Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The womens liberation movement essay
Essay On Women In The 1950 S
Essay On Women In The 1950 S
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
One of the many social issues brought to life during the 1960s was gender equality. While the open struggle for women’s rights had been more or less present since the 19th century or even earlier, the liberal and generally revolutionary atmosphere of America in the 1960s proved to be an inopportune time to draw more attention to the issues surround women’s rights and gender equality. Women were growing weary of their traditional roles of housewives and mothers. Women traditionally gave up any ambition for a career when they got married and began having children. Although they were well educated, their education was often never applied outside of the classroom. Women went to college, found a husband, left college, and started a family. That …show more content…
Countless women worked in place of the men during the war and were not too pleased when their husbands, fathers, and sons came home and took their jobs away again. In fact, divorce rates skyrocketed after World War II due this this as well as other issues (Allport). Women were starting to realize their unhappiness with their current role in society. This discontent was only heightened when more and more wives were becoming pregnant after their husbands returned from war. This led to even more women being placed back into their traditional role of housewife and mother. Women in general were growing weary of this traditional life. They wanted a change, but didn’t really have much to complain about from an outsider’s perspective. Many of these situations occurred in seemingly well-to-do American families; the white families living in the new suburbs of America. They had money, they were well educated, had multiple children, and seemed to have all of the things they needed to live a happy life. So why were the women so …show more content…
Friedan herself went through this revelation of unhappiness. She discusses how she grew up in a middle-class family, went to college, went to graduate school, met a man, dropped out, and became a housewife. The Feminine Mystique outlines the problems of the middle-class white women through a series of interviews with suburban housewives (Friedan). The interviews review the honest opinions and feelings of these women. Some say that they feel incurably tired all of the time, even though they get enough sleep. Some say they resent their husbands secretly for being able to have a life away from the home and from the children. However the overwhelming majority say that they don’t know why they are unhappy. Many don’t even know if they are unhappy. They simply feel discontent. They know that they shouldn’t, but they still do. All of the women interviewed share this view, however no one talked about it. That is why Friedan called it “The Problem That Has No Name” (Friedan). After Friedan published her book in 1963 women began to come together and realize that they were not alone in their discontent. This realization would lead to even larger strides in the women’s movement of the 1960s and
When the war started, women had to take over the jobs of men and they learned to be independent. These women exemplified the beginning of change. Coupled with enfranchisement and the increased popularity of birth control, women experienced a new liberation. When the men returned from the war they found competition from the newly liberated woman who did not want to settle for making a home (Melman 17). This new class of women exercised a freedom that shocked society.
Social movements refer to informal groups of people who focus on either political or social issues. The goal of the social movement is to change things in society, to refuse to go along with the norm, and to undo a social change. For example, the Women’s Rights Movement that began in the 1840s was geared towards getting women more equality in relation to political, social, and economic status in society (Foner). Along with this, women gained a louder voice to speak out about what they wanted to change and implemented the change. Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were often timid, compliant, obedient, and mistreated. After the 1920s, a movement towards more equality was shifted in society views, however not all were convinced or changed by the new ideas of women. Although women began to get increased rights, the typical gender roles, which they were expected to follow did not loosely lesson. Women still found themselves doing the same gender roles, house roles, and family roles even after the 1920s. It was not until the 1960s when the Feminist movement began (Foner). The literary piece is “Why I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and the goal of the Feminist Movement was to create new meanings and realities for women in terms of education, empowerment, occupation, sexual identity, art, and societal roles. In short, the Feminist Movement was aimed to gain women freedom, equal opportunity and be in control over their own life.
