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515 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (1991)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0515 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE

This is the fifth volume of The Annals devoted entirely to the status of
women, and the first since the position of women around the world was
examined in 1968. The new feminist movement was in a very early stage of
development at that time. Now, just five months from the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the official birth of the National Organization for Women, the
particular focus of this issue is a tacit recognition that, for the past generation,
the status of American women and the feminist movement have been inexo-
rably linked.
Over the past 25 years, women in the United States have made remarkable
advances in the professions, politics, the workplace, education, athletics,
organized religion, and even in the family, as domestic role sharing and
female sexuality have gained new recognition and legitimacy. Women are
beginning to dominate the labor pool, and women's issues are far more likely
to gain attention from policymakers. Frequently, it has been the feminist
movement that has either directly initiated these changes or played a cata-
lytic role through its advocacy of equality in education, employment, and law.
Feminism has transformed our language and has itself become a house-
hold word. Sexism is universally recognized as a form of bigotry. The once-
closeted topics of rape and wife beating have entered general discourse as
sexual assault and domestic violence. The special needs of displaced home-
makers have been given voice. The women's movement, its organizations, and
its literature have become institutionalized. According to a 1986 Gallup poll,
56 percent of women consider themselves to be feminists, compared with 28
percent who reject that label, 4 percent who identify with antifeminists, and
12 percent who are uncertain.'
Despite these positive indicators, and especially after the final defeat of
the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982, the popular media have been filled
with predictions of the demise and disintegration of the women's movement.
At best, it is argued, gender equality has been achieved, and feminism has
become an anachronism, irrelevant to and no longer needed by women. At
worst, the movement is portrayed as having seriously harmed women by
ignoring the needs of pink-collar, wage-earning mothers in its support for
women in careers and the professions. In particular, the unforeseen deleteri-
ous consequences for women of no-fault divorce, the loss of permanent
alimony, and gender-neutral child custody laws have led to the charge that
women have been saddled with equal responsibility in society without full
equality and the support network necessary for fulfilling this new role. The
women's movement has also been accused of encouraging women to postpone
1. How Women View Work, Motherhood, and Feminism, Newsweek, 31 Mar. 1986, p. 51.
8

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