Feminism Essay

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The passage of time allows for great change in the world. Given enough time, a desert can become a sea and a plain can become a mountain if the conditions are right. Human society can be compared to these natural phenomenon in the idea that society can have radical changes given the right forces and allowed enough time. This can be seen in the great revolutions of the world such as the Industrial Revolution, an economic boom, the American Revolution, a political movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, a social revolution. The focus of this research is how the feminist movement has been and is viewed but the American public and how it has affected the economic and social standing of women in the past three generations. Through the interviews of Patricia Santangelo, Barbara Santangelo, and Larissa DePamphilis, this investigation hopes to analysis the differing views on feminism, gender roles, and educational and economic opportunities for women in the generations of the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. Since this research is only focusing on the Baby Boomers and on, our timeline begins not in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, but in the 1950’s with the return to normalcy movement. The first question asked to all the interviewees was “What do you think when you hear the word ‘feminism’ or ‘feminist’?”. This questions tackles the first idea of the change in how feminism has been and is viewed by women in the three generations. Patricia Santangelo answered in the same way described in the first chapter of Women’s Voices Feminist Visions in the sense that she states she does not believe herself to be a feminist, saying that she “thinks it’s baloney” (personal communications, March 15, 2014), yet subscribin... ... middle of paper ... ... of the most heavily relied on statistics for judging women and minorities’ growth in the labor market. Overall, the information gathered by these interviews causes both hope and worry. The view of feminism is improving exponentially and gender roles are slowly becoming neutralized; however, the truth about the economic standing of minorities and women is anything but clear. There is still hope that with the changing views of the America people the reality of economic prosperity will truly be blind to color, gender, creed, and sexuality and the truly exceptional individuals will rise to the highest ranks. This will take time to occur; it takes time to turn a plain into a mountain or a dessert into a sea but it has happened and will happen again. It will take time and work but eventually a racist, sexist, classist, heterosexist society can become egalitarian society.

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