In 1963, a 20-year-old American woman could not expect to run a marathon or play varsity sports in college. She could only dream of becoming a doctor, scientist, news reporter, lawyer, labor leader, factory foreman, college professor, or elected official. She couldn’t get a prescription for birth control, have a legal abortion, come out as a lesbian, or prosecute her rapist. She almost certainly knew nothing about clitoral orgasm or women’s history. She could not get a credit card, let alone a mortgage, without the imprimatur of her husband or father. By 1973, the doors to these options and opportunities had cracked open, and a woman turning 20 in that year faced a future of possibilities that no generation before had ever experienced.
The following vignettes from that transformative decade shed light on the many different faces of the women’s liberation movement in America.
