From equal rights to equal opportunities: women's movement in the USA in 1960-s through the prism of one act

The main goal of the women’s movement in the USA in 1960s was the implementation of rights and opportunities for women in the social and economic spheres. Certainly, the Equal Pay Act (1963) became the main achievement. This Act carried a new conceptual idea, changed traditional perceptions about the place and the role of men and women in the labor market and in the American society in general. The enactment was preceded by the thorough preparation and intensive debates. The materials connected with the preparation of this Act, the presentation of the draft to the US Congress and the debates in the Congress have a special research interest. Exactly these materials allow to reveal the positions of different social groups in the issue of gender equality and to trace how the attitudes of the society and its elite to the traditional representations of gender roles were changing. The success of the women’s movement in the USA in 1960s, which resulted in the adoption of the Equal Pay Act, was determined by the realistic character of the claims of the liberal women organizations and their close and constructive collaboration with the state. The ideas of the equality of gender rights and opportunities started to penetrate into the economic reality and being defended by the legal pract.