Professional Documents
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Koh Zeta/Iota
SOCIETY AND FEMINISM
In society, women believed that they are needed to be housewives and were not
able to achieve a position like men can. And when they break free of this stereotype and
achieved the same job position as men, they were looked down upon and were paid less
than men. Over many years, women had felt this way and to this day, women still feel like
this because of the role of society and the way they have shaped women to this day.
Society plays an active role in preventing women from fulfilling their destiny in their
career and life.
Women were treated as an unequal person in society and suffered through sexism.
They were always at the end of the human chain and they feel as if they have been
animals instead of human beings. “Women throughout history have felt and recoded the
injustice of their situation: they have been treated as less than human, they bear more than
their burden of painful labor, they are used without regard for their dignity or interests,
they receive a lesser amount if economic goods of society” (Nye, 48). Nye said that
women were treated as less than human and received less social standing in the society.
With all the situations women have faced, they never had the same equalities as men did
and they have always been doing the most work in the family to cook, clean, bear
children, and raise them too. They were seen as housewives and were never seen as the
ones that help out society.
Being a woman may not seem easy. They become the housewife of the family and
Govt&Econ Ivy Leung
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they were responsible in taking care of all the chores around the house. Even during the
Victorian times, “Husbands went off to work and expected their wives to do all the things
their mothers had done for them. Cook, clean take care of the kids and always look like a
doll all at the same time.” (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/marriage.shtml)
Society has a stereotype on women as the housewife and never in a career. Women were
never given the same rights as men, but women are still human. “The first response of
women philosophers was to make a claim for inclusion of history. If philosophers
theorized the rights of man, they must also theorize the rights of women; if they theorized
the ‘speciesbeing’ of man, they must include the speciesbeing of women” (Nye, 20).
Nye said that if philosophers gave a position and rights to men, they need to give it to
women, too because they women are people too just like men are. Women are ‘species
being’ as well as men are. They have every right to have the same rights as men do. So
women should also be included in society and have the same rights in men. It is not fair to
women as ‘speciesbeing’ to not have rights because they are also a human being and they
deserve rights as well as men should. They are human and human should have rights.
Society has shaped women this way because society had thought that men were “species
being” while women weren’t and they have not theorized the rights for women and
because of this women were prevented to do the things they want.
Women started going out to work and try to support their family, but they were
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being discriminated and their workplaces weren’t paying them fairly. “Some of women’s
lower pay is due to blatant discrimination of the old fashioned kind—like the woman who
was told her male colleague got a bigger raise because ‘he had a family to support’ (So
does she.) The fact that such behavior is illegal doesn’t mean it’s disappeared” (Bravo,
21). Bravo said that women received less pay was because of how women were treated
back in the days when their workplace think that only men has a family to support. In this
situation, women are being discriminated because their workplace had stereotyped them
as the oldfashioned king of women, who just work for a living and not really getting paid
by how well they are working. They are always stereotyped because their boss thought
that with a partner they do not need money, but that is not true. “They assumed that
women needed less money because they had parents and then a husband to pay the way—
never mind that this was never true for large groups of workers, especially African
Americans and immigrants” (Bravo, 25). Bravo said that society assumed that women
needed less pay because they had someone supporting them. What if the woman doesn’t
have a partner and they need money to support her family, but they are not being paid the
same equal amount in the same position as men? Has their boss ever thought of that?
Women are always thought as having a partner in supporting her and the family, but that
is not necessarily true. A lot of women don’t have a partner and they are just raising their
children by themselves while working. Society had prevented women from who they are
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and what they want to do because society assumes women are dependent to their partner
and their gender determines the skills they have. By being a woman, society thinks that
they have fewer skills even if she earned the same degree as her male colleagues.
In many families, women’s status is to only be a housewife and having a
responsibility of being a wife to take care of her children. “The woman’s fundamental
status is that of her husband’s wife, the mother of his children…” (Friedan, 31). Friedan
said that women’s status was to be a wife and the role of a mother to her children. It leads
back to ancient times, when women are to only care for being the wife, taking care of the
children, and doing the housework. During the Victorian time period, “Women were left
uneducated in many areas of life. They had no control over their education and were
taught about domestic duties only. Starting at a young age they were taught that a woman
should get married and have children. They were born raised and educated to become
wives and nothing else” (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/marriage.shtml).
Because of what happened, it had shaped the women from the ancient time period until
now. They never had a position or job to do because men think that wives having a job
would make them a great status than they are in. “True equality between men and women
would not be ‘functional’; the status quo can be maintained only if the wife and mother is
exclusively a homemaker” (Friedan, 131). Friedan said that it wouldn’t be true equality if
women were just mothers and wives. Society had molded their status quo to a society
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that shapes what is the true equality between men and women. The status quo has formed
society to think that true equality will only be functional if women were the ones to stay
at home while men will go out into the real world to work and earn a living for their
family.
Women were positioned closer to their parents making them dependent on them
so they won’t need a job in the future. “Essentially, it is assumed that to the extent that the
woman remains more ‘infantile,’ less able to make her own decisions, more dependent
upon one or both parents . . . It is possible, of course, that the only effect of the greater
sheltering is to create in women a generalized dependency which will then be transferred
to the husband and which will enable her all the more readily to accept the role of wife in
a family which still has many patriarchal features” (Friedan, 133134). Friedan said that
society assumed that women could not make a decision for themselves, which made them
more dependent on their parents and husbands. When the parents make their daughter
dependent on them they make sure they will and then when they marry, they will be
dependent on their husband and won’t be needing to work to make men feel less superior
than women. During the Victorian times, “As a result of lack of education women were
expected to marry in order to find someone to support them since they did not have the
knowledge to do many jobs”
(http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/marriage.shtml). During that
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time period, women were only to learn about being a housewife, they don’t have the
knowledge to do jobs which cause them to depend in their partner. Societies had shaped
women to become attached to their family and were unable to do what they wanted to
today. They had shaped her into what they wanted so women were unable to work and do
what she wants to do.
