Follow up to First Wave

As I read the three readings for tonight, I was surprised to find out how much I didn't know about the oppression of women in the first and second wave. In Dubois's reading, I was shocked to learn about how Stanton and Mott were discriminated against at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. However this discrimination resulted in a special bond between the two women, and helped them organize the first woman's rights convention. I have never really thought in depth about the creation of the 14th amendment, but the fact that women, born in the United States, were denied the basic rights of a citizen, is absolutely appalling.

In Elizabeth Stanton's, "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," I thought the denials that women have undergone were really interesting, especially the line, "He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice." Before this reading, I had never thought about the oppression of women's suffrage in this sense. The fact that women had to abide by the laws without any say in political matters whatsoever, is very upsetting to me.

In Sojourner Truth's speeches, I thought it was really intriguing how in the 1867 speech, she addressed both men, and white women. I was thrown off when she admitted that white women are smarter than black women, because i felt as if she was succumbing to a group of oppressors of black women.

I thought all three articles fit together well. They all highlighted the same issue of women's suffrage, and all three writers had strong arguments' on why the oppression of women's suffrage and rights was completely unfair.

The Movements

I found the readings to be very interesting, especially the part of DuBois' article about the feminist movements. I think that learning about the feminist movements can give the students great insight into some of the struggles women faced and overcame. I also think that its important because it can show women some of the obstacles we have not yet been able to overcome and what we need to work on as a social group. The feminist movement is important to men as well because so many of the obstacles were set up by men in order to protect their power and the social order of the time. Men are given the opportunity to look at their effects on women's lives, in the past and in the present. DuBois is correct to place such importance on the feminist movement because if it were not for the movement, I am afraid women would not be as close to equality with men than they are today.

Women have been able to overcome so much in history and yet are still so strongly discriminated against today. The feminist movement represents women's strength, durability, and endurance to solve problems they are faced everyday, but also shows the continuing, undying struggle woman are still faced with in modern day life. Every social group can learn a lot about the feminist movements because it shows how a group of people can come together and fight for their rights; and hopefully, receive some benefits from their efforts.

First Wave

Ellen DuBois' article "Feminism Old Wave and New Wave" provides readers with the historical content in which the feminism movements come about. In the first feminism movement (1835-1920), women were outraged by the fact that they were not politically equal to men and they did not possess the right to execute political functions such as voting, making decisions, and being political figures. The first event which sparked such realization was during 1837 when Sarah and Angelina Grimke become active in speaking out against slavery; while some men supported them, many male abolitionists strongly believed that women did not have the same equal participation rights as men in the abolitionist movement. The next event occurred in London when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was denied the right to be delegates at the convention. Both events signified women's political inequality and male's apathy towards that. Lastly, the 14th and 15th Amendment, which excluded women in the right of citizenship and voting, women realized that their political equality were not in the best interest of men; if they wanted change, they had to act themselves because men could not fully understand "how much woman feels her oppression and how much she wants her freedom."

Elizabeth Cady Staton and Sojurner Truth agree with DuBois' argument that men did not understand or have any interest in bringing women political equality and that women needed to take charge gaining their equality. They both wrote and delivered, in my point of view, powerful speeches that were loaded with rhetorical devices.

First, we should recognize the structure of Staton's speech "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolution." She based her speech off the structure of the Declaration of Independence which is very interesting and I guess was absolutely intentional. Like the Declaration of Independence stated the colonies discontentment with British tyranny and the action that should be taken, Staton also addresses women's discontentment with the ways men are treating them. She demands for women's equal access to education, property, jobs, and politics--among other things. What I found interesting is the way Staton sets up her argument using the ideas of inalienable rights and the consent of the governed. I wonder when she delivered the speech, did she have the intention of suggesting women to overthrow the government because they are not abiding to the foundation on which this country was built and were women inspire/motivated to do so?

