Thousands of women gathered today
as a symbolic torch marked the beginning
of a national women's conference.
All: [ chanting ] Join us now!
We think there's gonna be a struggle,
and we don't think that men are going to give up
their power and privilege easily.
American women are the most privileged group of all time,
and they're still not satisfied.
[ all chanting ]
the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified.
[ cheers ]
Bryant: I love homosexuals, if you can believe it.
I love them enough to tell them the truth.
Approving of sexual perversion --
what a disgrace!
Duke: A Constitutional amendment appears on the way
proclaiming women have all the same rights
as that other sex.
♪♪
There are a lot of women in this country
who feel that they're being pushed around,
and they've become very vocal.
They call themselves The women's liberation movement,
and we have two representatives from that movement here tonight.
They're both writers. Susan Brownmiller,
had a piece in the Sunday Times a couple weeks back,
and Sally Kempton.
[ applause ]
Cavett: I think I had every women's lib star on the show,
once with Hugh Hefner of Playboy.
That was exciting.
What do you think men are doing wrong?
They oppress us as women.
They won't let us be.
And Hugh Hefner is my enemy.
Oh, is Hef your enemy? [ laughs ]
We really set you up tonight, didn't we?
Hefner: I'm more in sympathy
than, perhaps, you know, the girls realize with --
Brownmiller: women. Women. I'm sorry.
Yes, I'm 35.
...than the ladies realize.
I've used "girls" referring to women of all ages.
Kempton: You should stop.
[ cheers and applause ]
Cavett: They came on I would say,
they might admit, to gut Hugh Hefner.
The day that you are willing to come out here
with a cottontail attached to your rear end...
[ laughter ]
Brownmiller: Women had so much to talk about
because the dialogue on so many of our issues
was controlled by men.
Cavett: There's some of you who reject men altogether.
They won't sit in the same room with a man if they can avoid it.
Are you two of those ladies?
We think there's gonna be a struggle,
and we don't think that men are going to give up
their power and privilege easily.
[ indistinct chanting ]
[ cheers and applause ]
Bailey: The women's movement, the sexual revolution,
the gay liberation movement
all had their origins before the '70s,
but the '70s were when Americans
had to make sense of them in their daily lives
and in their institutions and communities.
Women's liberation is only one of a number of groups,
ranging from stridently militant to traditionally feminist,
who feel that women haven't yet won their rights.
They don't constitute a majority of women,
but their numbers are growing.
Smith: Today all over this nation, the women's liberation movement
is marking the 50th anniversary of women gaining the vote
by demonstrations and strikes.
Woman: [ chanting ] Join us now! Sisterhood is powerful!
Join us now!
O'Neill: The National Organization for Women
called a nationwide women's strike.
There was a big poster that said,
"Don't iron while the strike is hot."
[ laughs ]
Bailey: It was meant to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the granting of suffrage
to American women.
It followed up on almost a decade of protest
and movements in American society.
This strike has put our demands on the political agenda,
and they are there to stay, and they will be given priority,
and it has shown us our power
to achieve the changes that are needed.
The next step is from America, the world.
It was a Betty Friedan operation.
It was definitely that.
Collins: It was a great tribute to her,
and it just spontaneously turned out
to be the best thing ever.
They have three demands,
according to the ladies who are organizing the strike --
free childcare centers running 24 hours a day,
equal education and employment, and free abortions on request.
Woman: [ chanting ] Free abortions on demand!
It was a wonderful, consciousness-raising moment
to demonstrate the seriousness, the rage.
It was a revolutionary high. It was very moving.
Smith: At the Western White House,
President Nixon said we should all recognize
that women have a wider role to play in this nation.
But on the Senate floor,
West Virginia's Jennings Randolph
characterized Women's Lib as, I quote him,
"a small band of braless bubbleheads."
I mean, you have to understand how backwards we were
on issues involving women's rights then.
Women couldn't sign a loan.
They had to get their husband's approval.
Women weren't allowed in the military academies.
I mean, this was ridiculous.
Well, I think the point is now to inform other women
that the Women's Liberation Organization exists.
And other women will realize that they're not alone.
Morgan: First step was consciousness raising --
daring to articulate the problem.
Second step -- people begin to write about it.
