Briefly explain how the women’s and gay rights movements provided an impetus for the unprecedented growth and maturity of the multicultural movement and earned it the name “the fourth force in counseling.”

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The advocacy of the feminist movement led to an improvement in the obstacles to gender equality, women’s rights as related to sexuality, gender roles, workplace, reproduction, and other inequalities, as well as the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment that guaranteed social equality regardless of gender. Feminist therapy emerged as a result, leading to a better understanding of the negative effects of sexism on women’s mental health and interventions to address them, including empowering of women, emphasis on egalitarian therapeutic relationships, and social justice for minority groups. The gay rights movement also contributed to the multicultural movement by advocating for changes in the social structures of society that allowed powerful groups to marginalize and oppress the less powerful. The gay rights movement also served as the catalyst that made it possible for the counseling professional to accept sexual orientation and to provide services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clients. The gay rights movement was instrumental in LGBT-affirmative counseling that instigated the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM-II in 1973.