From 1950’s to the 1960’s it was a period of time that people began to fight for their civil rights. It was not until all these social reforms that started to develop was when women began to question if taking care of their homes was the only lifestyle they knew. Young women were beginning to want more and wanting to create a name for themselves. Betty Friedan illustrates in her book how a suburban wife struggles with everyday house chores by herself, and as she lays at night she questions if this is all she knows in her life. Friedan challenges the idea that women can receive a higher education and obtain positions in careers just like men. Friedan also challenges women femininity. For throughout history, women were taught about the separate
Before World War II, the prevailing image of women’s role were that of “housewives” and “mother”. World War II led to dramatic changes for the American women. “Wartime scarcities led to increased domestic labor” according to the history book, Created Equal: A History of the United States. Because of the high demand
In doing so, the work evokes the need for a gender equality in a time of male dominance. The nineteen-fifty’s has been commonly referred to as “welfare feminism.” During this time, the role of women was a reflective on society’s massive expectation on how women should behavior both in public and at home. Being a woman came with a critical roles that society expected to be understood and fulfill without question or failure. In the home, a woman was expected to be an laborious, productive, and energetic homemaker, and most importantly an devoted and honorable wife to her husband and family. The average wife was always expected to be home. She was expected to not only nurture her family but be dignified by society as well. In doing so, a wife was able to have the dinner set just in time for her hardworking husband’s return home from work. Thus, a wife was only a truly valuable and respected if she embraced her husband, do as she was told, and agreed without
Despite the contribution of women during World War II, the years following the war were still marked by an emphasis on the traditional roles of women. Women were expected to be good wives and mothers. The 1950s, however, was the first time mothers were working full time, balancing their life at home with their life at work. Even though women were still discriminated against in many ways, the 50s began to show a reformation in the roles of women. Women began entering the workforce, maintaining a stable salary and supporting their families. For the first time, there was a possibility that a woman could achieve great success in the workplace and with it, great respect. There was, however, still a great need for reform. Ultimately, “the groundwork for the women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s was laid in the 1940s and 1950s,” (More 2011). Essentially, the change in socioeconomics in the 1940s, and the reformed gender roles of women in the 50s paved the way for future feminist revitalization
Nearly a decade prior to the 1950s, millions of women entered the work force due to the shortage of men out in the war. These industry jobs provided the women with good pay but by the time the men returned from the war, it shifted back to a male-dominated workforce. The men outnumbered the women in the workplace five to two. It was seen as a huge digression on the feminist movement. After the war, things started settling down and while the women had to leave their part during the war, women were then considered to be the household caregivers. They were ...
But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.
Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique begins with an introduction describing the problem that has no name, which is the prevalent unhappiness of women. Friedan offers some case studies about unhappy women from around the United States, and Friedan wonders whether this unhappiness is connected to the female role of housewife. Friedan describes the differences between the past three generations of women. Grandmothers, Suffrage Feminists, and Mothers. Media representation and women 's magazines nurture the image of the uneducated wife and mother who is content taking care of her family in a house which is equipped with modern technological appliances. Sometimes the media would describe the role of the woman as rewarding. Women have their education, they have worked,
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurring outside of their own household.... ... middle of paper ...
Women were not only separated by class, but also by their gender. No woman was equal to a man and didn’t matter how rich or poor they were. They were not equal to men. Women couldn’t vote own business or property and were not allowed to have custody of their children unless they had permission from their husband first. Women’s roles changed instantly because of the war. They had to pick up all the jobs that the men had no choice but to leave behind. They were expected to work and take care of their homes and children as well. Working outside the home was a challenge for these women even though the women probably appreciated being able to provide for their families. “They faced shortages of basic goods, lack of childcare and medical care, little training, and resistance from men who felt they should stay home.” (p 434)
“A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, ‘Who am I, and what do I want our of life?’ She must not feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of her husband and children.”(The Associated Press 1) When Betty Friedan proposed this idea in her book, The Feminine Mystique, she sparked the controversy surrounding one of the most significant but inconspicuous issues in post World War II American society. Americans sought to alleviate the trauma from the war by devoting their time to raising a family, which led to a major increase in birth rate between the years of 1946 and 1964, confining women to raising their many children. Any woman who pursued a career was referred to as unattractive and envious of men (“Women at Work After World War II” 1). Increasingly, women felt jaded and
After passing out a survey at her college reunion at Smith College, she confirmed what she had suspected, that a numerous amount of women were unhappy and they couldn’t explain why. She then decided to undertake a series of extensive studies on the topic of suburban housewives, which included questionnaires, conducting interviews, meeting with professionals to further discuss her findings, as well as her own personal experiences and compiled her research into her book The Feminine Mystique. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan articulated “the problem that has no name,” the frustration and widespread unhappiness that suburban middle- class women felt as solely being
The roles of women changed drastically between 1950’s and 1970’s due to the political, economic, and social issues, but women’s lives also stayed close to the way they had always been. The lives of women changed in a plethora of ways throughout the years. “We believe that women can achieve such equality only by accepting to full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic, and social life” (Statement of Purpose, 1966).
Betty Friedan spoke out against what so many women were holding within. She allowed women to be able to feel like someone understood and also allowed other people who didn’t understand have insight to how they felt.