And then you have lawsuits,
and then you eventually have legislation.
In almost every congress since 1923,
there has been proposed a Constitutional Amendment
to guarantee equal rights for women.
Well, today, it finally won approval,
clearing the Senate by vote of 84 to 8.
The measure now goes to the states for ratification.
Woman: [ chanting ] E.R.A. Now!
O'Neill: The Equal Rights Amendment says:
"Equal rights under the law shall not be abridged
by the United States or by any state
on account of sex."
Male opponents in the Senate called it the unisex amendment.
They said it would destroy
traditional man/woman relationships,
weaken family ties, increase homosexuality.
Holtzman: The Equal Rights Amendment had passed, first of all,
because there was a very powerful Congresswoman,
Martha Griffiths in Michigan,
who was strongly in favor of that.
Secondly, because the Republican Party
wasn't opposed to it.
There wasn't a political opposition,
There was more cultural opposition.
When the Equal Rights Amendment was adopted,
it had a seven-year time frame for ratification.
Otherwise, there would be no Equal Rights Amendment.
Mudd: This amendment could have wide repercussions --
affecting the military draft,
a father's responsibility to support his children,
sex crimes, and protective labor legislation.
I think the very term "E.R.A."
Started opening up a look at everything.
It was sort of like ripping off the lid and saying,
"well, are there equal wages?
Are we getting equal admission into college?
Every issue started being looked at,
all kind of under the banner of E.R.A.
President Nixon today signed into law
a far-reaching $21 billion education bill,
which will support educational projects
from kindergarten all the way to graduate school.
Title IX is simply educational equality.
It simply says that any educational institution
that receives federal funding
must provide a fully equal educational experience
and educational opportunities to girls and women
the same as for boys and men.
King: I used to always ask myself,
why don't we have more women doctors and lawyers?
Well, because I didn't realize
we had gender quotas in our classrooms.
So, Title IX just blasted open the doors
as far as opportunities, access,
all the things that allow people to be the best they can be.
[ cheers and applause ]
Hot damn!
What was included in there that nobody had thought
was a huge deal going on the way in was sports.
The idea that suddenly, little girls would grow up
with the expectation that they were gonna play Little League,
that they were gonna be stars on their team,
that they were maybe gonna get a scholarship to college
based on their skills, it was huge.
People in this country seem to be saying
that women, because of their sex, ought not be prohibited
from doing anything that men are allowed to do.
Sanders: Many members of Women's Lib feel exploited by men,
and they startled wall street one day
by an exhibition in which roles were reversed.
Woman: Look at the legs on that one!
Oh, I'm so turned on.
Those pants, they just bring out your best.
Keep your best leg forward, sweetie! [ smooches ]
Woman: We're trying to point out
what it feels like to be whistled at, put down,
constantly, sexually, every time we walk down the street.
Woman #2: And they tell us that we're supposed to think
that it's a compliment.
Hey, hey!
Bailey: When someone asked a woman in the 1970s,
"Are you liberated?"
What they meant in general was not,
"Do you believe that individuals should be free
to choose their own path in life?"
It usually meant, "Do you have sex?"
And often, it meant, "Will you have sex with me?"
What kind of relationship between the sexes
do you advocate?
Is love out? Is sex out?
Unless men change, it's going to be very soon.
People seem to conflate
the sexual revolution and women's liberation,
because people tend to conflate sex and women.
And for people, read men.
Now, I would like to ask Germaine Greer,
what would it be like
to have the initiation and consummation of a sexual contact
so that now we can get down to the particulars of the evening,
what would it be like after liberation, ideally?
Why do you ask this question?
[ laughter ]
Because I don't find it anywhere in the literature.
Why do you expect to find it anywhere in the literature?
I really don't know what women are asking for.
Now, suppose I wanted to give it to them.
Whatever it is they're asking for, honey, it's not for you.
Now... [ laughter ]
I think if you didn't look at the women's movement favorably,
it'd be very easy -- in fact, you might be inclined --
to lump it in with sexual revolution,
as saying the agenda is the same
because then it just makes women
look sort of unstructured and wanton
and running around, just looking for the next person to bed.
But those two things were very, very different.
We are too busy doing the work we have to do
to fight with the men who disagree with us.
