The End Yet the Start

The End Yet the Start
 

Women have come a long way in United States. They started with very little importance, where there words almost went unheard to becoming and playing a crucial part in this world. Women in the beginning of time were only thought of typical house wife. Their job was to cook, clean and take care of children. Some were slaves and some were not, they were not always treated equally whether it was race or gender. Men were always the house “boss” and when women wanted to express their opinions about anything especially politics, they were looked down at as if who is she to state an opinion.

Women today have become the opposite of what they were in the past. They have gained the right to vote, speak freely, express their opinions and play major roles in political views. Women have worked their way from abuse and a life that was very depressive, to a life that is happy and free of any violence. Women are looked at with respect and have very important roles in and out of the house.

Women are smart enough to continue the battle of equality in their live. The unequal pay that is between men and women in the same field is going to change. Women are going to be able to state that they are as equally smart and talented as men if not more. They are going to be freer and be able to have more of a say in everything that is going around us.

Women in history will defiantly open up the eyes of what women have really accomplished through life. The idea of feminist that people have perceived about all the women is false. When you tell a guy that you are feminist or even what they think of the idea feminist, they will express ideas that are not valid. Sure there are some women out there that are extremely feminist, however, the concept has been ruined from what the true meaning is. Women have become feminist to protect their rights that were taken away from them in the beginning. Till this day, women are going to be fighting for what really feminist means because it is still a concept that is misunderstood so far.They’ve worked so hard in order to give an equal right and freedom future to their children who are the future of this world. From the beginning till today women still fight for the equal rights they deserve. Women have come a long journey and I think they will still continue to gain more and fascinate us still.

Where the Girls Are

Where the Girls Are

Throughout history, music played an important role in everybody life. Specially in America, music has been there through thick and thin during war times. Every body is able to relate to music some way. However, during the 1950s and 1960s, young teenage girls were the most dependent. In the novel Where the Girls Are by Susan Douglas, covers the major times in what was really going on through a perspective of a women. Whether the topic was music, fairy tails, mothers and public media,film and sex and many others, she talked the truth about it. The novel analysis how far women have come and how mass media assembled and projected the image of women.

Douglas wrote this book about women's history but including personal anecdotes that made the reading fun. Her main thesis was that women were stuck between their feminine desires and their feminist side. She based her argument around the history of hate and love relationship of women to the mass media. She clearly also outlines the feminist and sexist image that the media was portraying these women during the 1950s and 1960s. Mass media plays a central role in our socialization and it continuously bombards women with unclear message regarding what women should and should not, what they can be and what they can not. One of Douglas's key points is that one cannot assume that "the media is all powerful, or that the audiences are just helpless masses of inarticulate protoplasm" (page 16). She argued that audiences resist media images and messages all the time by turning off the television, by ignoring the magazine advertising.

Where the Girls Are is an extremely enjoyable book to read. Her way of telling the female mass media experience and using her own lived experiences is what makes the book unique. At the end of the 1950s and 1960s, the book shows how far women have came along in being more dominant than before. 

Decade of Discovery " The Personal Is Political"

Decade of Discovery " The Personal Is Political" 

The 1960s was the time where deep changes were refining the role of women in American society. More females than ever were able to work and get paid money. Many women however were dissatisfied because of the huge gender imbalance in pay and advancement and sexual harassment at the workplace. One of the most extreme and great change that was occuring in the sexual life of women during this time. It was around the end of the 1960s that most wives were using contraception after the federal government in 1960 finally approved the birth control pill. This freed many women from the unwanted pregnancy and gave them choices, and freedom, in their personal life decisions. 
Americans women during this time started accepting some of the basic goals of the 1960s feminists. These basic goals included the equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, the reduction of limits on women in managerial jobs, an end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child rearing. In 1966, the National Organization for Women was formed. In 1968, feminists protested at the Miss America contest in Atlantic City, arguing that the pageant was very sexist. This show that in gender issues was present during this time. 

In the Sara Evans text, Born for Liberty, " in the late sixties feminists challenges were in the headlines and oppositions to the war in Vietnam had toppled the president" (page 284). This shows that women started having their voice count more because they were sick of being in war. They were also able to create a peace movement in 1968 that had over thousand people marching and agreeing on the concept of no more war. In conclusion, the 1960s really did make many significant changes for women.  

The Cold War and the "Feminine Mystique"

The Cold War and the "Feminine Mystique" 

Following World War II, the early Cold War era was marked by a polarizing gender ideology. Women who had entered the manufacturing industry at unprecedented numbers during the war effort, left or were pushed out of higher education and the workforce.
During this time, an idea was arises and was called the Feminine Mystique. The feminine mystique was the false notion that a woman’s “role” in society is to be a wife, mother and housewife nothing else. The mystique is an artificial idea of femininity that says having a career can somehow go against women's role. The mystique was the constant bombardment of housewife and nurturing mother images that esteem the virtue of keeping house and raising children as what woman are supposed too, while criticizing the “masculinity” of women who want to do other things. 
However, the "Feminine Mystique" was not an idea, rather it was a book. Even people who have not read the "Feminine Mystique" can often identify it as a book that drew attention to the massive unhappiness of women trying to fit a media-idealized “happy suburban housewife” image. The book examined the role of women’s magazines, Freudian psychology and educational institutions in limiting women’s life options. Betty Friedan drew back the curtain on society’s pursuit of the pervasive mystique.
During this time period, events were being created which was starting to lead to unsettling feel in women. In the Sara Evans text Born for Liberty mentions " Domestic ideology redefined a new reality- female labor force participation to remove the potential threat of female power and autonomy by making women's work legitimate only as a n extensions of traditional family responsibility."  (pg 262) This quote shows that women during this era started going backward instead of gaining more power. Cold war gave the men the power of control back, putting the women back to their house duty cage again.