In her article “Our Revolution has Just Begun”, Gloria Steinem argues against the notion the feminism is no longer needed for today’s women, as the feminists of the 70’s completed all that could be done. She begins by claiming this is one of two myths; the other being that feminism is only for white women. She follows this by explaining exactly why she believes these to be myths. Steinem thoroughly explores the many fronts of feminism in her piece and pointedly concludes with propositions of how this and the next generation can continue to improve the lives of women, persons of color, and the LGBQT+ community. Steinem exhibits the characteristics of liberal, socialism, postmodernist, and radical feminism in her piece. This is because of the …show more content…
Her discussion of equal pay and how it relates to boosting the economy is one piece of liberal feminism in her article. She declares that if women were paid the same as men, it would not only put a significant amount of money back into the economy every year, but it would be put to better use. Her viewpoint is that because women do not have equal pay, the entire economy is not working at efficiency. This is an illustration of a liberal feminism …show more content…
Steinem calls for three drastic changes in society. She asks for those with greater power to learn to listen to those with less, and for those with less power to learn to talk more. She also mentions the use of nouns and adverbs and how it relates to those with more power. Steinem believes that “…everybody except heterosexual white men still…require an adjective-as in women writers, black physicians, and gay or lesbian candidates”, and states that although adjectives are needed to make minority groups visible, we can “underline the politics of words” by using adjectives for the powerful as well such as a man novelist and a white real estate developer (31). This viewpoint can be categorized as radical feminism due to the fact that it calls for a mental and physical effort to reorganize how our society is
Throughout history, women were challenged with inequality and discrimination within a patriarchal society such voting in presidential elections, owning property and having job opportunities. During the last century, there have been many achievements that guarantee women rights and equality. For example, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920 and the Equal Employment Opportunities Law prohibited employers from discriminating against gender in 1988.1 In her essay, “Pink Think”, Lynn Peril argues about the pressure on women that follow the rules of femininity.2 She describes the word “Pink Think”, as ideas and attitudes of proper women behavior.2 Although there are still some aspects of “Pink Think” culture that is still recognized today, the shifts in cultural and political events in recent centuries have increased attention to women’s issues against social injustice. Nevertheless, Peril neglects the fact that women today are living in a totally different time than how she pictures it because of the newly evolved cultural attitudes of gender roles and identity, labor, and living the American Dream.
Steinem uses Ethos in this article by using real life murder cases and crimes. Steinem includes the names of the criminals and dates the events took place. Steinem uses Pathos in this article by expressing her concern for supremacy. Knowing Steinem’s background in feminism I believe that she felt very strongly while writing this article. In this article Steinem uses Logos by taking the problem and creating a logical way to solve
In the article “Wonder Woman” Gloria Steinem expresses that the making of female super-heroes empowers females by reducing the fixed theme of a Caucasian male saving an inferior female. She displays this by showing how inferior women were before in male super-hero comic books, compares what it was like personally reading female super-hero comics to male super-hero comics as a child, the fight with other women to have the original Wonder Woman published in Ms. Magazine and how even males were changed by the making of Wonder Woman.
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
It amazes me how a few decades ago can seem like a whole different world. A course of time can impact our lives more than we know it. In the article, A Day Without Feminism by Jennifer Boumgoidnei and Amy Richntds, both of these authors created this piece to inform their audience that although women have gained more rights over time, there was still more progress to be made. These authors gave many examples of how life for women had been, the obstacles they had to overcome, and the laws women had to break for equality.
Whether it is the Ancient Greece, Han China, the Enlightened Europe, or today, women have unceasingly been oppressed and regarded as the second sex. Provided that they have interminably been denied the power that men have had, very few prominent female figures like Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen, or Jeanne d'Arc, the French heroine, have made it to history books. Veritably, it was not until 1792 when Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women addressed the issues of gender equality, that some started hearkening the seemingly endless mistreatment of women. New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1892. The United States did not endorse this until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, which states “The right of citizens of the United States votes shall not be denied or abridged… on account of sex.” This, however, was not the end to women’s plight. For the majority of the 20th century, America’s idea of a good woman was a good mother and a good wife. In the 1960s and 1970s, a movement that would later bring fundamental changes to the American society was spreading rapidly throughout the country: The Women’s Liberation Movement. With the increasing number of educated women, gender inequality received more attention than ever before. Hundreds of women came together to fight domestic violence, lack of political and economic development, and reproductive restrictions. One of these women was an ordinary girl from Ohio named Gloria Steinem who would later become a feminist icon in the United States. Steinem contributed to the Women’s Liberation Movement by writing about feminism and issues concerning women, co-founding Ms. magazine, giving influential speeches— leading he movement along with...