And most of us believe that,
sooner or later, they'll come along with us anyway
because they won't have any choice.
[ cheers ]
Collins: If women were going to have equal rights,
if women were going to have an equal place in society,
one of the first things that was gonna have to go
was the double standard
that women were supposed to be virgins,
pure and chaste when they got married.
But men were supposed to fool around
and have lots of sexual experiences.
Twenty-five years ago, most young women
were expected to be virgins before they got married.
If they were not, it was considered a stigma.
Now today, you're saying there's been a change,
which means, what,
that many more young women
are sleeping with someone before marriage?
-That's undoubtedly, yeah. -How many more?
120 percent more, to be exact.
In many ways, women benefited from the sexual revolution.
There's just no doubt about that.
The idea that it's okay
for women to explore their sexual fantasies
and explore their sexual desires.
I think that the sexual revolution
had a place in making sex more casual
so that people had more sexual partners.
And sex could have a purpose
other than procreation or reproduction.
Hi, Sally!
Oh, it's nice to see you. How are you?
Fine.
Bailey: There was a lot of sexual experimentation in the 1970s.
And one place that that experimentation took place
was within marriage,
by trading partners, having group sex,
and rethinking what has become, in their mind,
a kind of rigid monogamy that killed pleasure.
Allyn: In Southern California,
a young couple were exploring with ideas about open marriage.
And they created a retreat for other people to come
and explore those ideas, as well.
Man: I wasn't sure
if you wanted me walking around without clothes on.
Woman: That's funny. I felt the same way.
[ laughter ]
Talese: You stored away your clothes,
and you lived from morning, noon, and night as a nudist.
And people, if they wished,
could indulge in intercourse together.
[ indistinct chatter ]
a lot of people I haven't seen for awhile.
The idea of this place,
as espoused by John Williamson and his wife Barbara,
was to try to eliminate jealousy
and sexual possessiveness in marriage.
They had a lofty notion of what they were doing.
Williamson: Monogamy as we know it, marriage as we know it,
the American family as we know it,
it's not working, and it hasn't worked.
And it'll work even less in the future.
Talese: Barbara wanted women to have
as many opportunities for sexual experience,
other people outside of their spouse, as men did.
And this was going to be
one of the tenets of the Sandstone experience --
equality with the sexes.
Woman: I don't feel that I'm in love with him.
It used to be that I really had to feel really close to him,
and I really loved him.
But not anymore. You don't have to.
Man: A lot of times,
I really wanted to have a relationship with a woman,
but I was so... I always told him, "go ahead."
"Go ahead," but I never really believed her.
Dana: I remember sitting there saying,
this guy, if they ever went to Sandstone,
she'd like it, and he'd hate it
because he would feel a little disempowered,
and she would feel empowered.
Woman: I met a lot of nice people,
and because I didn't have that inhibition,
I left all the doors open
for as many nice experiences as possible.
Were you ready to leave Betty,
once she came home and said what she'd done?
She said, "Well, this is what I want," so...
They learned so much about themselves, their partners,
negotiating conflict, the power of sexuality.
The problem was that there was something
deeply built into us biologically
that, when we really cared about somebody,
we started becoming territorial.
Williamson: Tom, what you're doing right now is you're saying,
"Hey, my wife is [bleep] me over."
You're the great state. Do something about it.
Farrell: Resolving the threats led to two things happening --
almost everybody who had an open marriage
said in retrospect, "I am so glad I had it,
and I will never do it again."
Brinkley: The Supreme Court ruled today
that if anyone wants to read dirty books
or look at dirty movies in his own home,
he may do so, and it's none of the law's business.
The case came from Georgia, where the police charged a man
with possessing pornographic movies.
The law still may regulate
the spread of obscenity in public,
but the court said a person has every right
to satisfy his intellectual and emotional needs
in the privacy of his own home.
Brinkley: Up until Stanley vs. Georgia,
pornography was something that was really undercover.
Allyn: Pornography is obviously a loaded term, right?
One person's erotica is another person's pornography.
But, in the late '50s and in the early '60s,
the Supreme Court kept narrowing further and further
the definition of what is obscene.
So by the late '60s, you're seeing books, magazines,
films that were pretty sexually explicit.
And people wondered, are we headed for a downfall?
