In "Why women can't have it all. Anne Slaughter wants to prove why women are struggling to up stand a good work/ life balance. On the other hand Richard Dorment wrote "Why Men Still Can’t have it all." In his article Dorment debates to explain that the work /home balance is a strain on men as well, and maybe harder for men than women. All though both essay are written well, and state true facts. Anne Slaughter's article is far more adequate for today's society than Richard Dorment's article. Anne Marie Slaughter starts off her article telling the reader about her career field , and her family issues. Anne was a director of policy planning at the State Department which is a foreign policy government job that requires a lot of time and dedication. Anne claims the career field she picks takes away from her family's time. Being a mother of two Slaughter believes that women can't have it all, and must make sacrifices.
One of her reasoning backing her is that women can not rise in their career field fast as men and still have a active home life. Slaughter gives her own experiences with her work-family balance. She tells the reader that she have two sons and a husband. Her job schedule would only allow her to
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All though Dorment agreed with some of Slaughter's points of views he disagreed with her article as a whole. Calling Slaughter 's essay "wonk talk" Dorment believes women nor men can blame their problems on society, companies, workforce, and the other gender. According to Dorment he feels that this is what Slaughter did in her essay "why women can't have it all."
Dorment used Sheryl Sandberg article "Lean In" to back his reasoning claiming that Sandberg wrote about feminist movement as well, but did not blame anyone or anything and said it is the individual person who decides what he or she wants to
I would say that both articles offer very valid points and are both true in some ways. In Slaughter’s article I can definitely understand some of the points she makes about women struggling to balance their home life with work life, because I’ve witnessed it in some ways with my own mom. However men at the same time can also deal with some of these issues as well. I will say that personally I believe Dorment is accurate when saying neither men or women have it all, the decision to become a successful parent and professional is a personal choice. Dorment does recognize some of the hardships that women have to go through when trying to be successful at their profession and as parent. For instance he brings up unfair pay discrimination and sexism
According to Julie Zeilinger in Guys Suffer from Oppressive Gender Roles Too, society forces men to be powerful and tough. On the other hand, in order to be powerful and tough, plenty of guys are forced to hide their true emotions. However, hiding one’s emotions can be unsatisfactory or harmful. Men will feel disconnected, seeing that they have detached themselves from their true feelings.
The most striking element of Ehrenreich 's argument, however, lies in the her assertion that men have suffered more than women from their gender role. This provides a compelling incentive for the American patriarchal power structure to want an end to stifling gender roles. The power of her argument comes from the union that would occur, if men agreed a change must be made with women who have felt this way for centuries. Ehrenreich hopes that men and women "might meet as rebels-not against each other but against a social order that condemns so many of us to degrading or meaningless work in return for a glimpse of commodified pleasures" (182).
She argues that men have professions and other duties that focus their minds and help to develop reason “whilst women, on the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties” (Wollstonecraft 2004, 77). Women spend most of their time tending to the house and their beauty because that is what they are taught to focus on, in order to get the most out of their life. During their upbringing children are taught to follow the actions of those that share the same gender as them. This causes drastic differences between the sexes because there is no opportunity to overlap the characteristics of the two genders to create a more coherent and equal society. In relation to that, Marx states that all citizens, no matter their status, should have the right to private property and freedom to do as they wish with the labor they produce. Marx (1988, 81) believes “private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor, the necessary consequence, of alienated labor, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself.” The deprivation of the laborers from control of their own products causes their alienation not only from the products but also the rest of society, which ultimately creates an unstable form of community. This instability will eventually
This is supported by her quote “I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured” (680). From this quote we can conclude that Anne-Marie Slaughter believes that both our economy and our society are to blame for women and men struggling “to combine professional success and satisfaction with a real commitment to family” (684). These struggles in our society come from the gender roles that our society puts on us when we are born. It’s assumed that women need to make sure the family life is functioning correctly, while men need to make sure that their family is financially stable. In addition to gender role assumption, many high end positions require employees to work extremely long hours in the work
When creating a comparative rhetorical analysis of two different feminist essays, we must first define the term “feminism”. According to Merriam-Webster.com, feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”. Feminism is a also a long term social movement, one that’s been in the works since the early 1900’s. However, as any challenger to the norm might receive, the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ have gotten a bad reputation. Throughout the years, popular opinion has agreed that if you’re a feminist, you hate men, and don’t shave. It’s a very close-minded belief, and both Lindy West and Roxane Gay agree. Both authors of the essays I am comparing today, West and Gay try and convey their beliefs that feminism isn’t what you think it is. However, they do it in very different ways. Who conveyed their beliefs of feminism better and the superior argument? That is what I am going to display today.
...tivating for the advancement of women, without realizing they were doing so. She also claims that the term "feminist" changes over time, to become appropriate for how one would like to apply it.
