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• Women's Movement
  Women's Movement

  noun

  a grass-roots movement of women concerned with women's liberation See Women's Liberation
• women's movement
  women's movement

  A movement to secure legal, economic, and social equality for women, also called the feminist movement. It has its roots in the nineteenth-century women's movement, which sought, among other things, to secure property rights and suffrage for women. The modern feminist movement, often said to have been galvanized by the publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique, began in the 1960s and advocates equal pay for equal work, improved day care arrangements, and preservation of abortion (see also abortion) rights. (See Equal Rights Amendment, feminism (see also feminism), and Gloria Steinem.)

Women's Movement

British  

noun

1. a grass-roots movement of women concerned with women's liberation See Women's Liberation

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women's movement Cultural  

1. A movement to secure legal, economic, and social equality for women, also called the feminist movement. It has its roots in the nineteenth-century women's movement, which sought, among other things, to secure property rights and suffrage for women. The modern feminist movement, often said to have been galvanized by the publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique, began in the 1960s and advocates equal pay for equal work, improved day care arrangements, and preservation of abortion (see also abortion) rights. (See Equal Rights Amendment, feminism (see also feminism), and Gloria Steinem.)

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Women's Movement women's movement

As first lady, she founded the 31st December Women's Movement to empower women and teach them how to earn money to develop their communities.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025

I was then elected as chairperson for the Mangochi Women’s Movement group.

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2024

As a journalist and a writer, and living through the Women’s Movement during the ‘70s, I was immediately drawn to the story line of “Mrs. America.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2020

Ana Quirós, part of the Autonomous Women’s Movement, who has been campaigning for the release of the political prisoners, was injured in the first demonstration on 18 April in Managua.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 3, 2018

Its chief features will be: Articles dealing with the Women's Movement in England and other countries.

From The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I think the fact that I’ve become a symbol for the women’s movement is somewhat accidental.

From Slate ● Sep. 3, 2026

Steinem spoke explicitly about pushing the women’s movement beyond its initial concerns—essentially, the benumbed, unfulfilled flourishing of white middle-class housewives like her own mother.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

Three years later, Saar created “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” the assemblage that activist Angela Davis credited with sparking the Black women’s movement.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026

“Even though Easy is skeptical about a woman being a detective,” he explains, “he recognizes it’s the 1970s and, with the women’s movement, he’s willing to help her if that’s what she wants.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2025

Despite setbacks, the women’s movement was gaining momentum.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

Related Words

• feminist movement