ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the causes for convergence and divergence and evaluates the potential for future joint campaigns among advocates for housing, labor, and women. It considers coalition building from the 1930s through the 1950s. The chapter describes ways in which homeownership policies reinforced conservative strains that gained prominence in the labor movement, with no countervailing resistance in the "remnants" of the existing women's movement. The realization of homeownership would create unexpected repercussions for women in the rush to be liberated in the 1970s, especially when marital relationships resulted in divorce. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Commission on the Status of Women. Kennedy wanted the commission to focus on discrimination and saw it as a countermeasure to the Equal Rights Amendment and an act that would get him off the hook with women's groups, many of whom had supported his presidency.
