Times between 1960’s and 1970’s were very difficult for women. They were deprived of the right to vote, and of the right to freedom. It was difficult for them to decide what really they wanted to do with their lives. The life of women in those days was fixed upfront. When a woman decided to marry a man she already knew that her life would become something totally different the it used to be. She would become a housewife, and her new life would have nothing to do with normal and social life between people as it supposed to be in the society with gender equality. That’s why Howard Zinn quotes a few words from the book The Feminine Mystique written by Betty Friedan. As the women at that time would only “made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slip-cover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night” For the majority of men the kind of life that women conducted was something normal and they couldn’t notice any problems that their wives struggled with. They didn’t see that their wives were unhappy
Probably, if writers like Howard Zinn had not written about these times, people of modern world wouldn’t know about these truths and still thought that the gender inequality was something normal. Howard Zinn wants to point out that to be a woman doesn’t mean to be weaker in a political way. Men didn’t know how to talk to their wives because among other things women didn’t have the right to share their feelings because it wasn’t appropriate nor allowed to talk at home “Just what was the problem that has no name? What were the words women used when they tried to express it? Sometimes a woman would say “I feel empty somehow . . . incomplete.” Or she would say, “I feel as if I don’t exist.” Sometimes… “A tired feeling … I get so angry with the children it scares me. … I feel like crying without any reason.” (Betty Friedan) Women as individuals had lack of possibility to speak out about their problems. This fact forced groups of feminists to go out on streets and fix a social order. In 1967 feminist movements discussed the problems which were for women and their dissatisfaction arising from unequal treatment. As Howard Zinn says these kind of movements were possible because of brave and strong women who still tried to care about their freedom “Younger women- Gloria Richardson in Maryland, Annelle Ponder in Mississippi-were not only active, but leaders”(Howard Zinn) Perhaps the leadership and courage that these women had, was an advantage and a window opportunity to speak out. Zinn says about these women as examples of dignity and power to increase awareness in our heads, nowadays, about what was happening back then in 1960’s and 1970’s. In some cases women knew more about politics and surrounded world than men. However, they still couldn’t reach any other and higher job opportunities than only working as a secretary(if they were lucky enough). On the beginning of 1970’s women started to talk about topics that were uncomfortable for men, such as inappropriate treatment of women by police, problems of rapes and procurement. Also, women started to talk more about domestic problems such as “menstruation, masturbation, menopause, abortion, lesbianism.” (Howard Zinn)

1960’s and 1970’s were difficult times for women but even worse times for poor black women in white America. Patricia Robinson wrote a pamphlet called Poor Black Woman in which says “Rebellion by poor black women, the bottom of a class hierarchy heretofore not discussed, places the question of what kind of society will the poor black woman demand and struggle for. Already she demands the right to have birth control, like middle class black and white women. She is aware that it takes two to oppress and that she and other poor people no longer are submitting to oppression, in this case genocide. She allies herself with the have-nots in the wider world and their revolutionary struggles. She had been forced by historical conditions to withdraw the children from male dominance and to educate and support them herself. In this very process, male authority and exploitation are seriously weakened. Further, she realizes that the children will be used as all poor children have been used through history-as poorly paid mercenaries fighting to keep or put an elite group in power. Through these steps .. . she has begun to question aggressive male domination and the class society which enforces it, capitalism.”
Howard Zinn used Patricia Robinson’s words to show how important she is and how much she wrote about difficult poor black women’s lives.  Robinson says that there is nothing worse than being on the bottom of hierarchy; indeed poor black women didn’t have easy lives. There was no pity for them. Even when they wanted equal rights to have birth control it was impossible for them. Also, they had to raise kids by themselves without any other help. Later, those raised children would probably become workers for small wages. This order of life was reprehensible for poor black people that’s why they had to do something with this conditions and suppress rich people’s influence which they used to control poor people’s lives.