I feel as though a liberated woman is a feminist who advocates for greater gender equality. A wave of liberated women opposed sexism in culture and politics in the 1960s, attempting to modify perceptions of what women should be inside and outside the house. A woman who is truly sexually liberated rejects cultural expectations and conventions of “proper” womanly behavior in favor of sexual openness. A free woman chooses when, where, and with whom she wants to have sex, and she isn’t required to be married or even in a relationship in order to do so.

During the 1960s, the majority of women in the United States had fairly circumscribed lives, with “women accounting for only six percent of American doctors, three percent of lawyers, and less than one percent of engineers”. Women’s advancement in society was severely hampered as a result of the clear imbalance. In her essay “The Politics of Housework,” Pat Mainardi addresses the gender stereotypes that pervade her society. “Man’s triumphs have always depended on seeking help from other people, especially women,” Mainardi says, criticizing her menial status to explain why the patriarchal system persists. (Mainardi) The men’s reliance on women to look after the house and children illustrates the troubled relationship that existed at the period. Mainardi explores the various gender roles in society to show how, despite being the dominant gender, men rely on women for many areas of their lives. Because the powerful gender should not rely on the “weaker” gender for tasks, the irony displayed thus reveals the dysfunctional patriarchal system. The sarcastic and antiquated concepts that underpin patriarchy in the United States effectively led many women, like as Pat Mainardi, to believe that repressive gender norms might be eradicated from society through politics. In contrast to the communal mindset that typified the women’s liberation movement, liberated women sought and exercised freedoms that centered more on their individual desires. Women’s attitudes on clothes, sex, and family life evolved. Some ladies defied conventional beauty standards, opting for jeans and a more natural look free of make-up and hair curlers. In 1968, a group of women protested during the Miss America Pageant, screaming against the contest’s promotion of the ideal of the “perfect woman.” They encouraged other women to throw their “bras, girdles, curlers, artificial eyelashes, wigs… any such woman-garbage” into a Freedom Trash Can (Takin’ It To The Streets, 482). Miniskirts were fashionable as well, owing to the idea of sexual emancipation.

Anne Koedt’s “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” was published in Notes from the First Year, a twenty-nine-page typed journal published by New York Radical Women in 1968. The notion of sexual freedom, the political relevance of sexual pleasure, and the psychological underpinnings of male dominance and female submission were all addressed by Koedt. When Koedt challenged it as a myth, or more specifically, as a deceptive misinformation campaign that caused a slew of psychiatric issues for women, she appeared to be questioning the basic core of heterosexuality as it was understood in psychoanalytic, medical, and public discourse. Despite the fact that Koedt’s paper became one of the most extensively read and well-known on the political relevance of sexuality, it was not the only one to discuss the topic of orgasm. In reality, a lot of feminists authored anthologies about the meaning of sexual pleasure for women in patriarchal societies. While recent events imply that we should reconsider the meaning and purpose of “the personal is political,” I believe we should stick with this thorny but worthwhile feminist slogan. The slogan’s meaning has been muddled over time, allowing for opportunistic exploitation.