Support Among Women for the Issues of the Women's Movement

Using both data from a national and community sample, this paper explores support among women for issues relevant to the women's rights movement, and the extent to which the issues of the movement are perceived as a coherent whole by women. Five distinct issue dimensions emerged. Support for or agreement with each of the issue areas was only slightly correlated with support for the others. Thus some types of women are supportive of the variety of issues and in agreement with the basic assumptions of the movement while others are more selective in their support. In general, support for any particular issue area is greater than support for women's liberation, yet even those opposing women's liberation agree with the position of the women's movementon on a majority of issues examined.