Screen News Digest: Struggle Of Women's Rights (1972)

More intimate view of world leaders past and present. >> [music] >> Industrial National, a good neighbor you can bank on just about everywhere in Rhode Island, brings the Screen News Digest, a chapter of living [music] history, into your classroom. >> [bell] >> Well, I suppose the women's liberation movement totally as I understand it. Some of it I think is far out. And I think that those people who are far out do it deserves to it. My opinion of women's lib I'm against women's lib basically. I feel that uh that women are better off at home, especially the economic conditions the way they are today. I don't want to be liberated. I like being a mother and a housewife. Makes a lot of sense to me because in a lot of cases women just aren't given much respect, you know? I think it's great and I think it's getting a lot of women together and getting them out of the houses. No rights. I wouldn't give them a break. Well, I you know, I really strongly support it. Why should the woman always cook and why she always, you know, wash dishes? You know what I mean? Men could do that. Well, I'm not belonging to it. >> That's all right. And I I I'm I'm I'm very sorry. I don't like it. >> [music] [music] >> America at the turn of the century. Women at work. Finding on the assembly line, as in the home, that a woman's work is never done. Having undergone an industrial revolution, America is about to experience a female [music] rebellion. The seeds of the struggle have been sown by a number of women, among them America's pioneering suffragette Susan B. Anthony. The first woman licensed to practice [music] medicine in America, Elizabeth Blackwell. >> [music] >> The first woman nominated for president, Virginia Woodhull, in 1872. The first woman licensed to fly, Ruth Law. >> [music] >> And Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who leads the fight in the early 1900s [music] for the same right to vote that had been granted to male slaves 50 years before. World War I spurs the suffragette movement. In this time of global crisis and national emergency, women come forward to serve in hospitals overseas. >> [music] >> Just the sight of a female face and the sound of a female voice make the war and the fighting seem very far away. >> [music] >> In America, the suffragettes take to the streets to dramatize their struggle and are abused, arrested, and even imprisoned for up to 5 months. >> [music] >> Undaunted, [music] the insufferable suffragettes vow to fill the jails, and they almost do. >> [music] >> Congress finally passes the 19th Amendment, but it still must be approved by an electorate of men only. The suffragette bandwagon, however, is picking up momentum. [music] The press and most important, the government, are openly sympathetic. The amendment is ratified in state after state. On August 26th, 1920, the 19th Amendment becomes law. The long struggle for women's suffrage is summed up by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. The organized woman movement dates from 1848, when a convention to consider the rights of women was held in Seneca Falls, New York. The committee drafting the list of women's wrongs found her grievances against the government of men to be the same number that American men had had against King George. It took George Washington 6 years to rectify men's grievances by war, but it took 72 years to establish women's rights by law. American politics takes on a new look as tens of millions of women exercise their right to vote. Jeannette Rankin of Montana already has served in the House of Representatives. And now Wyoming voters elect the nation's first woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in 1925. >> [music] >> 7 years later, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas becomes the first woman elected to the Senate and the first member of her sex to preside over a session of the upper house. >> [music] >> In 1933, Frances Perkins is named Secretary of Labor, the first woman to hold cabinet rank. Gertrude Ederle symbolizes women's emancipation in the world of sport. >> [music] >> Plunging into the water at Dover, the American teenager becomes only the sixth person and first woman to swim the English Channel. >> [music] >> There are new horizons beckoning women in every form of human endeavor, >> [music] >> and Lady Lindy, Amelia Earhart, blazes a trail of pioneering flights. [music] On the lighter side, [music] the weaker sex sets out to prove its prowess on the football field. The results are [music] entertaining, if not exactly professional. >> [music] [music] >> On the gridiron at least, it's still a man's world. >> [music] >> America is dry. The manufacture or sale of intoxicating beverages is prohibited by the 18th Amendment, and many a disciple of Carrie Nation is determined to keep it that way. Been arrested 59 times for fighting booze with Carrie Nation's hatchet. The last time they took me to jail, they carried me and put me in the police car with my feet carried me across the street my feet higher than my head. And if I hadn't had my britches on, you'd have thought I was a flapper. >> [music] >> But Prohibition is repealed in 1933, and Americans again roll out the barrel. >> [music] >> In 1918, a woman being served in a New York bar made newspaper headlines. Now it doesn't even rate a stay. >> [music] >> 1941, America [music] goes to war. Fathers, husbands, sons, and boyfriends answer the call to the colors, and women are in demand as never before on the home front. >> [music] >> More than 200,000 women enlist in auxiliary branches of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Serving their country, giving their all. 6 million new women workers join the production line, doing jobs [music] once considered too difficult or dirty for them. >> [music] >> The hand that rocks the cradle is proving in all kinds of volunteer work to be versatile indeed. >> [music] >> Wherever they serve, whatever they do, women provide a valuable contribution to the defeat of the Axis powers. >> [music] >> 1945, Japan surrenders, World War II ends. Women have been further liberated. Better educated, more independent in thoughts [music] and actions, they reach out for new careers and greater participation in all walks of American life. >> [music] >> By 1970, women make up 37% of the nation's working force. >> [music] >> But, 50 years after the adoption [music] of the 19th Amendment, they still find employment opportunities limited and advancement [music] difficult. Women complain of being looked on and evaluated by sex [music] and not ability. A new movement for women's liberation is launched, [music] and once again, protesters take to the street to support their demands for total freedom economically, politically, socially. [music] Congress responds, passing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing [music] women equality of rights under the law. Within 2 years, it is ratified [music] by 20 of the 38 states needed for adoption. >> [music] >> Business and industry open new doors and provide greater opportunities for placement and advancement [music] as the number of working women continues to grow. >> [music] >> Women are no longer miss or misses, but Ms. Capital M, small S, period. >> [music] >> In politics, women's lib secures a greater voice in picking candidates and shaping policy at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. >> [music] >> Betty Friedan is among the delegates to the Democratic convention. Representative [music] Bella Abzug of New York also attends, along with a leading spokeswoman of the women's lib movement, Gloria Steinem. >> [music] >> Youngest delegate is Julie Price of Bottlesville, Oklahoma. Seen here with Speaker Carl Albert of the House of Representatives. Julie, age 18, was one of the first girl pages to serve in the United States Senate. >> [music] >> History is made when Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to the House, becomes the first black woman nominated to run for president. Ms. Chisholm receives more than 100 votes. >> [music] >> With women making up more than half of the nation's population, a veteran lawmaker sums up the challenges and opportunities in public [music] service. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. Don't let anyone say that there isn't any place for women. There's a place for women in business, in professions, in politics, in government of all kinds. And this country is full of highly qualified women, both Democrats and Republicans. All they have to do is to make the effort and do their utmost to be qualified for that which they seek. And then go after it and serve as they would like to be served, not as someone else tells them to serve. >> [music] >> To intrigue your interest in the world around us, to stimulate and to inform, to better prepare you for the future [music] and for the changes all tomorrows bring. Industrial National, a good neighbor you can bank on, [music] has offices serving the entire state as presented the Screen News Digest as a public [music] service. >> [music]