Just before the last election,
President Johnson appointed a special commission
to look into the problem of pornography
and its impact on the American people.
The Republicans moved into the White House,
but the commission went right on working.
The Presidential commission was a group of censors
who believed the devil had penetrated
too deeply into our society.
Herman: The basic finding of the commission
was that an analysis of all available studies
shows no correlation
between the availability of such sex-oriented materials
and the rate of sex crimes or sexual pathology.
Says the report, patrons of such places
may be characterized as
"predominantly white, middle class,
middle aged married males
dressed in business suits or neat casual attire."
When Johnson set up this commission,
he really was trying to produce a view
that said pornography's bad.
In studying the issue,
they changed their view of pornography and said
it's just not that big a deal.
Geer: Some enterprising publisher
may combine the 874 pages of the commission's report
and the 59 pages of the dissenting report
and put them on the market in paperback form.
Controversial as these reports are at the moment,
that volume may sell.
But it won't be nearly as spicy
as the material readily available now
from your friendly neighborhood adult bookstore.
When you look back at the early '70s,
you really do see a major cultural shift
in terms of the availability of pornography.
Female reporter: The cinematic subculture boils down to one thing --
big business at the box office.
According to the adult film association of America,
two and a half million people
slip into darkened, X-rated theaters.
That's 20 percent of all moviegoers.
The biggest film, by all standards,
is "Deep Throat."
Levine: "Deep Throat" was one of those hard-core porn films
that became a sensation.
It became a movie
that people talked to their friends and neighbors
about going to see.
They have already, in Albany, Georgia,
have banned the motion picture "Carnal Knowledge"
as being obscene.
If they think "Carnal Knowledge" is obscene in Albany, Georgia,
wait till "Deep Throat" shows up.
They'll have to hose them down with cracked ice down there.
[ laughter ]
It's reviewed on local news shows,
couples are going to see it on date night.
Jacqueline Onassis herself went.
Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems in "Deep Throat"
were celebrities.
Lovelace: I'd like to see legitimate films
and so-called pornographic films merge together.
I think the two industries have got to merge together.
Do people walk up to you on the street and recognize you?
People are afraid of me.
This is the time when the sexual revolution went mainstream.
You could go to the grocery store
and buy sex advice in line at the checkout counter.
You could buy a kind of knowingness
or awareness about sex
that was different than what was widely available in the past.
The real way that the sexual revolution filtered down to us
was the reading materials we were discovering
in our parents' houses,
including "The Joy of Sex".
Allyn: It was a modern marriage manual.
One of the things that made the book famous
was its illustrations.
Talese: You found text
accompanied by very specific nude drawings
of all manifestations of sexual acts
and behavior and posturing.
Why did you write the book?
Well, I think it's the first one
that's been based on the knowledge of 1974 rather than 1874.
Talese: This book became amazingly successful
in that it was accepted on the coffee tables
of American middle class people.
It isn't that it gives people
information they didn't have or they couldn't have got.
What it does is to open up the subject
to being something that can be talked about.
Sexual information is now being made available to the public,
which hadn't been before.
One of those was Masters and Johnson,
who did an enormous amount of work
explaining, in excruciating detail to some,
how both men and women's bodies function during sex.
There have already been suggestions of sensationalism
in some quarters about the book.
What are your feelings about this?
Hope on our part is that in some way,
our work will contribute to a change
in the attitude towards sexuality.
Ashford: They were painting a picture of women as strong
and versatile as sexual creatures.
And that was not a popular idea before then.
Elias: Before the 1970s, it wasn't uncommon
not to know anything about sex going into your wedding night,
not to understand the sexual process
or understand your body at all.
Diskin: In those days, asking doctors a question --
and, of course, the majority of doctors were men,
it was very unusual to find a woman doctor.
Often, what they said is,
"Don't worry your pretty, little head about it" to women.
"Our bodies, ourselves" grew out of
the women's liberation movement.
Allyn: It was the first book that's really
by women for women about their bodies.
Ashford: If you combine that with the pill,
you have a pretty potent mix of,
"Wow, I could really take charge of my life in this way,"
and they did.
Savage: There were like two dialogues about sex
in the country, in the culture.
There was idealized monogamy,
this is what we all think sex should be.
And then there was an underground dialogue
about what people were really doing,
what people really wanted.