As for Sojourner Truth's speech "Two Speeches," she delivered two speeches with the same message but in two different strategies targeting different groups of women. Her first speech in 1851 at Ohio Woman's Rights Convention seem to address the general public conveying the message that women have every ability that men has and if they were given the same chance and opportunities as men, women will be able to show their ability and correct all the false assumptions and and misconceptions society have constructed about women. However, her second speech in 1867 at the American Equal Rights Association she seem to convey the same message but to a specific group--this time she plays on her identity as a former slave and her age (wisdom/experience) to address white women. It is interesting to see that not only did women have to fight against men's disapproval of women's roles in society, but women of color also have to fight the battle against women too.

It is clear that Truth's speech incorporated both women of color and white women, I wonder if Stanton's speech did the same?

     
         

Follow up: Responding to The Undying Connection

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique straightforwardly holds psychologists, educator, and the media fully responsible for the socially constructed image of women as only wives and mothers. These three sources Friedan blames is interesting because they are generally sources which people view to have knowledge and we normally don't question their information because they are viewed as expert on the subject. What is troubling about this, is that society tend to just accept what they hear from a source of authority as true. For example when Friedan started to explain the concept of "The Trapped House-wive" and how doctors believe there was something wrong with the women instead of analyzing their unknown problem in terms of their societal role impose upon them. Although Friedan refutes the image of women as being just wives and mothers, it seems that in today's society it is still hard for women to be both successfully business people and traditional views (mothers/wives) at the same time; it is like women today are forced to choose between a career or a family.  Friedan's reference to clothes and how women are made to fit them and not for clothes to fix the woman's figure interestingly suggest women have bound to make sacrifices in life.

Both Beauvoir and Levy touch upon the topic that women are there for men's pleasure, weather it be  sexual, visual, or others. Beauvoir goes into discussing how language, religion, and biology have define women in terms of men. The example of how men incorporates both women and men whereas women only suggest female. I find it interesting how female terminology are usually view as negative. For example, the idea of calling someone an actor oppose to an actress, which have a negative connotation attached to it; actor implies skill and talent whereas actress implies materialists and superficial matters. It is interesting to note how many words in our language and even Spanish have gender associated with them. In last week's post I mentioned an article by Tannen; she suggest a really interesting point where in biological terms two X chromosome makes a female and an X and Y chromosome makes a male. She further suggest that two Y chromosome makes nothing; therefore in biological term, men should be define in terms women instead?

Levy's article makes the notion of sex, female sexuality, and pornography more easy to talk about. While many people in society tend to shy away from having and conversation about the above topics, especially pornography, Levy shone light on these topics is way I would never think about. What troubles me about this article is that it seems that women either have to accept the standard image society place upon them or they completely rebel against that image.

While reading Echols' article it is noteworthy to realized that this is the first reading in which the feminist movement was told through the lens of American American women instead of what we have been previously reading which audience targeted white, middle-class, educated women.

On that note, I believe that feminism have expanded beyond the walls of older women. I think in our society today, especially through the portrayal from media the idea of what a woman is, how they should look, behavior, etc. have targeted women and girls of all ages. The first example that comes to mind is TLC's television show called "Toddlers and Tiaras." This is basically a beauty pageant for extremely young children to even infants. Television shows like this makes me wonder what does the show convey about our society?   

In Response to Caroline C's Post

After reading "The Future that Never Happened" I was struck by when Brownmiller wrote, "Women as a class have never subjugated another group; we have never marched off to wars of conquest in the name of the fatherland... those are the games men play. We see it differently. We want to be neither oppressor nor oppressed. The women's revolution is the final revolution of them all." The last sentence is the most striking to me. I do not agree with Brownmiller because there are a lot of other movements and revolutions that need to be cleared as well. There is still racism between black and whites, discrimination with gays, lesbians, and transgenders, and conflicts between religion.

In the Re-emergence of the "Woman Question" I was able to relate to some of the points made, however I felt as if the article was very random and the points were scattered. The issue with sex is still an issue today. the double standard is still in effect. If girls accept a sexual advance from a guy they are considered promiscuous, however if they don't then there is that issue of rejection. Although the point that is made in this reading has to do with race instead of rejection, it is safe to say that there still is a double standard about sex between men and women; a man can get away with multiple sexual partners, whereas a women can't.

