Mary Leary, professor, law, was quoted in Catholic News Agency and Arlington Catholic Herald stories on #MeToo and the sexual revolution.
Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique flew off the shelves when it was published in 1963. Its message spoke to women who had been told they could only find fulfillment through housework, child rearing and nurturing their husbands, said Mary Leary, a law professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington. “That (was said to be) the only way to be truly feminine, and that was not resonating with women,” she said.
Yet as attitudes toward women’s abilities outside the home changed, sexual norms also began to loosen. “The emergence of feminism and women’s rights overlapped with and were intertwined with the developments later labeled the Sexual Revolution,” said Leary.
Increased opportunities to pursue higher education and a career have led to women being valued in multi-dimensional ways, said Leary. But current widespread sexual harassment, as evidenced by the #metoo movement, suggest the 1960s didn’t solve everything. ...
Continue reading in the Arlington Catholic Herald.