Analysis Of Golda Meir

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Have you ever heard of Golda Meir? If you have then you know why her name and story is recorded on the shelves of time. For me, I have only just learned of this remarkable person as a result of my returning to community college and being tasked with a paper on a woman in history. The analysis of Golda Meir is an enriching experience. It raises questions and thoughts that cross many boundaries of geographic location and time about ethnic reunification, the recreation of a nation, and a perfect platform to see a mired of key words in this chapter’s sociology list: ascribed status, role expectation, role exit, role conflict, and achieved status. It turns these words into real world examples and finally leaves the reader, as it did for me, with an awesome feeling that one person can change the world. I for one am glad that no one ever told her not to reach for the stars.

Ascribed status - a social position conferred at birth or received involuntarily later in life based on attributes over which the individual has little or no control, such as race/ ethnicity, age, and gender (Kendall). Golda Meir, born Golda Mabovits, was born on May 3, 1898 in Kyiv, Russia. Today, Kyiv is the capital of Ukrain. She was the seventh child in the Mabovitch family, and had two sisters: the younger sister Clara, or Zipke as her family called her, and Shana, or Sheyna as her family often called her by, the older sister who Golda admired and would shape Golda’s life. The other five siblings had died in early childhood (Prymachyk). Life was hard in Russia in those times food was scarce, and money scarcer. Golda later would recall: “I remember all too clearly how poor we were. There was never enough of anything, not food not warm clothing, not heat at ho...

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... is named acting prime minister when Levi Eshkol, Israel’s prim mister dies, and is then elected that same year as Israel’s fourth prime minister and Israel’s first woman prime minister until 1974 when she resins, and sadly in 1978 she dies from a fifteen year battle with cancer (Hitzeroth 8). A busy woman made a huge impact on the world did in fact achieve a great and prominent status.

So, are you still inclined to think that because you only see men in literature, that women have not made significant contributions? I should hope not. Golda Meir dedicated her life for a cause she believed; in it is well known and well written about. Born a poor Jew in the former USSR, todays Ukraine, raised in Milwaukee USA, she signed the declaration of independence, and was the Prime Minister of Israel. Golda Meir was once a small girl who reached for the stars and became one.

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