Good Girls Vs Bad Girls Essay

Women didn't always have the rights and freedom that we women get to enjoy today. There was a time when women were treated as the lesser to men. They didn't have the option to go out and work if they pleased, and the majority of the decision making was done by the men. Women weren't even allowed to vote for who was going to be their up and coming leaders. They went from one household controlled by their father, to the next household which was controlled by their husband. They were never on their own. We did have many strong willed women who didn't see this lifestyle as fair or right, and their fight is what got us to where we are today. Ill be introducing you to these women, also to the steps that they took and the many

Before World War II, women were expected to get married, raise kids, do housework, and obey their husbands. This all changed when World War II came around. The men were busy at war, so someone had to take over their jobs. The government considered having children across the country fill in, but society chose the women to do it instead. The government depicted work only as a necessity, only temporarily, not as a way to change a women’s rights or freedom.

Getting married young was a real struggle, because the expenses were too much for some people to handle. There were many things a woman couldn’t do. In the 1960s, women couldn’t get a credit card unless their husband cosigned for it. They couldn’t serve on a jury because they were considered the center of the home and they were thought to be too fragile to hear gory details of crimes and too sympathetic. In 1961, the Supreme Court upheld a Florida law that exempted women from serving on juries. They couldn’t get on birth control because it was looked at as another way of getting an abortion. The only way a woman could get on birth control was if she was married. Women fought for their rights in the 60s.

Over a hundred years ago, one event created chaos among gender roles and here are some of the initial factors of how rights for women started as a predicament which later began to evolve into a much larger problem that involved many people around the nations. Over the course of history, many issues had change the world to what it has become today. Many problems led to social, economic, and other changes. One small event is able to cause more obstacles, which eventually leads to larger complications. Even though society had tried to resolve these issues, they still encountered many hardships that were disruptive to their own perspectives as also for other people within the community. Thus, this was an important issue because it had changed

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

On the social aspect, women returned to the weak and demure image of helpless women. ?Momism? became the term to describe the ideal household women in the 1950s. As always, men dominated the suburban household. People once again became religious in fear of being accused otherwise. Female sexuality became a shocking issue of the 50s. With the moral of Christian culture, premarital sex and other lewd acts were shunned from society.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, many American women began to feel a sense of hope that one day, they would achieve the same freedom as men had. However, women quickly realized that in order to gain the freedom they desire, they would have to change the social expectations of their time. History played a major part in helping change the social expectations, especially during World War 1 and World War 2, when women went to work and took on the jobs previously performed by American men who were fighting overseas. Many factors have contributed to the changes of social expectations concerning women’s roles in society due to the personal efforts of individual woman and groups of women who band together to fight for their independence

Throughout time women and their rights have varied among where they are living and the people that surround them. Some of the major changes with women’s rights is giving them the right to vote, reproductive rights, and the right to work for equal pay. Another thing that varies throughout time is women’s roles. For example 100 years ago the only jobs that women could have was to either be a housewife, nurse, or a teacher. Until about 1910, women didn’t really fight for their rights and what they could do. In 1910, women started to voice their opinions in society and fought for the right to vote. Though things have changed greatly today, there are still women in the world that believe in the “traditional way” and prefer to still wait on

In Girl, the mother makes three separate and seemingly hostile accusations towards her daughter about her becoming a slut. “and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming” is a common way for the mother to draw a comparison between what the daughter’s behavior should and should not be like. These strong feelings most likely arise from the mother’s desire for respect in the community, but are also influenced by religion. We know the mother is religious because of the mother’s comment “is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?”. Sunday school is a time for children to learn about their religion, and the mother’s concern about benna due to an aversion to irreligious music. A focus on religion was common on the islands of Antigua where the author of Girl grew up. From this, it is a short jump in logic to assume that the mother’s concern about her daughter becoming a slut are originating from the local

Boys & Girls Clubs of America is a program that was introduced in the 1860’s in Hartford Connecticut. “Believing that boys who roamed the streets should have a positive alternative, they organized the first Club. A cause was born.” Now made up of more than 4,300 clubs and in their 103rd year, the goal of these clubs is “to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.”

In modern society, it is difficult to imagine the amount of pain women go through when losing their child to adoption. However, when women's children are put into the adoption system, they have complete control of the situation. Shortly after World War II, the pregnancy rate in young women increased a dramatic amount. Different from mothers today, these young girls were not given the choice to keep their child nor did they have much say in the adoption process. In Ann Fesslers’ book The Girls Who Went Away, pathos, logos, and ethos were used to show the lack of control young pregnant women had in the 1960s.

During the early 1900’s many women would get pregnant without any means of doing so. Most of the women that were becoming pregnant were financially unstable and could not afford to support another child. In order for women to feed their large families they began to work and on top of working they had to take care of things at home. Countless kids that came from large families were forced into child labor in order to help support their families. These women were forced to become mothers when they did not want to be. A majority of women during this time period would die while giving birth.Women began to want to control their own bodies. Margaret Sanger took notice of the problems that women had to face and decided to do something about it.

After reading “Revolutionary Mothers” by Carol Berkin now I have a better understanding on Women in the past. Although women were thought out to be less then men, after reading the book it does not seem that way, in fact women tried to fight for there equal rights. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning the struggle these women had and how they overcame their troubles. Certainly students in History courses should consider reading this book, especially for the point of views that the book presents. This book achieved is goal in the sense of showing and explaining in detail, the struggle of the “Revolutionary Mothers” this had never before been explained in another book that shows the point of view of the women.

Before the 19th century women had no rights, no status and no voice. They were the property and identity of their husbands, and in a way women were barely seen as human beings, they were merely there to serve and bare children. Much started to change at the start of the 19th century in social and economic areas. These transformations changed the game and provided an opportunity for women to seize and finally raise their voices. Women started to take action in small ways by making choices, not to marry young or not to have children immediately after marrying; they had bigger and better things in mind.

Williams, Holly. “Bad Girls: A History of Unladylike Behaviour.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 15 Mar. 2013, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/bad-girls-a-history-of-unladylike-behaviour-8533215.html. Accessed 3 May