And that was regarded as dangerous and subversive.
That didn't come, I think, to fruition until the '70s,
until you had this generation of people
who were coming of age
in this new reality of truth telling, birth control,
and openly gay people in the world.
Man: I'd really make a distinction
between sexual freedom and liberation.
Gay liberation is just one movement,
along with women's liberation,
in this whole process of sexual liberation
that we're all about.
Man: What's the solution! Protesters: Revolution!
Man: What's the fight! Protesters: Gay rights!
The very first Pride Parade was organized
by the Christopher Street Liberation Organization.
If it sounds like national liberation,
that's not a coincidence.
Teal: We want the freedoms -- the freedoms to love,
and sometimes even to love a bit in public
that belong to the heterosexuals in this country,
and we're going to have them.
The National Women's Political Convention
will now come to order.
[ cheers and applause ]
Kiker: This is the first national political assemblage of women
to be held in 100 years.
It is non-partisan.
Nearly 1,000 women of all ages and all political persuasions
are attending.
Steinem: We didn't really have time to organize,
but women read it in the paper or they saw it on television,
and they started their own caucuses
in their own cities, in their own states.
We will, we must, attack the most difficult issues.
We might as well do it
because they're gonna call us all those names, anyway.
[ cheers and applause ]
Connelly: Gloria Steinem had been a writer at the New York Herald Tribune.
She was a very compelling figure who had a great way
of translating the ideas of feminism
to the mass marketplace.
And she and a bunch of her friends began Ms. Magazine.
Jackson: All revolutions, it seems,
start with a typewriter and three crowded rooms over a bar.
And the New York headquarters of the magazine Ms.
is no different.
It's a magazine designed to serve as a forum
for the women's movement.
Steinem: The movement itself
comes out of telling the truth about our lives.
So, it just makes sense to devote ourselves
to things that women just can't find anyplace else.
Farrell: when she got aggressiveness from men,
she handled it in a gracious type of way.
She knew how to do the tango with men.
In view of the fact that men are virtually controlled
and dominated by women from birth to puberty and often beyond that,
why haven't you done a better job
if you're as smart as you say you are?
Well, that's your statement, not mine,
that men are virtually controlled by women
from birth onward.
I mean if you take an intelligent person
with the normal hopes and ambitions
and confine her to the home,
the truth of her situation is that she has no real power
over her life outside the home.
Brinkley: before Gloria Steinem, there was a feeling
that feminists were marginal in some ways.
But the empowerment of women in the 1970s
is unlike any other decade in American history.
It almost explodes on the national scene.
[ audience groans ]
Safer: Women's tennis is, in a way,
the ultimate in women's liberation.
Men watch Billie Jean not to ogle her sexy legs,
but to witness or even learn from her game.
Connelly: Billie Jean King was an icon of the '70s.
She was a pioneering figure in women's sports
and a pioneering figure in culture.
She was tough and she was smart and she won --
everything you love in an athlete.
And, man, did she have guts.
She didn't back away from anyone.
American women are the most privileged group
of all time in history, and they're still not satisfied.
We got to stop those women right now.
Connelly: Bobby Riggs was a longtime tennis star
from decades ago and a hustler.
Riggs: All I know is I want to keep the women barefoot, pregnant,
and in the bedroom and the kitchen,
and taking care of the kids at home.
Connelly: And he had started challenging
contemporary women tennis players to matches.
He'd see me and go, "Hey Billie, Billie,
we can make lots of money, we do this."
I'd go, "Bobby, I've got so much work to do with the tour,
I can't even think straight."
And then Margaret Court said yes.
Connelly: Margaret Court was the number-one ranked woman
in the world at the time.
King: I was just pleading with her.
"It's gonna be a circus, so get ready."
She lost the match
when he gave her roses and she curtsied.
She lost the match before they hit the first ball.
Done.
She played probably the worst tennis of her life.
[ crowd cheering ]
As soon as she lost, I knew I had to play.
In the latest news on tennis and the war between the sexes,
It was announced today, believe it or not,
that Bobby Riggs, the old champ,
will play Billie Jean King, the Women's Wimbledon winner,
for a $100,000 prize.
Cosell: What a scene it is, a happening,
with the celebrities present, more than 30,000 people
for an all-time record tennis audience anywhere in the world.
