Gender Roles In Judy Brady's I Want A Wife

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In Judy Brady's essay, “I Want a Wife”, Brady outlines many every day responsibilities and duties of a stereotypical wife in the 1970's. She informs her readers that she herself is classified as a wife and a mother and tells a story of her male friend's divorce who is now on the prowl for another wife. She realizes that she herself would like to have a wife in order for her to go to school and she lists many reasons how a wife of her own could help make that possible. A wife of her own can stay home and tend to the house cleaning and cooking, family scheduling, take care of the children, tend to house guests so that she can relax, and even her sexual needs. Brady compares a wife's world to that of a husband's world through the eyes of the typical…show more content…
She assumes that her audience is or will be married women who have children and stay home to take care of them and the household. These women will be the people who appreciate her essay the most and who will be able to relate to her first hand. They will agree with her that having a wife is the answer to anyone’s want to be able to go to school or work. Since she assumes that women will agree with her points, she wants to be able to break the tradition of women’s roles by gaining their acceptance.…show more content…
The tone that she uses in her piece seems to be sarcasm and this sarcasm is what leads me to the assumptions I make and the way I read her essay. She obviously wants to go to school and become economically independent and be able to support herself. I think that she is not happy with her current situation of being a mom and a wife and feels unappreciated. She stays home and does all the things she lists for her husband, but she resents this role in society that she is in. I assume that she wants a divorce from her husband but because of the role that society has placed on her, but she is unable to get one because she is very dependent on him. It sounds to me that she is jealous of her male friend who is looking for another wife. It was him and his situation that she was thinking of that brought her to the conclusion that she herself wants a wife. Her situation leads me to believe that during this time in history women were not meant to show signs of aggression, jealousy, or anger because it was a mans world. In Brady’s eyes a wife is a basically a slave at home who cannot have a life of her own.

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