The Sixties: Women's Rights

Wilma Rudolph at the finish line during 50 yard dash at track meet in Madison Square Garden, 1961.
Author: New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.
Source: NYPL Digital, Library of Congress.

• 1960.Wilma Rudolph.First American woman to win three gold medals.
• 1960. Pilot Jerrie Cobb. First woman to qualify for NASA's astronaut program.
• 1960. Nancy Dickerson. First woman correspondent in the White House press corps.
• 1960.Primatologist Jane Goodall. Begins her work with chimpanzees.
• 1961. Nancy Grace Roman. NASA's first Chief of Astronomy.
• 1962. Eunice Kennedy Shrivers. Founds Camp Shriver, the forerunner to the Special Olympics.
• 1962. Valentina Tereshkova. First woman in space.
• 1963. Mary Kay Ash. Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
• 1962. Joan Whitney Payson. Founds the New York Mets.
• 1963. Jean Nidtech. Founder of Weight Watchers International.
• 1963. Maria Goeppert-Mayer. First American woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. 
• 1963. Navajo Annie Dodge Wauneka. First Native American awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• 1963, Julia Child begins her show, The French Chef.
• 1964. Geraldine "Jerrie" Mock. First woman to fly solo around the world.
• 1965. Vera Rubin. First woman to use the instruments at California's Palomar Observatory.
• 1965. Donna de Varona,. One of the first female network sportscaster (ABC).
• 1965. Stephanie Kwolek invents Kevlar.
• 1965. Shirley Muldowney. First woman in the supercharged gasoline category of the National Hot Rod Association.
• 1966. Sheila Scott. First round-the-world solo flight by a woman..
• 1966. That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas. One of the first sitcoms to feature a single career woman.
• 1967. Muriel Siebert. First woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 1967. Barbara Jordan. First African American woman to serve in Texas State Senate.
• 1967. Kathrine Switzer. First woman to run the Boston Marathan.
• 1967. Helen Claytor. First black president of the narional YMCA.
• 1967. Primatologist Dian Fossey. Studies mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
• 1968. Pauline Kael joins The New Yorker & goes on to become one of the most influential film critics in U.S.
• 1968. Mary Washington Wylie. First African American woman to be a CPA.
• 1968. Joyce Hoffman. First woman to surf the Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii.
• 1969. Shrley Chisholm. First African American woman elected to the U.S. House of Represntatives.
• 1969. Tania Leon. Helps found the Dance Theater of Harlem & first music director.
• 1969. Joan Ganz Cooney. Founds the Children's Television Workshop and develops Sesame Street for PBS.
• 1970. Diane Crump. First woman jockey in the Kentucky Derby.
• 1970. Ada Louis Huxtable. First Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism.
• 1971. Birutė Galdikas begins her research with orangutans in Borneo.
• 1972. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. First female tenured professor at Columbia's Law School.
• 1972. Mary Leakey uncovers world's oldest known hominid in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

