There are many major themes and issues in US History from the Reconstruction era to the present day. Issues of gender roles, discrimination, and immigrants within our readings have influenced America in many different ways. To this day, immigrants have been an on going issue. On the secondary source of chapter thirteen, Unguarded Gates, Othis Graham successfully argues how immigrants helped shape American society. He makes several points that show how immigrants have helped.Such as the economic growth, cultural contributions, and nation-building. It was a concern to Americans that immigrants were going to take away there jobs and have a high population growth. Americans have always till this day been very concern about it but they didn't know …show more content…
In chapter twelve, Elaine Tyler May successfully argues how the politics of the cold war,the ideology and public policies that grew were crucial in shaping postwar family life as well as gender roles. Elaine May’s, makes an argument about the belief that woman had to follow the domestic containment and the sex-segregated job market discrimination they faced.The belief that woman had to follow the domestic containment was one of her major arguments. She wrote a book mainly talking to woman, telling them to break away from their domestic confines and revive the vision of female independence that had been alive before. On the primary source, The Problem That Has No Name by Betty Friedan, it explains how woman were influenced to stick to the domestic containment ideology. In this source it talks about the problem there was and had been for many years that women suffered but were afraid to talk about it. Betty Friedman states that, “Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy s dishwasher, bake bread, cook gourmet meals, and build a swimming pool with their own hands; how to dress,look,and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting…” (pg.323). Elaine May wanted to open women's eyes and help them speak up about this issue that had just been going on and on. Women also faced …show more content…
Women were one of the main targets during this time. During a Miss American Pageant, women were being extremely discriminated. They were getting a lot of attention but not the type of attention that most woman wanted. In chapter twelve, Alice Echols successfully argues how woman received attention with the Miss American Pageant, but unfortunately it wasn't the type of attention that most woman desired. There is more than physical attractiveness to women, and that is what the women's liberation activists movement was trying to portray. The Miss America Pageant was what made woman stand for themselves. This pageant was promoting physical attractiveness as the primary measure of women's worth. At the pageant, “they crowned a live sheep Miss America and paraded it on the boardwalk to parody the way the contestant, and, by extension, all women are appraised and judged like animals at a county fair” (pg.317). They were trying to convince women in the crowd that the tyranny of beauty was one of the many ways that women's bodies were colonized. The Miss America Pageant gave the women's liberation movement a push forward. It announced women's existence to the world.Women were not the only ones that benefited from all this chaos. While in hand woman were trying to successfully make their point, the U.S economy was doing a lot better. ”Women’s growing labor force participation also reflected larger
May begins by exploring the origins of this "domestic containment" in the 30's and 40's. During the Depression, she argues, two different views of the family competed -- one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated. Yet, despite the many single women glamorized in popular culture of the 1930's, families ultimately came to choose the latter option. Why? For one, according to May, for all its affirmation of the emancipation of women, Hollywood fell short of pointing the way toward a restructured family that would incorporate independent women. (May p.42) Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, for example, are both forced to choose between independence and a happy domestic life - the two cannot be squared. For another, New Deal programs aimed to raise the male employment level, which often meant doing nothing for female employment. And, finally, as historian Ruth Milkman has also noted, the g...
The book begins by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have as this helps the reader get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break the standards that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. First and foremost, many people believed that a “woman’s truth was that God had created her to be a helpmate to a man” (p.4). Women focused on the domain of their households and families, and left the intellectual issues of the time and education to the men. Legally, women had almost no rights. Oppressed by law and tradition, women were restricted their choice of professions regardless of their identity or economic status. As a result, many women were left with few choices and were cornered into marriage or spinsterhood, which also had its limitations. As a spinster, you were deemed as unmarried who was past the usual age of marriage. Patronized by society, these women were left and stamped as “rejected”. On the other side, If the woman became married, all that she owned belonged to her husband, even her own existence. In exchange to her commitment, if a woman’s husband was away serving in the military or if she became a widower, she could use but not own, one-third of her husband’s property. This left her to manage the land and serve as a surrogate laborer in her husband’s absence. Needless to say, a day in a woman’s life then was filled with a full day of multi-tasking and as circumstances changed, more women had to adapt to their urban
In today’s contemporary American culture, gender roles are despised by the younger generation because of the distinctions placed on them. This is the era of open-mindedness and self-expression and because of this individuals feel they should not be told what they can and cannot do based on their sex. There are now material things such as, clothes, shoes and perfumes that are considered unisex, males and females can now fight in wars and men are no longer fully needed to be the providers of their families. Though the American culture has attempted to make a leap forward when it comes to breaking down the barriers of gender roles, it is still being held back. Being a culture that was first influenced by the Christian religion, there are still traces of these gender roles present. From areas of
When the war started, women had to take over the jobs of men and they learned to be independent. These women exemplified the beginning of change. Coupled with enfranchisement and the increased popularity of birth control, women experienced a new liberation. When the men returned from the war they found competition from the newly liberated woman who did not want to settle for making a home (Melman 17). This new class of women exercised a freedom that shocked society.
