Feminism 1960S-1980S Essay

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Feminism These feminist women aim to combat both the overt and hidden discrepancies in opportunities between the genders. This unfairness stems from socially constructed differences involving men and women, which render men superior and women inferior. The greatest challenge facing women is the mindset, of both men and women, that women are condemned to inequality and restricted in their career and lifestyle opportunities. These feminists do not blame men for the predicament of women. As Virginia Woolf explains, “It was absurd to blame any class or any sex, as a whole.”(R86). This unjust attitude towards women is a product of a patriarchal society, not the male sex. Nature has made them an acquisitive “vulture” which compels them to desire dominance and control (R87). “Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. They are driven by instincts which are not within their control” (R86). Woolf elucidates that the character of men is to take power and act more aggressively than women, and this has given them an advantage in their excursion to becoming the privileged sex. Betty Friedman addresses the reality that fulfilling their traditional maternal roles of raising the children and tending to the household doesn’t satisfy some women, however, they are ashamed of this personal problem, lacking the confidence to enter the male territory where these women feel they may find something more meaningful. Women are limited by the inferiority put upon them by society as well as themselves. Women are kept from growing and learning, “education for women has become so suspect that more drop out of high school and college to marry and have babies…women so insistently confine themselves to one role”(R89). Women have the potential to finish schooling and feel success as men do, but they restrict themselves to the image of the ideal woman, which is not the
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