Western feminism has failed

To be fair to my opponent I shall just post my opening arguments and no rebuttals for this round. Western feminism is the cornerstone for equality amongst women that we see today especially in places that my opponent speaks of such as the US. In 1960, the world of American women was limited in almost every respect, from family life to the workplace. A woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking. As one woman at the time put it, "The female doesn't really expect a lot from life. She's here as someone's keeper " her husband's or her children's."[1] As such, wives bore the full load of housekeeping and child care, spending an average of 55 hours a week on domestic chores.[2] They were legally subject to their husbands via "head and master laws," and they had no legal right to any of their husbands' earnings or property, aside from a limited right to "proper support"; husbands, however, would control their wives' property and earnings.[3] If the marriage deteriorated, divorce was difficult to obtain, as "no-fault" divorce was not an option, forcing women to prove wrongdoing on the part of their husbands in order to get divorced.[4] The 38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs as teacher, nurse, or secretary.[5] Women were generally unwelcome in professional programs; as one medical school dean declared, "Hell yes, we have a quota...We do keep women out, when we can. We don't want them here " and they don't want them elsewhere, either, whether or not they'll admit it."[6] As a result, in 1960, women accounted for six percent of American doctors, three percent of lawyers, and less than one percent of engineers.[7] Working women were routinely paid lower salaries than men and denied opportunities to advance, as employers assumed they would soon become pregnant and quit their jobs, and that, unlike men, they did not have families to support. The feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s originally focused on dismantling workplace inequality, such as denial of access to better jobs and salary inequity, via anti-discrimination laws. However, it quickly became clear that the newly established Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would not enforce the law's protection of women workers, and so a group of feminists including decided to found an organization that would fight gender discrimination through the courts and legislatures. In the summer of 1966, they launched the National Organization for Women (NOW), which went on to lobby Congress for pro-equality laws and assist women seeking legal aid as they battled workplace discrimination in the courts.[8] This was seen as the first big step in the way of equality in the workforce for women. As it should be obvious by now without western feminism and the movements that stemmed from it, equality for women especially in the workforce could very well being non existent. It certainly has not 'failed'. The definition of feminism is: "the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes"[9], thus if you support equality for women you are by definition a feminist even if you don't recognise yourself as one. These are my opening arguments thank you reference: [1] Coontz, Stephanie. A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. New York: Basic Books, 2011. 42. [2] Coontz, Stephanie. "When We Hated Mom." New York Times. 7 May. 2011. [3] A Strange Stirring 46. [4] Collins, Gail. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2009. 43. [5] "100 Years of Consumer Spending: 1960-61." Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2006. PDF. [6] Ibid. [7] Ibid. [8] Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000. 196. [9]https://www.google.com.au...