Focusing more on Caroline's post, I agree with her when she says part of the problem that still exists today is the dependence on men. I think that the issue Friedan touches upon with women focusing their lives on being a great housewife and mother still is present. I often hear my friends talk about how they want to "marry rich" but the truth is why can't they be the ones who make the money? Why aren't the men saying this common phrase?

Beauvoir also makes apoint about women being dependent on men. Every girl feels like she has to have a boy/man in their life in order to function. Now this dependence more focused on the technologic age. If a girl doesn't have a guy to text, call, Im, or facebook chat, they feel as if their life sucks. Why can't we just be happy talking to our friends every day? The oppression of women will be forever engrained in our culture if this dependence still exists.

The Undying Connection

Out of the four readings due for class, I was espescially struck by Betty Friedan's excerpt from the "The Feminine Mystique". I found her excerpt to be not only interesting, but also informative of women's societal roles and occupations. I found it particulary interesting that women had fought to go to college, but after a few years had started going to college to meet their husbands instead of focus on an education. The movie, The Mona Lisa Smile, stars Julia Roberts as a professor in the 1950's working at Wellesley, the college for girls. This film deals with the same issue Friedan addresses by having Roberts get into a conflict with her most promising student when she tells the professor she is dropping out of school to get married. This movie shows a good example of not only the lifestyle women had in the 50's but also of the issues women were faced with in regards to education. What was interesting with Friedan's discussion of women's education was that it seemed to show a regression of feminine power. Women had fought for the right to attend college, but once they had recieved it, starting slipping into a societal norm of the housewife image.
Friedan continued on to talk about how women started to drop out of school, and many fulfilled the "dream" of being the perfect housewife. I consider this a regression because instead of women pursuing their own desires, they became caught in this web of social expectations. Friedan writes, "their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands" (p.273). Yet, even this did not come without problems. Many women became severly depressed with living a housewife lifestyle, most wished for something more. Friedan describes how women had jobs not to make a career for themselves, but to help the family out. Women no longer focused on themselves, but only focused on how to better the lives of their husbands or family. It became known as the "American housewife problem". What surprised me about this however, was that this problem seemed to manifest itself so quickly. I was confused as to why all of a sudden women decided to leave school and this obsession with home life began. I was also confused as to why if the problem was so vast, it was not even talked about.
Reading Friedan I found that she gave a lot of information about the problem and the events leading up to it; but I noticed how she never gave an answer to why the problem existed. She discussed women's desire to please their husbands, but she never really dove into the relationship between men and women. However, I think that Simone de Beauvoir addressed part of the reason for this problem when she discussed women's bond to men. Simone de Beauvoir spent a longer time focusing on the relationship between women and men. She writes about how women consider themselves to be a relative of man and not an "autonomous being" (p.255). Therefore, she is saying that women think they are related to men, but not inherently equal to them. She also goes on to say that "man can think of himself without women. She cannot think of herself without man" (p. 255). Beauvoir points out that women, for whatever reason, cannot picture life without men, and therefore have some dependence on them. I then think that is why women have this problem with sexism and the "American housewife problem". It is because women are somehow programmed to see men in their life no matter what. Genetically we need men to carry on the human race. In the past when a woman was pregnant, she would need someone to help her prepare dinner or obtain food, which would usually rely on her partner, most times the man. Even now, people dread the idea of never being able to find "Mr. Right". Women are scared to grow old without having a male companion. I think that this fear inhibits women to speak out against sexism and fight for their individuality. Beauvoir also makes an interesting point that "woman cannot even dream of exterminating the males. The bond that unites her to her oppresors is not comporable to any other" (p.258). In the past other forms of oppression have been between two groups of people that do not naturally rely on eachother to exist. The Jews did not rely on Hitler in order to reproduce or carry on living, the slaves had independent lives before coloniazsers took over; yet women have always needed men to live. Women and men have always lived together and have always had relations with each other. Therefore, I think that this dependence women have towards men causes them to be less likely to fight this oppression and also makes fighting this "problem" and the problems we all face in our modern lives a lot more difficult because of the natural connection between the sexes.

Film: The Mona Lisa Smile

In reference to my 1/24/11 post-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304415/