HIST 280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Reproductive Rights
HIST 280 – Lecture 11
Civil Rights II
W’
• W’ -wave feminist movement
o Revolved around inequalities between men & women, sexual discrimination,
male domination of public & private spheres, autonomy of women including
& especially in regard to reproductive rights
• 1987 historic low of fertility rate, 1.39 children per woman (158)
• Testifies to c’
• In fact, according to estimates by Nicole Marcil-Gratton, beginning in the second
half of the 196os, almost 90% of married women in Quebec turned to one or
another method of contraception, compared with only 30% before 1946.
• Furthermore, if in 1970 the pill was the most popular means of contraception, by
the middle of the 1970s sterilization, mostly of women, became the most
widespread method, despite being almost irreversible.
• The liberalization of abortion in 1969 also contributed to reducing the number of
THE FEMINIST REVOLUTION children per woman, with the proportion of
13% · 1976, and 2.8% ten years
later.
• Another significant phenomenon during the period was that the proportion of
children born to unmarried mothers increased considerably, climbing from 4% to
38% between the early 196os and the end of the 1989s as Quebec couples
tended to prefer de facto relationships to marriage.
• Until the 198os many men considered it was not their place to cook meals, do the
laundry, or supervise their children's homework, tasks they considered typically
feminine and a threat to their masculinity.
o A fringe of the feminist movement actually called for housewives to
receive a wage so that their contribution to the national economy would
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