Women's Rights 1848

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On a separate note, in 1969, instead of the male filing for divorce in a marriage and that being the end of it, California was the first to decide that a divorce should be an agreement from both of the spouses, thus they adopted a “no fault” divorce law. Sixteen years later in 1985, all fifty states had a law that was the same concept. Along with this divorce agreement, land owned by the married couple would now be split equally according to these laws.

On June 23rd, 1972, sex discrimination laws started to become active in the school systems. The Education Amendment directly states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” These include school sports, clubs, etc. This law means any student can participate in anything they’d like to, no matter their sex. After this law was put into action, the participation of women in extracurricular sports and school athletic clubs statistically went up… drastically.

One year later in 1973, it became legal for women to get abortions. Many states had previously had laws prohibiting abortion, but the Supreme Court made it legal which made those laws ineffective.

Nebraska made the first marital rape law become effective, which meand a husband can no longer rape his wife even though they are married. In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed which does not allow employers to refuse a pregnant woman the job, based on the sole reason that she is pregnant. Employers are prohibited of firing any employee that becomes pregnant, and cannot make a pregnant woman take time off of the job if she is healthy enough and willing to continue working.

In 1986, sexual harassment was categorized as illegal job discrimination. In 1994, a Violence Against Women Act was created and increases the money and services that are donated towards victims of sexual harassment, rape, and domestic violence. It also makes federal consequences for sex offenders increasingly more strict, and gives different and unique special training to police officers that may be in the situation where they have to put a stop to these crimes.

In 1996, the Supreme Court changed an all-boy school to a boys and girls school with the incentive that if they wanted to continue receiving money from the government to support this school, they have to agree to the changes that they are attempting to make.

The evolution of women’s rights has been drastic throughout the years. Many different laws have been passed, changes have been made, and amendments have been added.