The Sexual Revolution is Over

You've Come a Long Way, Baby.

This iconic advertising slogan, for a cigarette of all things, marketed specifically for women beginning in 1968, is both complimentary and condescending. Deftly crafted at the dawn of the Women's Movement for the tobacco giant Phillip Morris, Virginia Slims capitalized successfully on "women's freedom, emancipation, and empowerment." But just enough of the status quo was retained ("Baby") to remind women who was still on top. An ad campaign worthy of Mad Men's Don Draper.

Now, 45 years later, the slogan seems as archaic as the term "horseless carriage." After all, the revolution women have been waging for suffrage, economic freedom, pay equity, professional fulfillment, equal opportunity under the law and control over their bodies began long before the "Women's Movement" supposedly gained steam in the late 1960's.

In truth, the modern Women's Movement in the United States dates back to at least the mid-1800's. The Temperance Movement (urging reduced or prohibited use of alcohol) was a reaction to relaxed 19th century liquor laws that resulted in an increasingly drunk (mostly men) American population. Women who had endured the abuse of alcoholic husbands kept this social movement in the forefront of national politics until its culminating event - Prohibition - in 1918. While Prohibition was ultimately a social and economic failure, crusading women effectively dramatized the plight of terrorized mothers and children who were helplessly at the mercy of perpetually drunk, often violent husbands and fathers.

Naturally, a related outcome of the Temperance Movement was universal women's suffrage (the right to vote). With the passage of the 19th Amendment, women had fought a hard-earned, prolonged battle to gain the vote in state and national elections. The political skill and power that had been demonstrated during the coinciding Temperance Era eventually convinced an all-male U.S. Congress to grant women the vote in time for the 1920 election.

Fast forward 20 more years and women by the millions were called upon to stand side by side with men to build munitions, arms, ships and planes in hundreds of defense plants that sprang up across the United States during World War II. American defense plants supplied the US military and every one of its Allies with the materiel necessary to defeat Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. And millions of Rosie the Riveters were an indespensible part of this war effort. Women's wartime sacrifices, accomplishments and changed opinions of their own abilities and potential set the stage for the final phase of the Sexual Revolution.

Since World War II, events have unfolded rapidly to give women increasing autonomy. Oral contraceptives - The Pill - became available in the US in 1960, giving women a sexual freedom that had previously been reserved for men. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, exposed a deep and widespread personal dissatisfaction among American housewives during the 1950's and 60's. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled - in Roe vs. Wade - that a woman had sole reproductive control over her body.

While all of these events, medical breakthroughs and publications added to the weight of momentum urging the Revolution on to its undeniable conclusion, one piece of legislation was a measureably large coffin nail in "the way things used to be" - Title IX, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Nixon in 1972.

Like many of you, I have both a mother and a daughter. The differences between their two childhoods is jaw-dropping. When my mother was a teen in the late 1950's, public education offered her two extra-curricular choices - band and cheerleading. Her high school, and tens of thousands of others in the United States, offered girls very few (if any) opportunities to pursue their non-academic talents and interests.  While Title IX's language is brief - No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance... - its national impact has been deep and lasting. The most visible imprint of Title IX's cultural shockwaves has been in high school and intercollegiate athletics.

For nearly two generations now, girls and young women have as many athletic choices as boys and young men do. I was thinking of this last weekend as I sat in the Target Center watching my daughter participate in the Minnesota State Danceline competition. I was proud and amazed at the determination I saw on so many of the young girls' faces. These girls are truly the direct recipients of so many who blazed trails of hope and possibility so that they could have what their grandmothers had been denied.

But Title IX didn't just grant women athletic opportunities. It opened academic and professional doors as well. Now, as we are in the second decade of a new century, no reasonable person can doubt a woman's ability to go as far as her determination leads her - whether that be to a courtroom, an operating table, the halls of Congress, the Oval Office or even to the stars. The sky is no longer the limit. And while the remnants of a "good old boy network" may still linger in boardrooms across the land, Title IX's impact is irreversible.

Naturally, because I have a teenage daughter, I am thrilled and relieved she is coming of age in such an era. But the realist in me can't help but wonder how hard it still may be to grow up female in America. I have always taken for granted the relative ease with which my gender navigates through our culture, but have never considered the expectations that lie ahead for her as she becomes first an adult, then a wife, finally a mother. How will she - and millions like her - be able to juggle all of these roles with any level of personal satisfaction?