Timeline of Gendered Movements

Overview

If there is one important lesson you can learn as social scientists it is this: historical events never appear in isolation, but instead, are connected to previous events. In this assignment, you are going to construct a timeline in which you show how different events of the women’s movement are interconnected.

For example, could you imagine the federal approval of the pill in 1960 without the previous ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920? To what extent did the 19th century writings of Susan B Anthony influence the 1960s work of Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem? Did women’s decade-long involvement in the abolitionist movement influence other causes that women fought for after slavery was abolished? The questions you can ask are endless!

Assignment

This assignment comes in two parts.

Part 1: Create a timeline that covers at least four major events of the women’s movement. These do not necessarily have to be from the 1960s, and they can be within a relatively short timeframe (spanning just a few years), or a very long time frame (spanning a couple of centuries). It is entirely up to you! You can find templates for timelines online, or you create your own timeline in Word (Click on Insert, choose Illustrations, SmartArt for templates).

Part 2: Write a brief, 300-500 word commentary that explains how each of these four events that you have mentioned in your timeline is interrelated. In this commentary, you may write about how one event led into the next, and so on, or you may write about how one very significant event led to the other three. The way that you describe the interrelatedness of these events is up to you, but you must demonstrate that you understand how interconnected they are.