Feminism.

The rebirth of feminism was one of the crucial movements of the 1970s. Women demanded and received admission into the professional world, and ratification of the ERA, which would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex, became one of the most hotly debated issues of the decade. In this context there was an inevitable attempt to advance the position of women in religious groups, including the right of women to ordination to the highest priestly office. Liberal groups, including Reformed Jews, who ordained their first woman rabbi in 1972, had relatively little difficulty in permitting women to exercise their highest spiritual office. Some Protestant denominations had long ordained women to the ministry, and other Mainline Protestant denominations extended that right in the latter half of the century. In 1970 both the American Lutheran church and the Lutheran Church in America authorized women's ordination.

Schism over Ordination.