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The Changing Status of Women
Women have played a huge role in society. Many people respect women for the simple fact that they bring life to every human that is put on earth and, without them, none of us would be here today. Although many people respect women, women believe that they have been treated unfairly in the past. I believe that women have been treated unfairly, but I also believe that women today have much better opportunities offered to them than in the past, and that women today are closer to equality than ever before.
Writings by Simone de Beauvoir, Karen Horney, and Margaret Mead document that, in the past, women have been oppressed or repressed in many ways. For instance, they were not allowed to vote until 1920. Women could not hold high positions in the workplace, and they were not paid the same amount of money for the same jobs. Women have not been allowed to have any say-so in the financial or political issues of the family and the economy. Women have been treated unfairly partly because they have been raised to believe they were supposed to be the ones to stay at home, do the chores, and take care of the children. It has been traditional since ancient times in most cultures that the man was in charge of a family's household, and it was traditional for the woman to obey the man. Therefore, if a woman was told to clean the house, tend to the children, and have dinner waiting on the table, she was expected to do this with no objections. Today there is less emphasis on the woman to be the sole house worker. She is often working outside the home, and in any case, there is cultural pressure, in the United States at least, for women to object to the traditional role in full and demand a more balanced distribu...
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...ltural shift that is changing this history. It may be moving too slow on a day-to-day basis, but, when today's woman and her rights, functions, activities, and values are compared to those presented in the writings, there are significant differences. I believe that women are becoming more equal to men every day.
Works Cited
Beauvoir, Simone de. "From The Second Sex." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 5th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 173-185.
Horney, Karen. "The Distrust Between the Sexes." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 5th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 337-351.
Mead, Margaret. "Women, Sex, and Sin." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 5th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 529-541.
After college, O'Connor's writing career continued. During her brief career as a writer, O'Connor contracted lupus in which she ultimately died. In Short Stories for Students, Kathleen Wilson states that while O’Connor was writing her first novel Wise Blood, which she started while attending the prestigious Yaddo writers’ colony, she suffered her first attack of lupus, a chronic, ...
The opening lines of the chosen passage, "Tom was evidently..." immediately states Tom Buchanan's key characteristics- dominance and oppressiveness, "His presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness." People are intimidated by his hulking power. Tom oversees the crowd as he is standing raised on the steps, which creates a vivid image similar to that of a powerful dictator on a platform surveying his country, people, soldiers, worshippers, slaves. He later leaves his wife at dinner to accompany a funny gentleman, but, as Daisy knows he is really accompanying a "common but pretty" girl. Here we can witness Tom's sheer nerve, audacity and idea of self importance, as he blatantly leaves his wife to join another woman. The book makes reference to "Tom's arrogant eyes" on several occasions throughout the book (p.12, p.101). As is commonly believed and suggested throughout the book the eyes are the door to the soul, so the book is clearly implying that Tom is an arrogant and oppressing person, even when stripped down to his bare, selfish soul.
...nderstand each other’s view or just each other. Dee especially believes that these quilts are a representation of what has been discarded as trash just as her culture has, however what she doesn’t see is she was the first to disregard them just as she did her family.
This story in the end is not about butter dishes or old quilts. It is about a woman who has two daughters and is wise enough to know that there is no place for favoritism in her little family. No matter how far one of her daughters has traveled from where she started and no matter how little the other has, her love for both of them will not be weakened by the desire of one of her daughters for something that was promised to the other.
Irigaray, Luce. "This Sex Which Is Not One." Feminism: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndle. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1991.
Mrs. Johnson, the mother, is described as, “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (6). She tells some of her capabilities including, “I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. . .I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog” (6). This description informs readers that Mrs. Johnson has learned all the ways and traditions of her ancestors and knows how to survive from day to day. She and Maggie’s lives in the small home represent a simple, unsophisticated way of life. Dee, on the other hand is described as, “[light-skinned], with nicer hair and a fuller figure” who “wanted nice things” and “had a style of her own” (7). The clothes Dee wears and the phrases she uses to greet her mother and sister show that she has no real understanding of her background and where she comes from. This shows Dee to be materialistic, complex, and lead a life where heritage is looked upon as a trend and not for what it really represents.
There were many women who fought for female equality, and many who didn’t care, but eventually the feminists won the vote. Women today are still fighting for equality in the home, in the workplace, and in society as a whole, which seems like it may take centuries of more slow progress to achieve.
