Before the last symposium, I was getting ready to read the texts I was assigned when I found out that Barracuda blocks the online textbook. I’ve never been able to access the online textbook on my personal computer because it says I don’t have an access code, so I used the resources that I had and found a whole bunch of links about gender, the topic I was assigned, provided by the site that has the textbook. I thought these were the texts, so I read the first couple. Instead of being sad that I wasted my time, I turned it into a TOW! I feel very creative.
One of the articles I read was written by Elaine Morgan, a prominent feminist in the 60s and 70s. She writes about what went wrong with the feminist movement when she was young, arguing that, although women have ultimately become more equal, we do not live in the utopian world that she expected back then.
I definitely agree with Elaine’s argument. Although there have been many improvements, there is still room to improve, and new problems have been created. Let’s begin with the improvements. Women are definitely better off than before. They are more independent socially, politically, and economically. Socially, women are now allowed to be their own person and don’t have to be the obedient wife. Politically, they have gained voting rights and rights to own property, and they have become political leaders. Economically, women can financially support themselves and are no longer constrained to making coffee and looking pretty. However, gender role still exist, we have yet to have a female president, and women still don’t have totally equal pay. We’re on the way to solving these problems, but we’ve created new ones by doing so. For example, women don’t really have the freedom to choose to work anymore. Now, women must work in order to support themselves. However, they still are mostly tasked with raising children, which costs money. They now have to carry the added weight of not only caring for the children but paying for the children. Morgan argues that this means we should have higher family allowances, but I disagree. In a perfect world it would be nice, but this would be very difficult to put into effect in the US. The reason it works so well in Scandinavian countries is that the population is more homogenous. In the US, there are too many people that see others as, well, “other,” and won’t like the idea of helping them.
One of the articles I read was written by Elaine Morgan, a prominent feminist in the 60s and 70s. She writes about what went wrong with the feminist movement when she was young, arguing that, although women have ultimately become more equal, we do not live in the utopian world that she expected back then.
I definitely agree with Elaine’s argument. Although there have been many improvements, there is still room to improve, and new problems have been created. Let’s begin with the improvements. Women are definitely better off than before. They are more independent socially, politically, and economically. Socially, women are now allowed to be their own person and don’t have to be the obedient wife. Politically, they have gained voting rights and rights to own property, and they have become political leaders. Economically, women can financially support themselves and are no longer constrained to making coffee and looking pretty. However, gender role still exist, we have yet to have a female president, and women still don’t have totally equal pay. We’re on the way to solving these problems, but we’ve created new ones by doing so. For example, women don’t really have the freedom to choose to work anymore. Now, women must work in order to support themselves. However, they still are mostly tasked with raising children, which costs money. They now have to carry the added weight of not only caring for the children but paying for the children. Morgan argues that this means we should have higher family allowances, but I disagree. In a perfect world it would be nice, but this would be very difficult to put into effect in the US. The reason it works so well in Scandinavian countries is that the population is more homogenous. In the US, there are too many people that see others as, well, “other,” and won’t like the idea of helping them.
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