And here comes Billie Jean King, a very attractive young lady.
If she ever let her hair grow down to her shoulders
and took her glasses off,
you'd have somebody vying for a Hollywood screen test.
There she is.
When she was brought out on that golden litter
with these young, you know, guys carrying her,
and she's waving,
and immediately, my God,
She knew how to play him at his own game.
Cosell: There's Bobby doing his thing.
Savage: The whole thing was a circus.
There was this sense of, like, people taking sides,
and it was jokey.
But there was an underlying current of, "this is for real."
Man: First serve.
Cosell: Bobby Riggs leading 3 to 2.
Referee: Game -- Mr. Riggs.
King: I was down 4-2 in the first set.
Everybody forgets that.
I missed overheads.
I never miss overheads -- hardly ever.
That was my moment of truth.
I thought about what my life would be like if I lost.
I thought about, "What would it do for others
if I won this match?"
I had all kinds of doubts. I was scared.
I just had to win for Title IX, everything.
"Come on. You got to do this."
Cosell: she's got him running.
Yes, with a brilliant placement!
Referee: Game -- Miss king.
Cosell: Oh! Man: Beautiful shot.
Man #2: Match point for Billie Jean King.
[ crowd cheering ]
Let's watch Bobby Riggs!
[ speaking indistinctly ]
Savage: Something broke through that day,
that men had to acknowledge
that just by dint of being male, you weren't always better,
because Billie Jean King kicked his ass.
[ cheers and applause ]
Mrs. King trounced riggs in three straight sets last night.
It wasn't much of a contest.
Billie Jean savored her victory at courtside,
and her fans across the country did the same.
I like the fact that Billie Jean won,
that the female won.
Well, the two men in my family, uh, left me alone with the match
after we saw how it was gonna go and watched "Bonnie and Clyde."
But I loved every minute of it.
Excuse me, do you agree with this women's liberation movement?
-No I don't. -Why not?
Because I like my life the way it is.
A woman's place is with a man, on top of him in this world.
There were a mess of housewives, grandmothers, mothers
who felt as if they were being, not only left out of this,
but denigrated by it,
that the movement was saying
that their choices were stupid and dumb.
Having a happy husband
and a happy children makes us happy.
Collins: They had always been celebrated
for having chosen to be a mom and a wife
and stay at home.
And now suddenly overnight,
people are saying that they're slaves,
they're comparing them to prostitutes.
And it made perfect sense to me
that those women would get really ticked off
and frightened.
And anybody who came along
who was clever enough and manipulative enough
to pick up their story and frighten them some more
could do a whole lot of damage to the Equal Rights Amendment.
I would like to thank my husband, fred
for letting me come today.
I love to say that
because it irritates the women's libbers
more than anything that I say.
[ laughter ]
Brinkley: Phyllis Schlafly became
the voice of the opposition of E.R.A.,
and she was quite competent at it.
Bailey: She saw it as her mission to stop this,
what she saw as an assault on American womanhood.
I would like to begin by asking mrs. Schlafly
to state her principal objection to E.R.A.
E.R.A. Won't give women anything which they haven't already got
or have a way of getting.
But on the other hand, it will take away from women
some of the most important rights and benefits
and exemptions we now have.
I think the laws of our country
have given a very wonderful status to the married woman,
and the wife has a great deal many rights.
For example, she has the legal right
to be supported by her husband.
There is no law whatsoever in any state
that requires a husband to support his wife.
It's clearly true that the Equal Rights Amendment
is going to be passed.
Oh, it's not that obvious.
Mrs. Schlafly isn't gonna let it pass, are you?
No. No, I don't think.
More states have rejected it this year than have passed it.
We have gotten eight states to vote to ratify it this year.
We have 30 states...
Yeah, but we got 14 states to reject it.
They can't reject it.
Nobody can reject it. My goodness.
She said, "You've got a good deal, women.
You are an exalted member of the human race.
You are held to a higher standard.
You're put on a pedestal.
You're protected by men, you're provided for by men.
Why would you want to give that up?
It's a good deal."
And a lot of people agreed with that logic,
that equal rights was a scary thing.
We do not want our lives to be run,
and our world changed by the militant women
who are demanding what they call a gender-free society.