The fact is that Maggie will probably "put [the quilts] on the bed"(91)because she is active in her culture and views her heritage as part of her everyday life. She was severely burned as a child which left her very humble and scared to venture outside of her known world. Therefore, her culture is all she has, and she not only remembers it through the quilts but engages in her heritage by learning to make quilts. Consequently, when she is confronted by her demanding older sister she replies, "She can have them . . . I can [remember] Grandma Dee without the quilts" (91).
Since the beginning of time, women have been treated as inferiors by men. Due the supposedly weak anatomy their body, they have always been seen as weak and fragile, a description that can’t be farther from the true. Women have been proven to withstand a large amount of pain and have a stronger emotional stability. Just like racism, gender deferment has been less with the progression of time but it’s still a factor that is present in the everyday life of modern society. We can see this in the fields of work like science where it is rare to find a women scientist and how the technological world is mostly ruled by powerful male figures. Women have been oppressed since the beginning of time and have fought for their rights bravely and consistently, women went from not even being able to speak their own thoughts unless their husbands said so and being an incubator for male heirs to being inspirations to many people and fighting for what it’s right. We, as a society, have progressed in that way through the ages, even though, some women are still being oppressed daily on various parts of the world, it is something that we must overcome and we will, because this world is a better place with more smart, educated and outgoing
Image is everything. We can make even the most disturbing scene seem poetic by just adding a few birds, trees, or a river. Poetry is one of the mediums that use this mask. In Singapore by Mary Oliver, imagery plays a very important role. She writes a poem about a poor woman she saw in an airport in Singapore washing an ashtray in the toilet, seem like the woman was encompassing a beautiful scene in nature. A poem is always a beautiful thing, so she wrote a poem about this woman making her a metaphor to the serene image of nature. Although the poem seems to be a beautiful inspiration, it really is a way of her rationalizing her disturbed perception of the woman to nature in the poem. She also uses a very interruptive style of writing by jumping from what she is physically seeing, to what her mind's eye is creating.
The Changing Roles and Status of Women In 1903 the suffragette movement was born with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) by Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters Christabel and Sylvia. At first the newly formed suffragettes relied on spreading propaganda to gain support. However, on the 18th October 1905 they gained considerable unplanned publicity when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney stood up at a public meeting and asked if a Liberal government would introduce women's suffrage. Receiving no reply they stood on their seats waving a banner which said, "votes for women".
Throughout history and even today women are regarded as inconsequential. They are chattels or servants, a person without rights. In some present instances, women are struggling to show that they do have rights and can make a contribution to society if given the chance.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” This is a popular saying that explains that, sometimes, in order to persuade or convince people, one should not use force but words. In Animal Farm, by George Orwell, animals overthrow the human leader and start a new life, but some animals want to become the new leaders. To make the other animals obey the pigs, they first have to persuade the farm’s population. Squealer is the best pig for this job because he effectively convinces the animals to follow Napoleon by using different rhetorical devices and methods of persuasion.
The role of women in society has always been an issue throughout the ages and throughout Western Europe, and more or less all over the world. Before the age of the Enlightenment, or the Dark Ages, women were always seen as secondary to men in all aspects. Most reasons were religious while others were just the way life was then. By the late 18th century, at the time of the French Revolution and the continuance of the Enlightenment era, the role of women in society began changing drastically as the lights of the world were now open with this brand new enlightened era. Women began holding jobs, yet still did not receive the same privileges as men. By the time the Industrial Revolution came along in the 19th century many more jobs were opened to a woman in the work force. Reforms began in all areas throughout the 19thand early 20th centuries as women were gaining more and more rights and acceptance into everyday life. By the time the 20th century rolled around and throughout, no longer was it thought that women belonged in the home (although few still feel that way), yet many women began serving professional jobs as doctors, lawyers, and politicians. Now today some of the most successful people in the business world are women, as women have even began there own companies.
Another example of Dee's confusion about her own African-American heritage is expressed when she announces to her mother and sister that she has changed her name to "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo." When her mother questions her about the change, Dee says, "I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me" (411). According to her mother, the name has been in the family since before the Civil War and most likely represents family unity to her. However, Dee does not realize that. Apparently, she believes that by changing her name she is expressing solidarity with her African ancestors and rejecting the oppression implied by the taking on of American names by black slaves.