Has Feminism Benefited American Society Summary

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Feminism For this second writing assignment I chose Issue 7: Has Feminism Benefited American Society? This article focuses on whether the feminist movement had a good or bad effect on society as a whole in the long run. Barbara Epstein is in favor of the feminist movement and its effects while Kate O’Beirne is very opposed to it. Barbara Epstein says that yes in fact feminism has benefited American society. She focuses her energies on the evolution of the feminist movement, how it came about and progressed along the way to where we are at a standstill today. She talks about how there are two waves to the feminist movement. The first was in the late 1800’s and early 19th century and mainly consisted of upper-class white women fighting…show more content…
She believes that feminists and feminism attacks marriage and women who believe in marriage and simply being a good mother and wife. An example O’Beirne uses to express these attacks is an excerpt from a book call “The Future of Marriage” by Jessie Bernard. In the excerpt Bernard says that marriage simply holds women back: “Being a housewife makes women sick.” “To be happy in a relationship which imposes so many impediments on her, as traditional marriage does, women must be slightly mentally ill.” O’Beirne says that the feminist movement did nothing but confuse gender roles and weaken the family structure that was established. I personally am not quite sure which side to take so I’m sitting on the fence. I believe that feminists and their movement did do a great deal of good for our society as a whole. We as women are treated with respect and fairness and are considered and listened to. That, I think, was the positive effect of the feminist movement. On the contrary I can still say that I think it did somewhat weaken our family bonds and structure that was originally established in the
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