Instead these life decisions are primarily influenced by an individual’s personal limits, beliefs, and morals. Though sexism and pay discrimination still exist there are so many regulations and penalties in place that such behavior has become very uncommon. Dorment creates a new scene where he asks women to not only take on the same sacrifices men past and present have all while realizing that men are doing the best that they can. I believe that this scenario created is key to realizing that women can only take on leadership roles or progress in their careers if they are willing to make sacrifices. They can’t expect special treatment or think that being successful doesn’t come with downsides when the thing they are fighting for is equality. According to the Pew Research Center 60 percent of two parent homes with children younger than eighteen consist of dual-earning couples. This study explicitly shows how men are no longer the sole provider, but instead that women are taking on careers while giving up the stay at home role. In addition, despite men typically spending a little less time at home than women it is become increasingly normal for the home work load to be more evenly divided in dual-earning households. As Richard Dorment mentions, this raises the question “Why does the achievement gap still exist?” Men and Women are increasingly splitting the home work load between each other yet men still appear to be achieving more in the workplace than women. Though the opportunities available to each are the same it is the personal motivation and limits that are resulting in the gap. Women value family time over work time greatly while men are much more willing to sacrifice personal time for work because they feel it is for the good of their family. The difference in personal importance is one factor that contributes to the gap and
...women’s roles in society and in the household are. It is quite interesting on how many biased readers and writers we have in this world. There are so many people so quick to label women and men based on very simplistic roles in society. Men believe women have something to prove or justify, but only in the household. Overall, I really enjoyed interpreting this short story and literary reviews by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford.
Until the last hundred years or so in the United States, married women had to rely on their husbands for money, shelter, and food because they were not allowed to work. Though there were probably many men who believed their wives could “stand up to the challenge”, some men would not let their wives be independent, believing them to be of the “inferior” sex, which made them too incompetent to work “un-feminine” jobs. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, feminist writers began to vent their frustration at men’s condescension and sexist beliefs. Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Zora Neale Hurson’s “Sweat” both use dialogue to express how women are capable of and used to working hard, thinking originally, being independent
Today, women are not typically seen in higher levels of position in the work force than men. In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, she uses her own experience to convey why it is not possible for a woman to work in a higher position, due to women being more emotional than men. People still believe it’s a women’s place to stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children, while the men go to work to pay the bills. And it’s considered odd if the man is a stay at home father and the woman is working 24/7 and is never home. Even though it is rewarding to be able to always be there to see your child’s milestones in their life. It is always nice to get away from that life for even a moment. I don’t mean going out with the girls or guys, while you hire a babysitter, but helping your husband or wife pay the bills, so you have two rather than one income coming in at the end of the month. In Richard Dorment’s article, “Why Men Still Can’t Have It All” he states that both men and women can’t have it all. I agree with both Slaughter and Dorment, but not entirely. I believe if you want to be a good
Although she is suggesting that they support her argument, she does not want them to claim the movement. She claims that, “Gender equality has not stalled. It has hit a wall.” I believe that with the new way of supporting feminism we as a society have forced this pause in the advancement of equality. By agreeing with Stephanie Coontz, I have been able to view feminism from her point of view. In the 1960’s feminism was lacking ‘political-ness’. Instead, feminists were more focused on the transformation of a woman’s personal consciousness. “Under present conditions, the intense consciousness rising about the “rightness” of personal choices that worked so well in the early days of the women’s movement will end up escalating the divisive finger-pointing that stands in the way of political
Nothing simply begins. Everything needs something else in order to develop and live continuously. Fire needs wood to burn, water needs heat to boil, and the women’s right movement needed abolition to begin the real fight. The women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century emerged out of abolition activism because it was not until after abolitionist groups formed and began fighting slavery that women began to realize they had no rights themselves and began their own fight.
Feminism has growth over the decades, first they explain who they are fought for us (women), now they are fighting for themselves.
What is otherness? Otherness is defined as “the quality or fact of being different”. We see this term thrown around, but what does it really mean? In the world we live in today, being viewed as “other” is considered a negative aspect of a person's personality. Through the society that impacts how we see ourselves, the thought of otherness has been constructed based off of a person's social identity. In the essay “Between the Sexes, a Great Divide” author Anna Quindlen states that different genders should not define the social aspect of one another. Similarly, in Paul Theroux’s essay titled, “Being a Man” he acknowledges the fact that in the society we live in, “being a man” is a standard stereotype that men should not compare themselves to in order to be considered “manly”. Both authors identify the problem of gender expectations that results from otherness; however, while theroux makes the divide worse by generalizing with a bitter tone, Quindlen invites everyone to “do the dance” despite the discomfort and awkwardness that might occur between both genders.