The shattering of classifications and stereotypes, and the subversion of traditional gender roles, and the concept of sisterhood or unity among women are among the main tenets of feminist criticism. In the words of Catherine Besley, she mentioned that the cultural construction of subjectivity is one of the central issues for feminism (qtd. in Con Davis and Schleifer, 355). All women are feminists. However, it cannot be denied that women still experience the effects
Over the years women have fought long and hard to be able to obtain and maintain legal rights and privileges that the male gender is born into. Females were molded and primed to play the part as an obedient wife and mother with instruction that your thoughts and opinions are kept to yourself. The perseverance of brave women helped today’s generation of women such as myself have the same equal rights as that of men. With all things you must have a burning passion in the pit of your belly to want to advance and defeat the injustice of this world. In order to put laws into effect there must be a group of people who all agree that new laws should be implemented because of majority vote.
This movement was led by Margaret Sanger. Sanger visited immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Side, distributing leaflets about contraception, in the hopes of preventing unwanted pregnancies. Her birth control crusade won the support of many middle-class women, who believed contraception would limit the size of their own families, as well as controlling the immigrant population. She did have opponents, however. Some believed that birth control movement posed a threat to the family and to morality.
Hope Edelman looks at the realities of marriage and imbalanced parenting roles in her article "The Myth of Co-Parenting." She writes about the common belief that couples have when going into a marriage: things will be perfect. Edelman uses her own marriage to reveal the unexpected difficulties that married couples experience when trying to share responsibilities of working and raising a family. She explains that even though many females feel liberated and inspired to be independent from their husbands, often times these women still end up doing most of the domestic work. Edelman shows how embedded gendered work is in our society, even among feminists.
Hope talked about the resentment that accumulated in the relationship over time. She also discusses the effect and changes in her life when they had children and the way there marriage was effected by this. She also explains how the relationship worked out and how they both overcame obstacles that were in their way and how co-parenting worked from her point of view. The issues she discussed about co-parenting and her marriage were about lack of time spent together, each having “equal division of labor” and entering a marriage with a false belief of it being perfect. She also brings up throughout the writing how she and her friends discussed entering a relationship or marriage with belief of co-parenting was attainable.
One similarity that the mothers and daughters in the book shared with Tan and her family is that all of the parents had high expectations and goals for their children. Also, when all of the daughters were growing up, there was some sort of family secret kept away from them. Another parallel between the author and the characters in the book is that both of them had lost something that was meaningful to them. The parents, mainly the mothers, pushed their daughters to the highest possible point of their ability to achieve successful lives. The daughters in the stories thought their mothers were very pushy about some things and they did not like it.
Women have come a long way in American society. Women have always been discriminated against, in both a sociological and political point of view, and it can still be seen happening today’s society, but to a lesser extent than before. The “glass ceiling effect” is one of the major ways we can see discrimination against women in the American society today; the glass ceiling is a barrier preventing further advancements and promotions in a profession, generally against women and minorities. Women are generally stuck at a low level position in their occupation and must overcome discriminatory barriers when trying to get a promotion. Men have dominated the top level jobs, as most CEO’s and upper management are men, while women are stuck on the lower
Her next project became the children of prostitutes in Calcutta. She wanted to document the lives of women and children forced into prostitution by their husbands and families in order to support their families. After seeing the children’s environment and learning that there was little or no hope for the young girls to escape the life in which they were born. Zana decided to team up with Ross Kaufmann; an established director who has worked for PBS, The Discovery Channel and many other projects. Together they decided to film the lives of the prostitutes and their children with the hopes of ending the social stigma given to them and improve their lives through social change and education.
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.
It was all because of one women named Aibileen who stood out and told her story, so there could be change. It showed us how the white society played a huge role with not wanting change, and knowing any maid going for that cause would be immediately fired, because they couldn’t be the same as the white women. Knowing the Civil Rights Movement was coming, didn’t want it to affect their town in anyway. It also showed us during this time the gender roles of women and men. The men would be the providers, while all women were good for was to have babies and stay at home.