Reasoner: This is a time of testing for the Equal Rights Amendment.
The ratification battle moves
from one state legislature to another.
Supporters have found the amendment
increasingly hard to put across.
The biggest problem that I'm having
is distinguishing between abortion
and Equal Rights Amendment.
And my area is very conservative.
They're against abortion.
Man: Do you also believe
that those who vote for the E.R.A. Today
will also be voting for abortion?
They won't be voting for abortion,
but what they will be doing
is voting to deny to the state legislatures
the power to regulate or stop abortion,
which you might say has the same effect.
Cronkite: In a landmark ruling,
the supreme court today legalized abortions.
The majority, in cases from Texas and Georgia,
said that the decision to end a pregnancy
during the first three months
belongs to the woman and her doctor,
not the government.
Thus, the anti-abortion laws of 46 states
were rendered unconstitutional.
Brownmiller: Roe v. wade accepted
that a woman really cannot be equal
if she doesn't have control over her reproductive ability.
It was as simple as that.
The newly liberalized abortion law
brought immediate reaction.
I think that the judgment of the court
will do a great deal to tear down the respect
previously accorded human life in our culture.
What's interesting about Roe vs. Wade is,
while it does legalize abortion,
it as much really mobilizes the opposition.
We protest today the holocaust of the 1970s in America.
Brownmiller: Conservatives didn't used to mess with politics that much,
and they start to campaign.
It was the rise of extreme activist conservatism
in America.
[ indistinct chanting ]
Allyn: Certain conservatives
don't know what to do with their frustration
and with their yearning for the good, old days
and decide the problem are gays.
The battle over homosexual rights in Dade County, Florida,
comes to a vote there Tuesday.
The issue is whether or not to repeal
a four-month-old ordinance which prohibits
job and housing discrimination against homosexuals.
Male reporter: Anita Bryant, a Miss America runner up in 1959,
today is an entertainer and mother of four
who says she wants to save her children
from homosexual influences.
She doesn't want gays teaching.
She led the petition drive forcing the referendum.
Naftali: Anita Bryant was a singer,
and for quite a few Americans,
she was a symbol of the beginning of pushing back
against the social experiments of the decade.
I love homosexuals, if you can believe it.
I love them enough to tell them the truth
because I know that there is hope for the homosexuals
that if they're willing to turn from sin,
the same as any individual,
that they can be ex-homosexuals
the same as there can be an ex-murderer, an ex-thief,
or ex anybody.
I feel very strongly that what we're faced with today
is something that is being camouflaged
under Christian faith, Christian love,
that is one of the most vicious hate campaigns
this country has ever seen.
Bailey: Anita Bryant's efforts
definitely mobilized the gay community.
And sometimes, having a visible opponent
is a great unifying force.
Tonight, the laws of God
and the cultural values of man have been vindicated.
Naftali: They win the campaign, but it has a national resonance.
This is what heterosexuals do, fellas.
And for many gays,
Anita Bryant is a symbol of this intractable prejudice.
We were going to go on a crusade across the nation
and try to do away with the homosexuals
and were met with protest
and all kinds of problems and...
[ reporters groan ] [ camera shutters clicking ]
Man: Security. Security.
No, no, let him stay.
No. Let him stay.
Well, at least it's a fruit pie.
Let's pray. Anita, why don't you pray?
Father, we want to thank you
for the opportunity of coming to Des Moines,
[voice breaking] and that we're praying for him
to be delivered from his deviant lifestyle, Father.
And I just...
Savage: Nothing has done more
to advance the cause of gay acceptance and gay rights
than people like Anita Bryant.
Thus always to bigots!
Savage: She campaigned for a vicious anti-gay law in California
that helped make Harvey Milk a national figure.
Man: As political parades go, it was a little unusual.
Harvey Milk on his way to City Hall
to be sworn in as a supervisor in San Francisco.
Savage: the Harvey Milk "Hope" speech, that was a moment
when a lot of people in the gay community went,
"Something has shifted in our collective subconscious
of what we feel we're entitled to."
I will fight to represent my constituents.
I will fight to represent
the city and county of San Francisco.
I will fight to give those people
who had once walked away hope
so that those people will walk back in.
Thank you very much.
