AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Understand how **second-wave feminism** expanded women’s choices beyond voting rights
- Identify major legal reforms in marriage, reproduction, and work from the **1960s to 1980s**
- Explain how feminism changed private life as well as politics and employment
- Compare the pace of reform in **Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany**
- Analyze how **secularization**, welfare states, and labor-market change helped widen women’s options
- Evaluate continuities, especially the persistence of patriarchy and the **double burden**

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how women gained more personal options in late 20th-century Europe, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **second-wave feminism** in the **1960s-1980s** pushed beyond suffrage toward family law, sexuality, and reproductive choice
- Identify the importance of **Simone de Beauvoir’s** _The Second Sex_ (**1949**) as an intellectual foundation for postwar feminism
- Explain how access to **contraception**, abortion reform, and easier divorce expanded women’s autonomy
- Understand key national reforms, including Britain’s **Abortion Act (1967)** and **Divorce Reform Act (1969)**, France’s **Neuwirth Law (1967)** and **Veil Law (1975)**, and Italy’s divorce and abortion reforms
- Distinguish between workplace equality measures such as **equal pay** and wider personal freedoms in marriage and family life
- Compare Western Europe with parts of Eastern Europe, where women often had state-supported employment but less independent feminist activism
- Understand that change was uneven and often slowed by **Catholic influence**, conservative politics, and older family norms

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What is meant by **second-wave feminism**, and how did it differ from earlier feminism?
2. How did access to contraception and abortion change women’s daily lives?
3. Name two legal reforms in either Britain, France, or Italy that expanded women’s personal options.
4. Why did reform move faster in some European countries than in others?
5. How did feminist gains still leave important inequalities in place?

## Introduction

In AP European History Unit 9, feminism matters not only as a rights movement but as a major social change in postwar Europe. By the late 20th century, many women had more control over education, paid work, sexuality, marriage, and childbearing than earlier generations had known. This did not happen because of one law or one protest. It came from the combined effect of feminist activism, changing economies, weaker religious control in many places, and new attitudes toward family life.

This subtopic is best understood as a change in the meaning of freedom. Earlier feminism had focused heavily on the vote and formal citizenship. Postwar feminism pushed further into what had once been treated as “private” matters: who women married, whether they stayed married, whether they had children, and whether they could build adult lives less dependent on men.

> **Key Term: second-wave feminism**
> The phase of feminism from the 1960s to the 1980s that expanded demands beyond suffrage to include work, family life, sexuality, and reproductive choice.

### From political rights to personal autonomy

The roots of this shift go back before the 1960s. European women had already gained major political rights in the early 20th century, and wartime service had widened expectations about women’s public role. But postwar feminists argued that voting alone did not make women free if laws and customs still trapped them in unequal marriages, limited their control over pregnancy, and treated them as secondary in the workplace.

A major intellectual starting point was **Simone de Beauvoir’s** _The Second Sex_ in **1949**. De Beauvoir argued that women were not naturally destined for subordinate roles; society had made them “the other.” That idea mattered because it attacked the belief that the patriarchal family was simply natural or timeless.

> **Key Term: patriarchal family**
> A family structure in which men hold primary authority in law, culture, and household decision-making.

Second-wave feminism made a crucial move: it treated private life as political. If a husband had legal authority in marriage, if a woman could not easily leave an unhappy marriage, or if she had little control over pregnancy, those were not just personal problems. They were political questions about power.

This helps explain why the movement focused on several linked issues at once:

- access to **contraception**
- **abortion reform**
- **divorce reform**
- equal treatment at work
- legal equality inside marriage

These reforms widened women’s range of life choices. A woman could delay marriage, have fewer children, leave a failing marriage more easily, seek education, and stay in paid work for longer. That is what “more personal options” means in historical terms.

> **Key Term: women’s autonomy**
> Women’s ability to make independent decisions about work, family, sexuality, and reproduction.
>
> **Test Tip:** For AP essays, do not stop at saying women “got more rights.” Show exactly which choices increased: marriage, divorce, fertility, education, and paid work.

### The laws that changed daily life

The most exam-useful way to study this topic is by country comparison. AP responses score better when they use precise national examples instead of vague claims about “Europe.”

In **Britain**, reform came relatively early. The **Abortion Act (1967)** legalized abortion under specified conditions. The **Divorce Reform Act (1969)** made divorce easier by recognizing the breakdown of marriage rather than requiring only older fault-based grounds. The **Equal Pay Act (1970)** aimed at pay equality, and the **Sex Discrimination Act (1975)** widened protection against discrimination.

In **France**, the **Neuwirth Law (1967)** legalized contraception. This was a sharp break from older pronatalist and restrictive traditions. The **Manifesto of the 343** in **1971**, in which women publicly declared that they had undergone illegal abortions, pushed abortion into national debate. Then came the **Veil Law (1975)**, associated with **Simone Veil**, which legalized abortion under regulated conditions. France also reformed divorce law in **1975**, allowing divorce by mutual consent.

In **Italy**, reform was slower and more contested because of strong Catholic influence. Divorce was legalized in **1970**, and in the **1974 referendum** voters chose to keep the divorce law. That result showed that public opinion had moved further than many conservatives expected. Then **Law 194 (1978)** legalized abortion, and a later **1981 referendum** upheld it.

In **West Germany**, the pattern was mixed. The **pill became available in 1961**, helping women separate sexuality from immediate childbearing more effectively than before. Yet abortion reform remained more restricted and controversial than in Britain or France. The debate over **Paragraph 218** became central in the 1970s. At the same time, marriage and family law reform in **1976-1977** weakened the older “housewife marriage” model and increased equality between spouses.

> **Key Term: reproductive rights**
> Rights relating to control over contraception, pregnancy, and abortion.