When creating a comparative rhetorical analysis of two different feminist essays, we must first define the term “feminism”. According to Merriam-Webster.com, feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”. Feminism is a also a long term social movement, one that’s been in the works since the early 1900’s. However, as any challenger to the norm might receive, the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ have gotten a bad reputation. Throughout the years, popular opinion has agreed that if you’re a feminist, you hate men, and don’t shave. It’s a very close-minded belief, and both Lindy West and Roxane Gay agree. Both authors of the essays I am comparing today, West and Gay try and convey their beliefs that feminism isn’t what you think it is. However, they do it in very different ways. Who conveyed their beliefs of feminism better and the superior argument? That is what I am going to display today.
...tivating for the advancement of women, without realizing they were doing so. She also claims that the term "feminist" changes over time, to become appropriate for how one would like to apply it.
These documents touch on important topics that a lot of Americans have a hard time understanding. Both The Civil Rights movement and Feminist Movement connect to mainstream liberalism, share parallel goals or differences, progressed in the 1970s, and still have an influence on American’s views to this day. Equal rights among all, is still something America is struggling with after about 50 years. There is no denying though, that the movements during the 60’s and 70’s molded the lives of future generations in the way that American’s view each other as human beings.
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
...requent use of these appeals and strategies evokes a true response of sympathy and urgency to get a start on the revolution to gain women’s rights and equality. Steinem’s goal of her commencement speech to the graduating class of Vassar is not to relay stereotypical “entering the world with high hopes and dreams” advice, but to advocate social and political changes in America’s young, new future. She promotes social reform and helps to redefine what the feminist movement stands for. If society does not learn to unlearn the “traditionalist” ways, it will not move foreword in its attempt to exonerate women, men, and minorities from their preconceived and stereotypical roles. This argument is not only about the growth of women’s rights and power, but about the idea of humanism and that we all need to be liberated in order to initiate advancement of changes in society.
Sandoval theory is influential within second wave feminism. The reasoning behind this article is to provide a framework for theorizing about oppositional activity and consciousness in the United States in the post-modern world (Sandoval, 1991). Primarily, interested in race, class, and culture third world feminist expand on the male/female division. Sandoval credits Louis Althusser for the use of his theory of ideology. Much of her article incorporates influential authors that we have previous discussed in our discussion including Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, and Barbara Christian. She first introduces the concept of hegemonic feminism by discussing the different periods in history: 1. Liberal: women are “as fully human as men” 2. Marxist: “women are different from men” 3. Cultural/radical: “women are superior” (Sandoval, 2001). She later argues that oppositional consciousness is topographical rather than typological. According to Sandoval, there are four cateofries that fit well into the hegemonic frame: equal rights, revolutionary, supremacist, separatist. Yet they add, differential to act as “the mechanism that permits the driver to select, engage, and disengage gears in a system for the transmission of power (Sandoval,
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
Multiracial feminism recognizes the need for coalition politics. The autonomous women of color feminist organizations share similar goals, and they realize there is strength in numbers. While creating autonomous groups allows Blacks, Latinas, Native American, and Asian women to focus solely on the oppressions they individually face, they are aware that they share problems with racism, sexism, and classism. Most minority groups are targeted by the government and live in low income households. Along with receiving support from other minority groups they also receive support from militant antiracist white feminists as well. An idea multiracial feminism expanded on was the phrase “Personal is Political”, which means issues that seem personal (abortion, abuse, employment, etc.) are actually political issues (Thompson, 59). Multiracial feminism made the point to expand on that phrase and according to Anne Braden, expand it to “The Personal is Political and The Political is Personal” (Thompson, 59). This expansion of the phrase is important to the antiracist white supporters of women of color. It lets them know that racism, and oppression only women of color face does not mean white women cannot be aware of it and speak out against it. It made the point that a person does not need to directly experience the oppression in order to know it is not right. This allows an
Hooks begins by stating that Feminism in the United States did not emerge as a result of victimized, underprivileged women who faced sexist oppression so much so they have internalized it , but in fact by bourgeois upper-class white women whose idea's of equality were far different. She begins this criticism with Betty Friedan, a leading figure in the women's movement and the author of the classic The Feminine Mystique claiming that the book ignored the difficulty and even the existence of non-white, poor women with the assumption that her concerns were harmonious wi...