However, some women joined the work force and would do jobs that men previously had held. Some were not forced to, but they had to work as hard as they could to support their families during this difficult time. In contrast, the writer Norman Cousins commented that there was a negative opinion on the women’s presence in the workforce despite women willing to acquire a living wage. He also stated in his book that the federal government proscribed holding government jobs by both members of a married couple, and many localities stopped hiring women whose husbands with a minimum wage (Cousins 1939). Another aspect of the Depression affecting life of women was the moral argument against working-women.
When a man is referred to as a ‘slut” it doesn’t associate to the actual definition used by society. But when a woman is called a “slut” it automatically associates her with a prostitute and she is then frowned upon by society. (Evalee) There seems to be a double standard when it comes to these male to female connotations .One in six women and one in thirty three men have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. In our modern society women have been degraded to being pieces of meat or just a pair of sexy legs. (Evalee) Although women have come along way since their efforts in aiding the war, today women around the world still face prejudice, underestimation and gender discrimination only because they are women.
The common perception of marriage is that it was originally weighted heavily in favour of the male member of the couple, and that this has shifted slowly to a more even-handed arrangement in recent years. This essay will examine the question of how accurate this belief really is. Historically, marriage was highly unequal. While the husband took the role of breadwinner and went out to earn the necessary money to support the family, his wife was expected to stay at home and look after the more mundane tasks that make up the day-to-day running of a household. As the former role was commonly seen as more valuable than the latter, this often meant that the husband held most of the power, such as deciding where they would live, how resources were distributed, etc.
When women started working male jobs such as a factory worker the men looked down upon the women as not being fit for the job. At this time all women in America faced the issues of society thinking women were too fragile or not strong enough. Men were suspicious of women and factories saw the needs for women secondary to that of the men. Not only that but also women were left out of the important decision making process of companies becaue womens intellectual ability was seen as inferior to the mens. Women started working traditional male jobs yes because it helped with the war effort but women had something to prove.
Women have long been considered to be part of the lower status when it comes to jobs similar to men. In Arlie Hochschild’s vies, “The feelings of the lower-status partly may be discounted in two ways: by considering them rational but unimportant or by considering them irrational and hence dismissible” (172). This “doctrine of feelings” has been seen to permeate the workforce in such a way that it becomes impossible for women to be respected when they display any sort of emotion. In this essence, women who are considered the lower class in the working environment are oppressed in two ways. The first such way is to ignore any legitimate concerns women have; the second way is to classify any emotion as unnecessary and “irrational.” Women get taken advantage of solely because society has considered them emotional, which in today’s modern society is often mistaken for being unstable.
The noble women didn’t have life any easier, though they were considered lucky compared to the peasants. For these reasons, life was harsh in the middle especially for the women. Harsh punishments were given to all who did not follow the rules given out by the men of the society. The women of the medieval times were in danger the most as they were treated harshly by the society. The women had no choice but to be punished the same way as men were; brutally.
Almost everything is under control of men. Women’s freedom is overlooked by many authority figures and they are almost deprived from freedom of speech, freedom of gathering and freedom to own properties. In many aspects women in Kenya are extremely oppressed, even though some western countries think that Kenya is one of the African countries that the offer most equal freedom for men and women. According to some Kenyan men’s mentalities, regardless of their position, they believe that women’s duties are limited to the house work such as cleaning, washing, cooking and taking care of children. It is women’s duty to accomplish these tasks or else she will get punished for failing to preform or to not obey her husband commands.
Feeling Emasculated In so many relationships in society black women wonder why their men are not faithful, or not committed to them, or go get a woman of a different race. The answer is right in front of their faces; they emasculate their men. They emasculate them to the point where they can’t take it anymore. Then they wonder why they don’t have a man. No one wants to put up with their controlling ways, bad attitudes and their feeling of thinking their better than their men.
This was a label attached by men saying that women were getting out of control because times were changing where women were allowed to have opinions. They did this to try and control women. Symptoms of the said ‘illness’ were nervousness, faintness, insomnia, shortness of breath, loss of appetite for food or sex and more. In today’s society none of these add up to a certain illness, hysteria was just a way to keep women in line when men didn’t want to hear what they had to say. It was very sexist and feminists such as Elaine Showalter believed it was nonsense and is very against it.
Graff asks, “Why was she out so late at night, provoking men into rage by being openly female?” People blame women for being out so late and night, and it seems like women want men to enjoy them. It is absurd that people would blame women on everything, even when it is not women’s fault. Another cause of rape culture is that men as a whole are stronger than women. In the past women do not have more power than men and now they aren’t physically stronger than them so they would be over powered by men. For example most of the men can force women not to move with their strength, so women cannot escape from men.