By Alex Miller/reporter
For Women’s History Month, South Campus hosted Makers — Women Who Made America, March 25.
The documentary in the series included an important woman in the women’s rights movement.
“We’re getting complaints everywhere on the issue of race,” Aileen Hernandez, former commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in the documentary. “Nobody had done anything on the issue of discrimination against women.”
Realizing this, Hernandez quit her position, teamed up with other female lawyers and created the National Organization for Women.
Black women were confused on how to join the movement, said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. They felt it centered on middle-class white women.
Eventually, she said, Gloria Steinem became the new face of the feminist movement. Steinem founded Ms. Magazine, whose purpose was to get the truth out about women and give them stories that related to them.
Title IX and Roe v. Wade were seen as two of the most important milestones in the women’s rights movement, Norton said.
Title IX required most universities to expand their sports programs for women if they wanted to continue to receive federal funds.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to terminate a pregnancy in the first three months was between a woman and her doctor — not the government.
