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

• Don't Make Me Over, Dionne Warwick (1962)
• You Don't Own Me, Leslie Gore (1963)
• Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind), Loretta Lynn (1966)
• Four Women, Nina Simone (1966)
• These Boots Are Made for Walkin', Nancy Sinatra (1966)
• Words of Love, The Mamas & The Papas (1966)
• Different Drum, Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Ponys (1967)
• R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha Franklin (1967)
• Women is Losers, Janis Joplin & Big Brother and the Holding Company
• I am Woman, Helen Reddy (1971)
• The Pill, Loretta Lynn (1975)

Source:allmusic.com
Songs found on Spotify

"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