Negotiating Fine Lines between Women’s Work and Women’s Worth

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Negotiating Fine Lines between Women’s Work and Women’s Worth

A woman’s place is in the home. She should have babies and raise them well. Her job is to keep the house clean and to take care of her husband. Although in today’s society this is no longer an acceptable classification, parts of it still exist within the minds of many. For example, the majority of men and women in the United States would say that they are against inequality between men and women; yet, the majority of women in America are living with their husband’s last name. This practice literally used to symbolize the ownership of the woman by the man, but people today fail to see the connection between this tradition and the past. This inability to see the connection creates a contradiction. It would seem logical that if America wants to affirm the value and equality of women, it would reject practices that keep an oppressive past alive in the present.

Although in today’s society women are sometimes still subjected to practices that label them as inferior to men, whether it’s in a marriage where the woman must stay at home to care for the child or in the workplace where the female is paid an average of 25 cents less than men, the fight for equality for women has come a long way since the 1920’s and 30’s. This is the time period that Kari Boyd McBride reflects upon for women in her essay “A Boarding House is not a Home: Women’s Work and Woman’s Worth on the Margins of Domesticity.” McBride’s essay is valuable because of the experience and knowledge she has about her field, which is that of Women’s Studies.

In analyzing McBride’s essay the rhetorical devices found to be used were logos and pathos. First, it will be sho...

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...ues women’s work becomes wrong. Yes, in today’s society one could argue further that a woman who stays at home and does not work is only reinforcing the stereotype and prolonging the inequality. However, this essay was not written to change the world. It simply strove to identify and prove the reasons behind a ruined sense of self worth that many women in the early 1900’s felt as a result of their work being demeaned. By reaching out to people’s emotional sides, McBride relayed her grandmother’s tale so that people could clearly feel the hurt and demotion that women of that time lived with in order to have them persuaded that the oppression of women in any manner and capacity is wrong.

Works Cited

McBride, Kari Boyd. “A Boarding House is not a Home: Women’s Work and Woman’s Worth on the Margins of Domesticity.” The University Book second edition. 472-487.

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