Assess the view that the feminist movement of the 1960s was the most significant turning point for women's rights in the USA, 1894-1992

The feminist movement of the 1960s was the most significant turning point for women's rights in the USA since it achieved the most change in the shortest period of time and held poular, intersectional support. The landmark Roe v Wade 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalised unrestricted abortion in the 1^st trimester by granting women ‘privacy’ under their 9^th amendment right to their own body. Such a significant change in the laws restricting women’s rights was a direct result of the National Organisation for Women’s (an organisation of the feminist movement) campaign to improve women’s reproductive rights among their agenda of achieving complete emancipation for women. However, such a drive to increase women's autonomy predates the feminist movement of the 1960s as was first seen with the ‘Flapper Era’ of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ when women in urban centres of North America wore shorter hemlines and were part of prohibition salon culture. Such sexual freedom was enabled by revolutionary contraceptive clinics like the first set up by Sanger in 1917. The view that the feminist movement was the most significant turning point in the history of women's rights is suppoted by the fact that the 1960s bought about improvements to women’s civil rights which effected a greater proportion of women than the improvements made in the 1920s which were limited to urban areas and came with an increase in female sexual objectification and prostitution.