[ applause ]
♪♪
Naftali: In the 1970s, there's enormous amount of change
that looks like you're gonna get an Equal Rights Amendment.
Gays are no longer considered to be mentally ill.
Roe v. wade legalizes abortion.
There is a sense
that it's just gonna be more and more individual freedom.
And then it stops.
The Equal Rights Amendment
has encountered difficulties in another state.
This time, it's South Carolina.
♪ God bless America ♪
Willoughby: They were, for the most part,
fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
The E.R.A. Was not their only concern.
They were also supporting legislation
to ban public funds for abortions
and voicing approval of a measure being prepared
to stop state control over private Christian schools.
E.R.A. Got all tied up with Roe vs. Wade,
and when you got Roe vs. Wade,
now you're turning Evangelical Christians
against the women's movement.
Man: We have some beautiful women with us today,
some women who know that they were created
the way God wanted them.
There are some very basic essential differences
between man and woman.
I hope God keeps it that way.
I think when you study the E.R.A.
And see what it really means to women
that the women don't want it, the men don't want it. And so by public outcry,
as you people are doing here today,
we will beat E.R.A.
Crowd: [ chanting ] 2, 4, 6, 8, Ratify in every state!
Thousands of women gathered in Houston today
as a symbolic torch marked the beginning
of a national women's conference.
With the E.R.A. Losing momentum,
people were trying to figure out what to do,
and this was going to be an attempt
to sort of push things forward.
Between now and adjournment on Monday,
this conference will consider 26 resolutions,
asking the President and government
to do something about the problems of homemakers,
mothers and their children, older women, working women,
and about the victims of rape, abuse, and discrimination.
Crowd: [ chanting ] E.R.A.! E.R.A.!
Azcuy: Support has been given
by former First Ladies Ford and Johnson
and First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
It is hope that this display of united appeal
will add momentum to passage of the amendment
in the remaining three states that are needed.
Lewis: Across town, there was an even bigger gathering --
about 11,000 men and women who oppose the beliefs
of most of the delegates to the women's conference.
I'm very proud
that they excluded me from that convention,
and I'm here where we're not ashamed
and not afraid to ask God's blessing
on this crowd assembled here today.
[ cheers and applause ]
the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified.
That is not what American women want.
We support reproductive freedom to women.
Gray: They simply take the lovely baby,
and they rip it out.
All those in favor
of the sexual preference resolution, please rise.
Dornan: Three first ladies approving of sexual perversion
and the murder of young people in their mother's wombs!
What a disgrace!
[ crowd cheering ]
It came so very close.
And the fact that it didn't pass says a lot
about the power of the response
to the social experiment of the '70s.
Bailey: A lot of us thought what was gonna happen is
that we were all going to renegotiate all this individually,
and it was going to be open and honest,
and we were gonna get past traditional gender roles.
And by and large,
I don't think it really worked out that way.
To a lot of people,
women on the offensive are offensive and frightening.
But nevertheless,
it is the women who have challenged the old habits
and customs and rules and laws and prejudices.
It was our decade.
The women's movement for equality
is all really changing the lives
not only of my daughter and sons, but of you and me.
And it's happened so much more quickly
than anybody could have believed.
Even if the Equal Rights Amendment
has been lost forever,
every little girl in America when she's in grade school
is already thinking about
what she's gonna be when she grows up.
The whole idea that women could have jobs
and careers and a sex life, a complete life,
that's a transformation that's never gonna go backwards.
Morgan: I think it's a seismic shift.
I think it's a shift so deep and so ongoing
that we can't even estimate it yet.
The problem is, we don't stand up and say,
"Hey, we're the folks who brought you this,
and we've got to learn to do this
because we are the folks who brought you this."
Shore: You have been very active
as a spokesperson for the women's movement.
Do you feel that now that we're getting close to the '80s
that we were able to accomplish in the '70s
what you set out to do?
Well, I don't know.
It's much more organic than that in a way.
But at least in the '70s,
all the major issues of the women's movement,
whether it's equal pay for equal work,
reproductive freedom, or the Equal Rights Amendment,
they all now have majority support.
So in a way, our dreams were set free a little bit in the '70s.
And for me, it means you can be yourself
as a unique individual.
And what can be more important than that?
♪♪