• 1792. A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft published.
• 1848. Seneca Falls Convention.
• 1869. Wyoming becomes the first state to grant women the vote.
• 1889-1890. Nellie Bly goes around the world in 72 days.
• 1920. 19th Amendment to the U S Constitution grants women the right to vote.
• 1921. Equal Rights Amendment first introduced in Congress.
• 1949. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir published.
• 1960. The Birth Control Pill is approved by the FDA.
• 1961. Women Strike For Peace March: 50,000 women in 60 cities demonstrated against nuclear weapons.
• 1962. Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown published.
• 1963. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published.
• 1963. Gloria Steinem publishes her undercove expose', "A Bunny's Tale," after working as a Playboy Bunny.
• 1963. Russians put first woman in Space.
• 1963. Presidential Commission on the Status of Women issues report.
• 1963. Equal Pay Act enacted.
• 1964. Civil Rights Act (including Title VII, banning sex discrimination) enacted.
• 1965. Supreme Court rules against Connecticut's birth control ban.
• 1965. Casey Hayden and Mary King circulate a memorandum on sexism in the Civil Rights Movement.
• 1966. NOW (National Organization of Women founded.
• 1967. President Johnson signs Executive Order, requiring affirmative action be taken in hiring women and racial minorites.
• 1967. Muriel Siebert becomes the first woman with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 1968. EEOC rules sex-segregated help-wanted ads in newspapers illegal.
• 1968. Yale University admits women for the first time.
• 1968. Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.
• 1968. New York Radical Women protests outside Miss America.
• 1968. Women sewing machinists at Ford factories in UK strike for equal pay.
• 1969. National Women's Hall of Fame established in Seneca Falls, New York.
• 1969. First accredited women's studies course at Cornell was established.
• 1969. National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws founded.
• 1969. Redstockings issue the Redstockings Manifesto.
• 1970. Women's Strike for Equality in Manhattan. ("Don't iron while the strike is hot.")
• 1970, Germaine Greer publishes her controversial The Female Eunuch.
• 1970. Ruth Bader Ginsburg founded Women's Rights Law Reporter.
• 1970. Femaie workers sue Newsweek over sexual discrimination and win.
• 1970. First edition of Our Body Ourselves published.
• 1971. New York Radical Feminists Conference on Rape
• 1971. Simone de Beauvoir was one over 300 women to sign the Manifesto of the 343, demanding that abortion be legal in France.
• 1971.Reed v. Reed
• 1972. Shirley Chirsholm, first African-American candidate of a major party to run for President.
• 1972. First issue of MS Magazine.
• 1972. Education Amendments Act (including Title IX) enacted.
• 1973. "Battle of the Sexes" Tennis Match: Billy Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs
• 1972, Eisenstadt v. Baird.
• 1973. Frontiero v. Richardson.
• 1973. Roe v. Wade
• 1974. Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 enacted by Congress.

• Susan B. Anthony
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Gertrude Bell
• Margaret Bourke-White
• Vera Brittain
• Lucy Burns
• Marie Curie
• Amelia Earhart
• Rosalind Franklin
• Martha Gellhorn
• Alice Guy-Blache'
• Dorothy Kenyon
• Mary Leakey
• Margaret Mead
• Maria Montessori
• Alice Paul
• Frances Perkins
• Jeannette Rankin
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Margaret Sanger
• Bessie Smith
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• Bella Abzug
• Ti-Grace Atkinson
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Shulamith Firestone
• Muriel Fox
• Betty Friedan
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Edith Green
• Germaine Greer
• Martha Griffiths
• Casey Hayden
• Aileen Hernandez
• Erica Jong
• Billy Jean King
• Mary King
• Sheila Kitzinger
• Anne Koedt
• Kate Millet
• Pauli Murray
• Robin Morgan
• Esther Peterson
• Lynn Povich
• Marguerite Rawalt
• Alice Rossi
• Bernice Sandler
• Kathie Sarachild
• Gloria Steinem

"During WWII, four female pilots who had been ferrying new military planes to an airport in Georgia were arrested as they walked to their hotel for violating a rule against women wearing slacks on the street at night" (Collins, 2014, p. 28).

Here are just a few things women couldn't do in 1960:

1. Go into business without a husband's permission.
2. Serve on a jury.
3. Get a decent salary.
4. Have a long-term career.
5. Move up the corporate ladder.
6. Get into medical or law school.
7. Be a police officer, bus driver, or many other jobs considered unsuitable for women.
8. Be a professional female athlete.
9. Enter the Boston Marathon.
10. See female role models on television other than as someone's wife or daughter. Unless they were a teacher or secretary.
11. Fly as a single airline passenger.
12. Be a pilot.
13. Get a loan or a mortgage.
14. Rent an apartment without a male co-signer.
15. Get car insurance if she was divorced.
16. Eat alone in some restaurants or get a drink in a bar.
17. Get a no-fault divorce.

Source: When everything changed: The amazing journey of American women from 1960 to the present  Part One: 1960 by Gail Collins.

• NOW (National Organization of Women)
• National Woman's Party
• National Women's Political Caucus
• New York Radical Feminists
• Redstockings
• Women's Political Council
• Women Strike For Peace