These laws mattered because they changed the timing and structure of life itself. Reliable contraception made it easier to plan education and employment. Easier divorce reduced long-term dependence on unhappy marriages. Abortion reform gave women more control when contraception failed or circumstances changed.

A common mistake is to treat all these reforms as identical. They were related, but not the same:

- **contraception** concerned preventing pregnancy
- **abortion reform** concerned ending pregnancy legally
- **divorce reform** concerned leaving marriage
- **equal pay** concerned work, not family law directly

That distinction is useful in SAQs and LEQs because it shows control of detail.

### Why reform happened when it did

Feminism did not act alone. It succeeded because it worked with wider postwar developments.

One factor was **secularization**. In much of Western Europe, church authority weakened after 1945. This did not mean religion disappeared, but it meant religious teaching had less power to block reforms on divorce, sexuality, and abortion in some places. That is why countries with stronger Catholic political cultures, such as Italy, often changed more slowly and more conflictually than Britain or France.

> **Key Term: secularization**
> The decline of religious authority over politics, law, and everyday social life.

A second factor was economic change. As more women entered paid work, older assumptions about male breadwinners and female dependence became harder to maintain. Dual-earner households became more common. If women were already contributing wages, arguments for keeping them legally subordinate inside marriage looked weaker.

A third factor was the culture of the **1960s**. Youth protest, student activism, sexual liberalization, and criticism of old authority all created a climate in which traditional family roles could be challenged more openly.

> **Key Term: sexual liberation**
> The weakening of traditional sexual norms, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, linked to youth culture, contraception, and changing social values.

A fourth factor was welfare-state growth. Childcare, education expansion, and social benefits made it somewhat easier for women to combine work and family. In some places this support mattered as much as formal legal equality.

There was also a supranational dimension, though students should not overstate it. The **Treaty of Rome (1957)** included an equal-pay principle, and later the **EEC Equal Pay Directive (1975)** and **Equal Treatment Directive (1979)** gave broader support for workplace equality. Still, the biggest breakthroughs on abortion, contraception, and divorce were mainly won through national politics.

> **Test Tip:** In essays, explain causation with more than one factor. A strong line is: feminism + secularization + labor-market change + youth protest = broader women’s autonomy.

### Limits, uneven change, and East-West comparison

A high-scoring AP response also needs qualification. Women did gain more personal options, but not equally, not everywhere, and not completely.

The first limit was uneven geography. Reform moved faster in **Britain**, **France**, and much of **Scandinavia**. It was slower or more fiercely disputed in **Italy** and **West Germany**, and even later in places strongly shaped by dictatorship or conservative Catholic politics, such as **Spain**, **Portugal**, and **Ireland**.

A second limit was the persistence of older expectations. Even where women gained legal equality, many still carried the **double burden** of paid work plus most domestic labor and childcare.

> **Key Term: double burden**
> The situation in which women do paid work while also carrying most household and childrearing responsibilities.

That matters because legal reform did not automatically produce equality at home. A woman could now work, divorce, or use contraception more freely, but she often still faced workplace discrimination, social pressure, and unequal domestic duties.

A third limit appears when comparing Western Europe with the Soviet bloc. In places such as **East Germany**, women often had high employment rates, extensive childcare, and relatively broad abortion access by the 1970s. East Germany legalized first-trimester abortion on request in **1972**. Yet this did not mean the same kind of feminist freedom found in parts of the West. Communist states usually claimed they had already solved the “woman question,” which weakened independent feminist activism. Women could have jobs and state childcare while still lacking genuine freedom to organize outside state control.

This East-West comparison is useful:

- **West**: stronger feminist activism about patriarchy, sexuality, and personal autonomy
- **East**: more state-backed employment and childcare, but weaker independent women’s movements

So if an essay asks whether women gained more personal options, the best answer is yes, but unevenly. Western Europe saw broader changes in marriage, sexuality, and family law. Eastern Europe often offered formal equality in labor, but less room for autonomous activism and less challenge to the state itself.

Another important long-term pattern is family change. Across postwar Europe there were:

- later marriage
- lower birth rates
- higher divorce rates
- more cohabitation
- more women in paid work

These are not just statistics. They show the practical impact of new choices. When fertility falls and marriage becomes later or less stable, that usually reflects greater control over childbearing and partnership decisions.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- **Second-wave feminism** from the **1960s to 1980s** expanded feminist goals beyond suffrage
- **Simone de Beauvoir’s** _The Second Sex_ (**1949**) helped challenge the idea that women’s subordination was natural
- Feminists treated marriage, sexuality, and childbearing as political issues rather than purely private matters
- In **Britain**, key reforms included the **Abortion Act (1967)**, **Divorce Reform Act (1969)**, **Equal Pay Act (1970)**, and **Sex Discrimination Act (1975)**
- In **France**, the **Neuwirth Law (1967)** legalized contraception, the **Manifesto of the 343 (1971)** pushed abortion rights, and the **Veil Law (1975)** legalized abortion
- In **Italy**, divorce was legalized in **1970**, upheld in a **1974 referendum**, and abortion was legalized in **1978**
- In **West Germany**, the pill became available in **1961**, family law was reformed in **1976-1977**, but abortion remained more contested
- Feminism widened women’s choices over education, work, marriage, divorce, and childbearing
- Reform was helped by **secularization**, labor-market change, welfare support, and 1960s protest culture
- Change was uneven across Europe, with stronger Catholic influence often slowing reform
- Legal gains did not end patriarchy, and many women still faced the **double burden**
- In Eastern Europe, women often had state-supported work and childcare, but less independent feminist activism

## Key Terms and Concepts

- second-wave feminism
- patriarchal family
- women’s autonomy
- reproductive rights
- secularization
- sexual liberation
- double burden


20th-Century Feminism - Women gained more personal options