Psychology Today | 07.11.2026 20:37
Consciousness-raising has its origins in the second-wave feminism of the 1960s, notably with the New York Radical Women, perhaps best known for staging a protest at the 1968 Miss America pageant. Feminist consciousness-raising aimed to help women realise that a lot of their problems were not individual, but instead resulted from institutional sexism—being caged by traditional gender roles is one example. A popular slogan of the time, "the personal is political," encapsulates the same sentiment, for it puts forth that oppression within domestic spheres (the home, family, and relationships) is not separate from wider power structures in society (gender inequality).
