Pat Califra on Feminism and children's sexuality

http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/califa_feminism.htm

"In the early days of the women's movement, feminists criticized all the institutions of male-dominated society. The traditional family was under siege. It was common to talk about how young women were oppressed by the public schools and received an inferior, feminized education. There was agitation for reproductive rights for all women, including teenagers.

The antiwar movement collapsed when the draft was repealed, and the war in Vietnam ended. Few of the movement's members had developed a comprehensive or sophisticated critique of the American state. The feminist movement was deflated by the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which granted American women the right to abortion in 1973. Ironically, because of this major victory, American feminism lost its intense, radical focus. It was also divided by bitter struggles over the presence of lesbians in the women's movement and their eventual departure from it. Mainstream feminism became bogged down in a doomed campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Litigation against sex discrimination in the areas of employment and education made significant gains for women, but it was difficult to use this issue as a rallying point for a mass movement."