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Feminism and Women's Rights in North America

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Over the past century women have made huge accomplishments in the fight for equal rights. Over the past one hundred years woman have won the right to vote, the right to work and they have shattered the stereo-type that women must be ‘baby producing house keepers’. However, even with the success of the feminist movement there are still numerous issues that exist in all areas of life. Women occupy 50% of the work force but earn up to 20% less than males, 53% of the world's population is female however females only hold 1% of the world’s wealth. While feminism has come a long way in the previous years many believe that there is a long way to go before we can accurately say men and women have equal rights.
The term Feminist has been around …show more content…

To many the second wave seemed to be a tremendous success, however paper and practice are two different things. In the book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi she claims that after the second wave the media portrayed a growing trend in unhappiness in women across North America. The media claimed that this unhappiness was due to the recent acts of the feminist movement. The media claimed that by embracing their independence and focusing more on perusing a career, women had damaged their chances for marriage and a family. News papers claimed that women who were unmarried were more likely to experience depression and mental breakdowns. In the 1986 Newsweek even published an article claiming that you had a better chance of getting killed by a terrorist than getting married if you were a college educated woman of 30. Even with the new legal equalities achieved by the second wave, equality in the media and in society was still a distant dream. In fear of losing their patriarchal power, the media scared women away from feminism and women feared that if they too were outspoken proud feminist that they would be the next victim on the cover of Newsweek. As more and more women began to back away from the feminist wave, feminism was once again set back on its heels. Author Naomi Wolf, writer of the best seller The

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