Discussion questions (answer one). Be sure to relate your answers to the text in Readings on Citizenship Download Readings on Citizenship(pp. 46-51).
1. In her 1970 testimony before Congress, Gloria Steinem lays out the reasons for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would require completely equal treatment between men and women under federal law. One of her most striking claims is that women’s liberation is also men’s liberation: under such a law, men would no long hold the position of power that had corrupted them for so long. So is that true? Is feminism and the fight for women’s rights mutually beneficial for men and women alike? How much alike would men and women need to be for both to be liberated? Would it only mean a few specific rights, or a kind of legal androgyny?
2. Phyllis Schlafly agreed with Gloria Steinem that the central question for modern feminism was the dignity of women. The claim that such dignity came from radical equality with men, however, was where she disagreed: the woman’s dignity was found in womanhood, and the full splendor of femininity, Schlafly thought; in contrast, the advocates of women’s liberation wanted to make women so much like men that they denied that womanhood. So is Schlafly correct? What if all the elements of womanhood are in fact products of “the feminine mystique,” and the only way toward women’s liberation really is total equality with men? On the other hand, can feminism go so far that it stops being feminine?
