Feminism And Gender Equality I
Feminism And Gender Equality IOverall, the rights and status of women have improved considerably in the
last century; however, gender equality has recently been threatened within
the last decade. Blatantly sexist laws and practices are slowly being
eliminated while social perceptions of "women's roles" continue to
stagnate and even degrade back to traditional ideals. It is these social
perceptions that challenge the evolution of women as equal on all levels.
In this study, I will argue that subtle and blatant sexism continues to
exist throughout educational, economic, professional and legal arenas.
Women who carefully follow their expected roles may never recognize
sexism as an oppressive force in their life. I find many parallels
between women's experiences in the nineties with Betty Friedan's, in her
essay: The Way We Were - 1949. She dealt with a society that expected
women to fulfill certain roles. Those roles completely disregarded the
needs of educated and motivated business women and scientific women.
Actually, the subtle message that society gave was that the educated woman
was actually selfish and evil.
I remember in particular the searing effect on me, who once intended to
be a psychologist, of a story in McCall's in December 1949 called "A
Weekend with Daddy." A little girl who lives a lonely life with her mother,
divorced, an intellectual know-it-all psychologist, goes to the country to
spend a weekend with her father and his new wife, who is wholesome, happy,
and a good cook and gardener. And there is love and laughter and growing
flowers and hot clams and a gourmet cheese omelet and square dancing, and
she doesn't want to go home. But, pitying her poor mother typing away all
by herself in the lonesome apartment, she keeps her guilty secret that
from now on she will be living for the moments when she can escape to that
dream home in the country where they know "what life is all about." (See
Endnote #1)
I have often consulted my grandparents about their experiences, and I
find their historical perspective enlightening. My grandmother was
pregnant with her third child in 1949. Her work experience included:
interior design and modeling women's clothes for the Sears catalog. I
asked her to read the Friedan essay and let me know if she felt as moved
as I was, and to share with me her experiences of sexism. Her immediate
reaction was to point out that "Betty Friedan was a college educated woman
and she had certain goals that never interested me." My grandmother,
though growing up during a time when women had few social rights, said
she didn't experience oppressive sexism in her life. However, when she
describes her life accomplishments, I feel she has spent most of her life
fulfilling the expected roles of women instead of pursuing goals that were
mostly reserved for men. Unknowingly, her life was controlled by
traditional, sexist values prevalent in her time and still prevalent in
the nineties.
Twenty-four years after the above article from McCall's magazine was
written, the Supreme Court decided whether women should have a right to an
abortion in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)). I believe...
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