A Wife is a Wife: Depending On How You Roll The Dice

After World War II, the nation was blooming. Everything was growing, people were going to college, and wealth grew. The idea of the perfect American life was developed, this included a husband that worked and a wife that stayed home and took care of the house and children. To look at how women are affected by this perfect life I am analyzing “Governor Adlai Stevenson Tells College Women about Their Place in Life, 1955” and “Good Housekeeping: Every Executive Needs a Perfect Wife, 1956”.

In an essay by Judy Brady titled “I Want a Wife”, Brady discusses the typical gender dynamics of her time period (the 1970s) and challenges them. She essentially says that women are treated like they are inferior to men and so she says that she wishes or wants someone to fulfill her duties for her just like she does for her husband. This essay shows the struggle to gain equality in this time period and also represents the thoughts that a woman in this time period might have. Not only is the meaning behind this essay significant, but the way in which Brady presents it is also significant and it amplifies and strengthens the argument. This is proven by textual evidence found in the essay itself.

In Judy Brady’s essay, “I Want a Wife,” she examines why she would like to have a wife. Brady believes that a wife performs all house chores and the husband does nothing, but to expect the wife to do everything for him. Brady tries to persuade the reader to look at a husband viewpoint of what a wife should be. The essay was written during the early 1960’s, during the second wave of the feminist movement in America. Brady is pushed by certain reasons to write, “I Want a Wife” to show the humanist humor.

In the 1970’s the average family had a wife that would take care of all of the cooking, the cleaning, everything concerning their kids, and even caring for her husband too. They did all of this without complaining, while their husband was at work. In those times nothing less was expected from them. In the article “Why I Want a Wife” Brady uses ethos, logos, and pathos to illustrate her opinion of what a wife do in a marriage, in which she infers that wives do too much for their families.

In this satirical article, Brady expresses the difference between the roles of women and men in the 1970’s by stating men’s point of view on women and women’s roles in society. Throughout her article, Brady emphasizes the roles of women. For example, women could now “work and...takes care of the children when they are sick”. Comparing the 1880’s to the 1970’s, there has been a big improvement. Many women had jobs outside their home, but still were responsible for most housework and childcare while their husband’s only responsibility in a marriage was to go to work and earn money to support the family. Society’s expectations allowed women to work outside the home to support college education for husbands; however,women had to know how to balance their time between their children and their jobs, making sure that their husbands “cannot miss classes at school.” During the 1970’s, women were still oppressed in many ways and had to follow society's expectations in order to live up to the men’s view of women’s roles in society. Even though society’s expectations of women had improved since The Awakening, most of women’s roles had stayed the same. In the article, Brady specifies how once a husband is “through with school and has a job, [he expects the] wife to quit working and remain at home so that [she] can more fully and completely take

In “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady, the author argues that the roles of a wife are unfair and more demanding than a husband's, thereby they are treated as lesser than a man. Brady supports her claim by first, introducing herself as a wife, showing her empirical knowledge; secondly, cataloging the unreasonable expectations of a wife; finally ending the essay with an emotional and thought-provoking statement, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” Brady’s purpose is to expose the inequality between the roles of a husband and of a wife in order to show that women do not belong to men and to persuade women to take action and stand up for themselves. Based on when this essay was written and since it is about the impossible expectations of a wife, Brady was writing to feminists in the 1960s in order to rally them to create a change in the way people thought.

The roles and expectations for women in the 1950s differed in many ways from today’s society. “Society placed high importance and many expectations on behavior at home as well as in public” (Colorado.edu). In the 1950s women were considered “housewives”. Women’s sole purpose was to maintain the home, take care of the children, provide meals, and be obedient wives. “Good wives” listened to their

In Judy (Syfers) Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, she expresses her opinions in a satirical commentary that offers hypothetical criteria for an ideal wife, with an underlying message that deals with how people should be grateful for all of the deeds and chores that women do. Brady utilizes the strategy of

The entire article has this mockingly serious tone throughout, done in order to make it so that the reader ponders about the mindset of a person who performs this blatant exploitation. This paragraph, along with the rest of the article, shows just how utterly selfish the idea of the ideal wife is through its use of a blunt voice and the author purposefully writing it as if it had a lack of irony and self-awareness. When I read this, I could tell exactly what she was talking about. She caused me to think about a form of selfishness that exists in the world.

