The Unnamed Problem In her 1963 book, A Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan wrote, “As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—‘Is this all?’”. As a result of the constantly glaring of the classic “housewife” from magazines such as Good Housekeeping and members of the government such as Governor Adlai Stevenson, women in the 50s were expected to maintain a reserved lifestyle, which led to lonely dissatisfaction and an internal yearning for a different routine. After World War II and into the Cold War, “nuclear families” became the norm, with a working father, a housewife mother and their children. This idea spread and erupted into the ideal, picture-perfect family that all Americans should strive to have. By the 1950s, this model of a family had specific roles that each member had to follow, with one of important positions being the housewife mother.
The unequal distribution of domestic responsibilities has held women back for generations; it still today continues to hinder women’s progression in the work-place. It seems like everyone thinks mum will stay at home and do the dishes, her little boy will grow up to become a big, strong man but not her daughter, of course, she is far too busy washing her own children’s dishes. But it is not just women who suffer sexism, men do also. For example: Shelia’s Wheels sell cheaper car insurance to women only, and they say it's because statistics show women to be safer drivers. Would it would be fair for a bank to offer men better rates on loans if stats showed that men were better at paying back loans than women were, utterly ludicrous.
Due to John’s lifestyle choice to put work ahead of personal matters, he is always out trying to make a good living for him and Anne. Due to this, Anne, does not get out much and lives the life of a stereotypical stay at home woman. This includes cooking, cleaning, chores inside the house and taking care of the men. One can see this when Anne says, “I’ll get them a good supper-and for coffee tonight after cards bake some of the little cakes with raisins that he likes...” (Ross, 291) One can see in this quote that instead of doing something progressive for herself, like painting, she is preparing a meal for the men’s arrival. Like any stay at home woman.
The only things women were “good for” was taking care of their children and husband. Women has many obligations and very few choices, it was a women’s obligation to take care of her family as well as, clean, cook, sew, knit, and basically do anything and everything her husband asked or demanded. Women were more salves than actual wives. They were owned by men, whether it was her father, brothers, cousins, and/or husbands, they were viewed more as property than actual humans. Girls had to learn this life style at a very early age, if their mothers were busy gathering food; the daughter was to maintain the household.
In the beginning of the book, Lucinda was mean and stubborn. I did not like her one bit. She gave horrible gifts to all not just to Ella. For example, when a giant couple was getting married, Lucinda gave them a horrible gift. The giants could now never leave each other’s presence.
I believe that this had a great impacted the society, mostly women. This was because women back in the 1800’s were only considered to be house wives, looking after the children, cooking for the family and cleaning their houses. Many women didn’t have the opportunity to do everything or even have everything that Marie did. Many of them couldn’t even go to school because they had to stay home to help their mothers with the house. After she made that comet discovery she gave hope to all women and showed them that they can do whatever they want even if only men have done it before.
Some women “felt they were needed at home to raise families, crops for food and to fill the jobs that the men had vacated in order to serve their country.”(Suite101) Women’s lives on the home front during World War II were a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Once the men went off to war and left their jobs, the women that were single had a great advantage because job opportunities were everywhere. In the other hand married women had a tough time, especially if they had children. Hundreds of women worked in machine shops, welding shops, manufacturing plants, and also worked in war industries to make equipment for the war. New industries, naval, and army bases were being built during the home front.
Women were once only seen in homes cleaning and cooking and the era of Rosie was the first step in women’s rights. Though at the end of the war men returned to their old factory jobs forcing women out of their maculating jobs, they showed women as a whole that they could do the same thing men could. While women did not end up reentering the work force until the 1970’s they were not in such high demand at this time either
Moving Forward Michelle Oliveira HIS 204 George Aleman 10/19/2012 For centuries in America women were thought to be inadequate to that of men. Women were in charge of the cooking, the cleaning, raising children among other less than appealing tasks. Still today, many of these views have not completely changed from our society, but in the United States during the twentieth century, many of the roles that Americans had become familiar with began to change radically. Women wanted equality and fought for it not only at home but in the work place, in education and the military and in other areas as well. During the nineteenth century, when the Women’s Movement was beginning, many schools were established
Not by his own choice, but by the way life has put him in that place. Along with many others, people find themselves possessing gender roles that they aren't naturally accustom to them for a vast amount of reasons; being their family expectations, the way the think society tells them to be, or any other reason. He is home tending to the what we normally think is the womanly duties; cleaning, picking up the kids from school, cooking, and many other things. He is the one that gathers all the kids up around the dinner table for supper. This clearly depicts how life can be not what's expected of people, but is still able to work efficiently.