Every year about a million immigrants come to America in hope to start a better life for their family. They leave with virtually nothing, just the clothes on their backs and a few, hard earned coins. As they start a new life here in the United States, most immigrants tend to notice the drastic differences that are present between their culture and Western society, particularly in the way women are supposed to talk and behave. In the excerpt from “Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts,” Maxine Hong Kingston addresses these hardships as a Chinese girl who is searching for her voice in America. During the excerpt, Kingston portrays fitting into these “cultural expectations” as absolutely necessary, as shown in the last paragraph in Page 10. She says things like “If you don’t talk… then you can’t be a house wife.” Or “Don’t you ever want to be a cheerleader?” (Kingston 10) At the time of this scene, the narrator was so sure that the American way was the right way, that she bullies a younger student into changing. Alas the student never changes and the narrator falls sick for a year and a half because of her ill actions. However, plenty has changed since that time of the Korean War (1950’s.) Nowadays, these expectations of what is an American woman are changing. Compared to the 1950’s, women currently are holding much more power, and are viewed as a superior sex symbol.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Immigration has always been a major part of America. In fact, without immigration the creation of America would not have been possible. The majority of immigrants came to America for religious freedom and economic opportunities. However, for the most part before the 1870’s most immigrants were Protestants from northern and western Europe. These immigrants often migrated to the United States as families and usually lived on farms with family or friends who had already migrated beforehand. A lot of immigrants came to America with a plan or goal in mind. They often had saved up money for the long immigration overseas, were skilled in a certain trade, or had already been educated at a high level. Sadly, this would not last. Immigration became so prominent in America between 1870 and 1900 that the foreign-born population of the United States had almost doubled. A lot of German and Irish Catholics had immigrated in the 1840’s and 1850’s, and more decided to immigrate after the Civil War. A portion of Americans were biased against Catholics. Thankfully, the Irish spoke English and the German Catholics reputation was improved because of their Protestant countrymen’s good reputation. However, their children often lacked any skill or education, but they were able to blend in quite well with the American society. More and more immigrants would migrate to the United States without any skill or education and on top of that they were usually poor. These immigrants were called “new” immigrants and they came from all over the world including Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary, and Russia. However, you cannot blame immigrants for migrating to America. Many immigrants faced religious persecution in their home countries which pushed them away, otherwi...
The gender roles in traditional Asian communities encouraged male dominance thus the high level of gender inequality in these communities. In many societies, gender is not only a source of identity but also a factor that determines what role an individual is supposed to play in the society. The Asian societies have among the communities that can be used in the illustration of the extent to which the roles of people of different genders can be different. It is understood that the roles that were traditionally meant for different genders were different in various ways. Masculinity is an important component in the social construction of gender relations (Brod, 1987; Kimmel, 1987; Kimmel & Messner, 1995). Asian American men use masculinity as means
The “Feminine Mystique” is a highly influential book in the early second wave feminism movement. It is said that it helped shaped the demands of the second wave by insisting for the right to work outside the home, and to be paid equally; the right for reproductive freedom; the demand that women should not be expected to have children and be mothers if they do not want to. Betty Friedan addresses “the problem that has no name” which is the women who are highly educated, suburban housewives that are bored and want something “more” in their life. This is the point where women knew we needed a second wave. Women’s role had gone backwards and they were beginning to realize that they were all experiencing the same “problem that has no name”. “The
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
Immigrants have always been an important part of United States’ population. Each year, there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants, from all around the world, including legal and illegal, come into the United States for job opportunities, new life, or the American Dream. “Immigrants have contributed significantly to the development of the United States. During the Lincoln administration, immigrants were actually encouraged to come to America, as they were considered valuable to the development of the country.” (Soylu & Buchanan, 2013). They believe that the US will give them more freedom, protection, and opportunities, which sometimes it becomes the major issues for immigrants. That’s why “the U.S. population is becoming more racially and
Due to the idealization of domesticity in media, there was a significantly stagnant period of time for women’s rights between 1945 and 1959. Women took over the roles for men in the workplace who were fighting abroad during the early 1940s, and a strong, feminist movement rose in the 1960s. However, in between these time periods, there was a time in which women returned to the home, focusing their attention on taking care of the children and waiting on their husband’s every need. This was perpetuated due to the increasing popularity of media’s involvement in the lives of housewives, such as the increasing sales of televisions and the increase in the number of sexist toys. During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas.
Culture governs our existence and has a profound impact on shaping ones beliefs, customs, and behaviors. The extent to which culture and historical environment can shape reality is displayed in the film “Osama” which takes place in 1980`s Afghanistan. Ruled by an extremist Talbian regime, the society is very high power distance in which women are oppressed and treated almost subhuman. The male dominant culture is first displayed early in the film when the women are chased down and caged for protesting for the right to work. The main characters in the film are a family of three women who are left to fend for themselves after loosing the men of the family to war. Since women don’t have the right to work the family has no means of making income
There has been a culture shift over the past century: gender roles in society are changing, and people are less and less conforming to the same traditional characteristics they are expected to fulfill. Now we have families with women breadwinners and stay at home dads. What caused these changes? Wars, feminism, metro sexuality, and the internet/media have contributed to the changes in gender roles in western culture specifically it was. Growing up in a time with all these challenges in what is the appropriate way and inappropriate way to act has left kids more than ever struggling to find where they fit into society.