When Brady classifies herself as “a wife and mother” she is automatically labeled with the responsibilities that were enforced by societal beliefs of that era (Brady 229). Women were considered inferior to men and struggled to gain equality. Husband's required too much of their wives as to their physical needs; “I want a wife to keep my house clean.” Their social needs, “When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends.” In addition, their sexual needs, “I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied.” (Brady 229-230). Women did all these things everyday to please their husbands, although they received no fringe benefit in return. The cultural values that were viewed at this time emphasized the discrimination and equality that Brady desperately wants her audience to

In Judy Brady’s article “I Want A Wife”, she uses repetition greatly in her essay to make her point, why wouldn’t anyone want a wife. Judy Brady was born in 1937 in San Francisco and got a B.A at the University of Iowa in 1962. Brady’s article first appeared in the feminist magazine Ms., which was in Arlington County, Virginia in 1972. The author’s main idea was to show the amount of work that a wife is expected to do. She does this by strategically listing out what she looks for in a wife. She constantly says, “I want a wife”, to signify that she wants someone to do these things for her as she has done for her husband. In today’s society, the wife is seen as the caretaker and doer of all businesses, while still catering to a

In her essay titled “Why I [Still] Want a Wife”, Judy Brady argues that wives are automatically assigned the role of primary caretaker and homemaker in a traditional marriage. Brady states that in her marriage, she is expected to earn an income while her husband pursues a higher education, she is expected to perform all parental duties exclusively, tend to all housework, her husband’s sexual needs and desires with no regard to her own, and be a hostess while keeping quiet and doing all the above pleasantly. In her style of writing, Brady appears to be hostile and her entire piece comes across as one sided and unfair. While I agree that marriage should be based around inherent equality, I disagree with the way Brady chooses to present her argument as she presents the conditions of her marriage as universally applicable. I do not consider her argument as effective as it could be if Brady chose to be less biased and contradictory in her presentation. If Brady wanted her argument to appear more persuasive, she should have refrained from telling the reader that she does not like being exploited while at the same time telling the reader that she wants to have someone to exploit. Brady presents the conditions of her loveless marriage that is lacking basic respect as universally applicable which is unjust. With her style of writing, Judy Brady leaves her essay open to disagreement. She could have prevented this simply by being less biased and generic with her references to what it

Following this argumentation and the historical development, marriage can be viewed as the institutionalization of this normative relationship model. Interestingly enough, marriage itself has a long and most of all constant tradition of being criticized by feminist scholars, much more than monogamy has. While practiced non-monogamy played a big part in feminist analyses and activism especially in the 1970s, the critical approach towards it has decreased with time – yet marriage, or in Millett’s case even the family as a whole is perceived as patriarchal (Millett, 2000: 33, 34), (Jackson & Scott, 2004: 152), as sexist (McPheeters, 1999: 197), as supporting, enforcing and stabilizing capitalism (ibid: 203), as institutionalized heterosexuality (Jackson, Scott, 2004: 151) and as the institution of monogamy that historically restricts women’s agency and their freedom due to them being viewed the

Judy Brady has strong beliefs in regards to societal standards, specifically the unrealistic pressures forced upon women. Within her essay “I Want a Wife”, Brady emphasizes the ridiculousness of the extremely high standards women are expected to follow without resistance. In order to get the point across clearly, she creates a sarcastic tone through diction and repetition.

Wives during 20th century were not treated fairly. Stretches the marriage expectations women are facing in the society today. Those expectations include managing a household responsibility, managing a career with marriage, and holding a good sexual relationship with your husband.