provided a model and legal tools like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Feminine Mystique gave the discontent a name, and counterculture feminists were rejecting their parents' social values (KC-8.3.II.B.i).