For equality to be achieved it was argued that women must be able to control their reproductive capacities. The contraceptive pill had only become available in the 1960s. It did bring some improvement as it did not rely on the male partner’s willingness to cooperate. However, it was not always 100 per cent effective and was not without side effects. Also access to the pill could be difficult for younger unmarried women. Given the lack of sex education in most Western nations, it was often the younger women who were most in need of contraception but most ignorant about it and often barred access to it by laws restricting access to older and often to married women (Goldin and Katz, 2002). Problems with the effectiveness and availability of contraception, the dangers of illegal abortions, along with the likelihood of women being coerced into sex, or raped, were key reasons why feminists argued that it was crucial for women to have access to legal abortion. Most importantly, however, feminists argued that women simply had a right to control their own bodies (for example, see Firestone, 1972; Greer, 1970; Millet, 1972/1970). Women could not really be liberated until they were free from the fear of unwanted pregnancies.
The fight for abortion was hugely controversial. Abortion was illegal in many countries, or only available in cases where the mother might be in danger of losing her life if the pregnancy continued. Conservative groups championed the rights of the unborn child, though they were often spectacularly unconcerned about what happened to unwanted children once they were born and had little to say about the rights of women. One of the crucial landmarks in feminist struggles for women’s right to abortions was the United States’ decriminalizing of abortion, which came about through a case famously known as Roe versus Wade. A single pregnant woman given the alias Jane Roe lodged a case against the state of Texas, where the Attorney General at the time was Henry Wade. Ms Roe challenged the Texas laws which made abortion a crime. The court eventually decided in her favour and declared that the Texas State laws, and by implication other similar laws in other states, were unconstitutional in depriving her of her right to personal liberty as established under the
Fourteenth Amendment (Supreme Court of the United States, 1973).This secured women’s right to abortion in America, although that right has continued to be contested, and many states have recently returned to heavy restrictions against abortion (Wind, 2006). Elsewhere abortions remained illegal or exceedingly difficult to obtain in the 1970s. In New Zealand, for example, the process of getting a legal abortion was so difficult that feminists started Sisters Overseas Service to send women to Australia (Dann, 1985:61—3). Fighting for abortion rights was therefore a crucial part of the feminist movement in most nations. However, for many black women and women of colour, obtaining abortions was not necessarily the issue. Racist attitudes and policies often meant that black women’s fertility was heavily controlled. Black women in America and elsewhere have had to endure enforced sterilization, experimental contraceptive drugs and other efforts to prevent them having children (Roberts, 1997).Yet though the specific problems differed, feminists argued that they all illustrated the need for the control of women’s fertility to be in women’s own hands.
Demands for a woman’s right to control her fertility were part of wider feminist concerns with a woman’s right to control her body. This also encompassed issues of sexuality, sexual harassment, and physical violence against women. One area of feminist protest was around sexual objectification of women. One of the famous early feminist protests was against the Miss America beauty pageant. Feminists outside the pageant venue staged a symbolic protest whereby they put items of clothing that restrict women, such as brassieres, girdles, and high heels into metal drums. The plan was to set fire to the items, but the fire department would not let them. Nevertheless the media latched on to the protest and that is how feminists became labelled as ‘bra-burners’ even though the match was never lit (Echols, 1989: 94). Sexist advertising was also targeted, along with more serious pornography, as promoting images of women as always sexually accessible to men. This was an expression of and encouraged varying degrees of violence against women (Kelly, 1988). That force entered into relationships between women and men was one indication that power was operating.