Tag Archives: women’s rights

Females on the Front: The Evolution of Women’s Rights and Societal Roles

Posted on by

Mrs. John Sandford’s work Woman in her Social and Domestic Character was published in 1833 from Industrial England.  The work is difficult to comprehend as its intent reach out to every wife in the country.  The intent of this work was to inform women of the ways in which they are influenced and who they influence as well as their responsibilities as the familial matriarch.  Sandford’s message comes directly from the text when she wrote “Domestic life is a woman’s sphere, and it is there that she is most usefully as well as most appropriately employed” ((Sandford, Woman in her Social and Domestic Character, 1833)).  The author explicates the thesis of this section by saying women are in charge of the home and are best suited for tasks in and around the household.

I found all of the readings for Monday to be very peculiar; they all are dealing with women and their roles in society, but I can’t tell if they’re advocating for improvement of those rights or accepting what is observed as their natural position because women are perceived as more delicate or well-mannered.  Sandford supports this by writing “Delicacy is, indeed, the point of honour in woman.  And her purity of manner will ensure to her deference…” ((Sandford, Woman in her Social and Domestic Character, 1833)).  This statement draws conclusions to women’s roles in society based on the socially acceptable mannerisms, making them seem weak and vulnerable.

Obviously these traits do not define women today.  With the recent surge in feminist movements and the push for better treatment of women, we have seen some incredible changes in large sectors of our society, specifically in the military.  These preconceived notions of delicate women and roles solely in the the household were shattered not only when Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver became the first two females in military history graduated Army Ranger School in August 2015 ((Macias, These 2 badass female Army Rangers just made history — here’s the grueling training they endured, 2015)), but also when all combat roles in all military branches opened to women in December 2015 ((Rosenberg, All Combat Roles Now Open to Women, Defense Secretary Says, 2015)).  These two occasions are incredibly momentous in for women’s rights; the dainty female Sandford portrayed is long behind us.

Female Army Rangers

CPT Griest and 1LT Haver

(http://www.businessinsider.com/first-women-to-earn-army-ranger-tab-2015-8)

 

As a commissioning officer into a combat arms branch within the next three months, this will affect me greatly as I will be working with females in a predominantly male environment.  I see this as an opportunity to widen perspectives and opportunities for all soldiers in the Army, regardless of gender.

The questions I pose to our class are:

Are there any other large changes we see on the horizon for women’s rights?

In what other ways do we see women’s potentials limited because of restrictions based on gender in our country?

We want rights, and we want rights NOW.

Posted on by

NOW’s statement of purpose provides a holistic argument for why women should join the workforce, and gain equal rights. It was written at the time of the founding of the National Organization for Women, in response to the lack of execution of anti-discrimination laws. Its intention is to explain the core concepts on which NOW was founded, and explain what they are taking issue with.

I’m impressed with the level of consideration, and the distinctively different approaches to appealing to their audience, using arguments such as “WE BELIEVE that it is as essential for every girl to be educated to her full potential of human ability as it is for every boy-with the knowledge that such education is the key to effective participation in today’s economy and that, for a girl as for boy, education can only be serious where there is expectation that it be used in society.” Which depends on some level of sympathy, compared to ” the overwhelming majority-75%-are in routine clerical, sales, or factory jobs, or they are household workers, cleaning women, hospital attendants. About two-thirds of Negro women workers are in the lowest paid service occupations. Working women are becoming increasingl-not less-concentrated on the bottom of the job ladder. As a consequence full-time women workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn, and that wage gap has been increasing over the past twenty-five years in every major industry group. In 1964, of all women with a yearly income, 89% earned under $5,000 a year; half of all full-time year round women workers earned less than $3,690; only 1.4% of full- time year round women workers had an annual income of $10,000 or more.” (I apologize for the long quote) Explaining the impact women have on the economy, this kind of argument will be compelling to a different kind of person than the previous.

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Women

NOW and Women’s Rights

Posted on by

During the World Wars, there was an influx, unlike any other time in recent history, of female workers. Since most men, both in Europe and America were off fighting the wars, women were needed to work the factories in order to provide weapons, clothes, and other provisions. It was during this time that women proved that they could take on “traditional” male roles and fulfill them successfully. However, after the wars ended, and the men returned, the women were encouraged to take on the role of the housewife once again.

One could say that this enhanced the tension between the sexes, and is manifest in NOW’s Statement of Purpose: “…we do not accept the traditional assumption that a woman has to choose between marriage and motherhood, on the one hand, and serious participation in industry or the professions on the other. We question the present expectation that all normal women will retire from job or profession for 10 or 15 years, to devote their full time to raising children, only to reenter the job market at a relatively minor level.”

Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made discrimination in the workplace illegal, it had hardly helped the woman’s cause. Most women had limited job, education, and pay prospects, despite the fact that most of the gender norms of society no longer applied to the modern world (such as the need for muscle to do work). Now that women had experience and a possible chance to level the gap between the sexes, an engine was needed to push the cause forward.

 

 

Changing Roles for Women

Posted on by

The Statement of Purpose issued by the National Organization for Women in 1966 reflected some of the tensions present within the U.S. and many European countries during the 1906s. While NOW’s purpose was to promote equality for women, its statement also mentions issues of race, as the civil rights movement continued to blaze along in America in 1966. The 1960s are often remembered in the collective consciousness of Americans as a decade of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, but for many, it was a time of tension between changing social mores and conservative Christian culture.

In NOW’s statement, it explains that since women now commonly live to the age of 75, childrearing can no longer be their main purpose in life, and that as many households own labor-saving devices (such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines), housework no longer needed to occupy all of a woman’s time. Thus, NOW advocated for women to become educated and enter the workforce. NOW’s advocacy for women to shift their focuses away from wifely and motherly duties came in the midst of a national controversy over use of an oral contraceptive–a.k.a., the Pill.

In 1966, the Pope and the Catholic Church remained opposed to the Pill, and birth control use remained restricted in many of the states in the U.S. (1) While NOW supported women leaving the domestic sphere, conservative social norms still attempted to keep women locked in the role of the mother–a continuation of the Christian dichotomy of women as either the Madonna or the whore. However, by 1965, the year before NOW formed, 6.5 million American women used the Pill. (2) Clearly, NOW entered the American scene at a time when American women were poised to take control of their lives and ready for opportunities beyond motherhood.

Of course, NOW faced many challenges that it mentioned in its statement of purpose, including a sexist media, unfairness in rulings by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and lack of encouragement by parents and teachers of young girls seeking an education, but the organization maintained that women had to take action, demand equality, and create a new image for themselves. This idea of conviction and belief in one’s own truth was a common theme of activism and social protest in the 1960s.

 

(1) “The Pill.” PBS. Accessed April 16, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/timeline/timeline2.html.

(2) Ibid.

National Organization for Women

Posted on by

Gender equality has often been alluded to in our course thus far (Vindication of the Rights of Women), and continues to be a discussion topic and issue today, especially in the workplace. While women’s rights were slowly improving throughout the 1900s (finally allowed to vote in 1944), there was still much work to be done. In 1966, a stance was taken with the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination of sex was supposed to be outlawed. However, many of the cases brought force were not enforced or taken seriously enough. An excerpt from NOW’s Statement of Purpose reads as such: “We expect to give active support to the common cause of equal rights for all those who suffer discrimination and deprivation, and we call upon other organizations committed to such goals to support our efforts toward equality for women.” NOW focused on bringing together other groups who have faced discrimination such as African Americans, and directly spoke out for the rights of black women. There had been no real movement up until this point for the equality of women, and the time was NOW.