Even if society has changed the relation and equality between women and men, it
would end up going back to men being superior to women because it is just the way it is
in life. “If the authority of men over women, when first established, had been the result of
a conscientious comparison between different modes of a constituting the government of
society; if, after trying various other modes of social organization—the government of
women over men, equality between the two, and such mixed and divided modes of
government as might be invented…and each in private being under the legal obligation of
obedience to the man with whom she has associated her destiny, was the arrangement
most conductive to the happiness and wellbeing of both…” (Mill, 431). Mill said that
each gender has a different contribution to play a part society, but society assumed
something that they did not look into. The differences between men and women have a
different part with different skill levels to play a part in our society. Society had thought
of trying to see which between men and women would be the superior race, but instead
they just chose men over women without trying to see which would be superior and
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benefitting to our society. Society automatically decided upon themselves that men would
be the superior race.
Even in the feudal ages, women were able to do more in privileged classes, but
they are only doing it for their husbands and fathers. “In the feudal ages, on the contrary,
war and politics were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual; it seemed
natural that women of the privileged classes should be able of manly character, inferior in
nothing but bodily strength to their husbands and fathers” (Mill, 441). Mill said that in the
feudal ages, women were only permitted to help their family. They are not even out there
to help in the world, only the men if the family can because they have the privileges for
being the fathers and husbands. Even society had shaped the feudal ages to think women
weren’t strong enough to help everyone, but their family. They were suppressed into only
helping their family because the men doesn’t really think women can make it by helping
others as well as their fathers and husbands.
Even if society is trying to determine a status for women, they are always
stereotyped as the one to take care of their children. “ ‘Then if men or women as a sex
appear to be qualified for different skills or occupations,’ I said, ‘we shall assign these to
each accordingly; but if the only different apparent between them is that the female bears
and the male begets, we shall not admit that this is a difference relevant or our purpose,
but shall till maintain that out male and female Guardians ought to follow the same
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occupations’ ” (Plato, 233). Plato said that if each gender has something that helps the
society then they should contribute it, but if women has nothing to contributed, then they
should be seen as mothers and wives. If society sees that men or women were better at
different things, then they should play that role in society, but if society does not see the
difference, then the women should bear children while men work for their family. So,
society sees that women are not better at different things, which determines that women
are to bear children and men will do what they do best in earning money for their family.
Even today, women are facing inequality. “It’s been suggested that America today
lacks a broadbased women’s movement because we are in a time of ‘postfeminism,’ with
the fight for equality and respectful treatment over and done. Yet women still face social
economic inequalities each day; the glass ceiling has only cracked, not broken; and there
is a persistent wage gap between women and men, and even larger wage gap between
mothers and nonmothers, with single mothers taking the largest wage hits of them all”
(RoweFinkbeiner, 32). RoweFinkbeiner said that even today women were discriminated
for working in the real world when they were supposedly mothers and wives. Not only
women in the earlier centuries have been facing inequality, the women in modern day are
experiencing the same thing. They feel that society has given them fewer rights and are
paid less than men. Single women are even paid less out of everyone. Society thinks that
women depends on their husband to pay for all the needs, but that is not necessarily true
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because many women today are single parents trying to make a living raising their
children. Even today, women are still facing inequality because in the times before society
had shaped women and still today they are doing that. It’s like passing down from
generation of women to another generation of women. Women are still trying to fight for
gender inequality today. “The sad fact is that many modern women face the challenges of
gender inequality alone, as individuals. The feeling that individual concerns add up to
societal issues in need of electoral (legislative, voting, and candidate) action has been
lost…” (RoweFinkbeiner, 32). RoweFinkbeiner said that women are still being
discriminated for being this gender and for their status in their occupations. Not only does
women face gender inequality at an earlier time period, they are still facing gender
equality now. This gender equality has shaped not only in stereotypical position, such as
women are to become housewives, this has also shaped women in their occupations. They
are struggling in societal occupations just because of their gender. Society has made
women to be in gender inequality through their stereotypical position and their
occupations.
So, throughout times and centuries, society does play an active role in preventing
women to be whatever they want to be because they think women is best to do what they
are good at and that is to be a housewife and to take care of their children. They are
believed to be dependent on their husband. They are not given much of a chance to do
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what they want, so therefore, society plays an active role in preventing women from
fulfilling their free choice destiny in their career and life.
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Bibliography:
1. "A Feminist Overview of the Past 2 Centuries." Women's Issue The & Now. 20
Jan 2008 <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/marriage.shtml>.
2. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. USA: VailBallou Press, Inc., 1963.
3. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty, Represenatative Government, The Subjection of
Women. Great Britain: 1859.
4. Nye, Andrea. Philosophy and Feminism: At The Border. New York: Twayne
Publishers, 1995.
5. Plato. Plato: The Republic. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1987.
6. RoweFinkbeiner, Kristin. The F Word: Feminism in Jeopardy. Emeryville: Seal
Press, 2004.
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