Hawthorne felt the need to create a new, strong, and righteous character to for the battle of equal status between men and women. As the heroin of the novel, Hester Prynne represents the fighting feminist. Her miserable life reveals the low status of women during the 17th century Puritan society and exposes there is no mercy towards the cruelty and the prejudice the women encountered during this time period. Although ashamed and alienated from society, Hester proves to contain a stronger being than the women of that time. Hester does not fall after convicted of a sin, but becomes a strong woman seeking equality between men and women and the letter she is branded “was a symbol of her calling” (Hawthorne 150).
However they face the challenge and constant pressure to perform in all areas of their life whilst balancing domestic and corporate lives. This gives rise to the issue of being drained and burned out. Although women in the developed world have been blessed with more equal opportunities after generations of unfair inferiority, the pressure put on a society's women to be perfect at whatever they are expected to do is huge. Even with the enormous developments that have been made over decades, women must still constantly fight for the right to create their own identities, no matter where they're from or what they believe in. They strive to be like their precedents and in the bargain lose their self-identity.
The text Mariah Burton Nelson, “I Won, I’m Sorry” is centered on the culture of women athletics during their athletic career, how they must always create the atmosphere of femininity to accept being a winner. Most professional women athlete today in 2012 feel a degree of femininity is essential to having a successful career. A good point is how women athletes have crossed over to more feminine competition as beauty queens, swimsuit models for “Sport’s Illustrated” to escape connotations such as; the female athlete being associated with being a lesbian. The author of the text notes how the media plays a great role in determining how the public perceives female athlete roles. The addressing of the media having a role in projection of a female athlete role interjects the media may not always send the best message concerning a female athlete, which is a message of femininity concerning the athlete.
The expectations in society have become greater and the criteria to judge the success of the women have become more stringent since the old days. The ideal thrust upon women insists on having it all and the desire to achieve it causes havoc to the women who end up feeling overwhelmed by an insurmountable burden. Rabiner describes the strains and struggles of her personal life to strengthen her stance. She points out that it is utterly ironic that feminism originally initiated to brace the position of women in society, has been made to backfire in this way, by making most of them feel inadequate and dissatisfied. Rabiner also explains how the media uses the superwoman image to intimidate the average women and leave then entangled in the web of inferiority.
Ever since Madame C.J. Walker became a millionaire selling hair and beauty products it became clear that black women felt the need to tweak themselves to feel attractive. Hair had to be straighter and skin lighter, blacks have been brainwashed by the images of Europeans and what they considered to be beautiful. After hundreds of years of being told they were inferior and being raped and beaten it’s hard not to believe it. The film, “The Soul of Black Girls”, candidly showed how these thoughts are still embedded in the minds of African-American women today.
How important was Emmeline Pankhurst in bringing about votes for women? Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the Suffragettes; a strong movement of women who used violence and intimidation in an effort to win women the vote. Suffrage is the right to vote in political elections, and until 1918, women did not have this right. Suffragists or The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society (NUWSS) was formed in 1897 and led by Millicent Fawcett. This group was made up of mainly middle class women and campaigned peacefully to win the right to vote in political elections for women.
As exemplified in Pride and Prejudice with characters like Mrs. Bennet and her child, Lydia, many ladies put money above love when it came to the subject of marriage. Perhaps the behavior of women in this time period is a question of nature vs. nurture. For females especially, society dictated class distinctions and parameters for retaliatory ridicule, while bringing emphasis towards honing “womanly” talents in lieu of formal education and opportunities. If a lady were to step out of the bounds of appropriate behavior, she would disgrace herself and most likely her family, thereby cutting them off from benefits that might otherwise shine upon accomplished personas. Mrs. Bennet’s least favorite daughter, Elizabeth, seems to be made of strong moral fiber and respectfully does not sink to the (often) poor matrimonial standards of her peers.
Everyone can agree that sexism had its talons deep in the flesh of the American mindset during the 1800's and although this is an obvious fact, few people understand just how hostile an environment it was for a woman. Among those few, were the women living in this malicious medium. From corsets to kitchens, housekeeping to health, life was not easy for even the most well-to-do woman. Although not all women decried their situation, a strong-minded minority dropped their oven mits, put their fists in the air, and called out for a change. Equal opportunity, equal right to vote, equal pay, and all around equality is what they demanded.
This paper will explain some key factors in the views of women all around the world; why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stopped making progress, explaining the main causes of women’s leadership roles, and offering interesting solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. Beginning in the early 1800s, many women took a leading role in the struggle for black rights. Black men had more rights than these black women and black men were not willing to let black women have an equal place at the table. This eventually abolished slavery then, led to the suffragist movement, which led to women winning the right to vote, and many other things. This led women’s rights movement of the 60’s and still occurs today.
The very concept of women empowerment shows that society as such has given a raw deal to women – who comprise nearly fifty percent of the population and women themselves have to come forward to fight for their rightful place in all walks of life and prevent their exploitation in every field. Women, who number 498.7 million according to the 2001 census of India, represent 48.2 percent of the country’s population of 1,027.01 million. Let us analyse the ways and means for empowerment of women. The women who blazed the trail Quite often we are carried away by the roll call of honour – the name of few luminaries who have left their footprints on the sands of time or who are fighting lonely battles – Indira Gandhi, Sirimao Bandaranaike, the first woman Prime Minister of a country (Sri Lanka) in the world, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Golda Meir, the first woman Prime Minister of Israel, Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime Minister of UK, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the first woman President of UN General Assembly and many others. As a supercop, Kiran Bedi even excelled her male colleagues in jail reforms for which she was awarded Magsaysay Award.