Commercials often portrayed a woman as helpless if her car broke down. Feminists went to the streets, marching, protesting, writing books and debating to change social and political views that limited women. One young lady named Betty Freidan made a list of questions while in college for women to answer and after seeing the results, she discovered that at least 200 women were unhappy with their lives. Betty Freidan tried to write an article based on her findings but was turned down, so she took it to a deeper level and took it into herself to try to change these lives to be better and change the way women were looked at. Yes, but you need a bit more specific overview.
And it’s the silence that kills us” (Breaking Clean 154). Blunt struggled through her childhood for her dad’s acceptance and love. I feel her relationship with her dad introduced her to the reality that as a woman in the west she was nothing more than a second-class citizen. For this reason she hated what she knew becoming a woman would bring, and fought puberty violently lancing her breast. In rural Montana from the time you reached puberty you were expected to do what your mother did, and what her mother did and so on.
The entire story focuses around the lives of these three Native American women; the three women’s lives are intertwined and portrayed from separate points of view. Rayona, the daughter of Christine is a reserved intelligent girl while her mother is more boisterous and rebellious. Rayona struggles throughout the novel with her mixed-race heritage, which creates many problems for her. Her mother is very self-conscious woman who looks for romance in the wrong places. The use of multiple narrators to tell their stories from multiple viewpoints shows just how much family members who should be close to each other can misunderstand one another.
Being able to shed a light on the issues that were occurring not too long ago in this day in age, it’s almost like a Holocaust in a way. It is so unimaginably freighting to know that a short amount of years ago children were sent to “schools” to be brain washed, abused, and de-culturized by the white man in order to eliminate Indian life all together, and I had no idea about it what so ever upon reading this book. It makes me wonder what else is going on in the world, so awful, so disgusting, that broadcasts don’t want to do a report on it or put it on the news because of the utter filth that humans are doing to other humans. I feel like some white men don’t see the severity of eliminating a culture solely based on traditions and customs and way of life, the Holocaust happened merely a few years prior to these boarding schools nonsense , and apparently no lesson was learned what so ever in the eyes of the white man. In our every day lives, in order to make even the tiniest impact, the idea of one race being superior of the other is an idea that must be squashed.
"By day and by night his tyranny grows harsher... lets no daughter go free to her mother... lets no girl go free to her bridegroom." (George, I, 3-4). Women, on the other hand, play many more roles than men in this classic and make subtle, but key decisions to greatly change the course of the story. Take Ninsun, the mother of Gilgamesh, for example. She plays the role of the loving, caring mother and also that of the wise counselor that provides guidance.
In the process, she endangered her life as she was threatened by the Taliban. Being the daughter of a school owner meant that she had the moral support of her parents as she persevered as an education activist and a feminist, but on the 9th of October, 2012 she was shot by a Talib. (1) Education is a privilege most of us are blessed with but some are willing to pay the ultimate price for. She was born and raised in a male dominant society, a community where a girl child was considered to be a burden to the family and was only useful to bear children or to do household chores. (2) She realized that ensuring education along with women’s rights were the only solutions to the dilemma she experienced in her society.
The Indian Adoption Project began in the late 1950’s and lasted throughout the 1960’s. It allowed for the removal of Indian children from their homes and families, and to be placed within the non-Native community through adoption, foster care and orphanages simply because “the white man knew better” (Adopting a Native American Child). The Native American community viewed this project as “the most recent in a long line of genocidal policies toward Native communities and cultures” (Herman). Erdrich opens her story by displaying these events from the view of a child hunted, Buddy. The trauma and fear Buddy feels, knowing that at any moment he will be stolen away from his mother, is shown through his nightmare of being found hiding in a washing machine.
The act of female cutting has been a controversial topic throughout today’s world. Many people believe that it is immoral and abusive to the women and children of these cultures that participate in the ritual, but most of the participants in these surgeries think that it is just a transition into womanhood or an act of purity. Alice Walker’s novel Possessing the Secret of Joy has opened the eyes of Westerners to this detrimental problem that has consumed many parts of Africa. Through her fictional story, she portrays the life of Tashi, a woman that has been demoralized and degraded through the traditional act of female genital cutting at a late age. Critics have depicted their ideas on female genital cutting over the years through their extensive and eclectic research.
Does her inner power stem from her horrible situation in childhood? Because she was an orphan and she had to take care of herself to survive the aggression from her cousin and her relatives always bullied her? Her aunt couldn’t stand her, she behaved unjustly and prioritized own children. She couldn’t understand why Jane is so savage and rebellious, but she wanted only better treatment and her independent soul couldn’t deal with it. However at the time Jane was ten years old, she opposed her evil aunt Reed and she told her what she thought about her despotic upbringing.
The “Judges” Are Watching: Stifling the Woman For as far back as history there has women have always struggled to rise above the expectations that they can only be wives and mothers. Society conditions women from a young age; teaching that girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks, that “ladies” do not lift up their dresses in public and that Daddies go to work while Mommies take care of the children. Regardless of how progressive or feminist a family is, a woman will still encounter stereotypical gender roles and biases in society. Although laws restricting women from leading lives equal to men have been changed there are still social boundaries that many women could -but choose not to-cross. Today women can take a stand for equality, but no one has figured out the best way to take action.