Gloria Steinem Feminism

Intro

Throughout its history women in the United States , women worked actively and laboriously to change society’s perception of the role of American women in society. Feminist groups developed in the 19th century and made great strides for the equal rights of women by the 20th century. During World War 1 (WW1), women filled men’s jobs due to soldiers’ deployment overseas. Women hungered for something more than the day to day housewife routines of cooking, cleaning, and raising children. Women wanted to become more involved members of society. However, gender discrimination deterred women’s progress. How then did women empower themselves to advance in a male dominated society? Women activists revolutionized the changing role of woman by vigorously campaigning for equal rights. Although women were granted the right to vote in 1920, Gloria Steinem, a feminist who emerged in the 1970's, addressed the continual gender discrimination that limited women's inherent liberties in the workplace and at home causing a new wave of feminism to develop.

Since women were considered inferior to men both physically and intellectually, women refused to accept this inequality so they began to declare their rights. The first wave of feminism in the U.S. began at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York, which issued a historic declaration of women’s rights (Hearne 2 of 7). Originally, the feminist movement started as a fight for a woman’s right to vote, but then it gained momentum in the late 1800’s during the Progressive Era to include women’s involvement in public affairs and political activism, including the temperance movement, and the labor movement (1 of 7). In 1890 the main occupation of most women was caring for their ...

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...ords (99-101 of 111). Respectfully Steinem was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 (100 of 111). Finally in 2000, Steinem stunned her friends and married David Bailes, a south African businessman and environmentalist, but he died in 2003 (89 of 111). After this, Steinem became politically active in the 2004 March for Women’s Lives, the largest crowd in U. S. history to rally for political and social justice for women of all ages (91 of 111). Steinem’s keeps on advocating for women’s rights in the media, as well as offering support to women in prisons and shelters by providing free copies of Ms. magazine ((93 of 111). Today at eighty years young Steinem goes on advocating for equality. In Steinem’s humble words, “ We’ve made a good beginning, but it’s only a beginning. We haven’t even begun to imagine what could be” ( qtd. in 95 of 111).

Conclusion