Of Woman Born Summary

Looking back at history, women’s role in the family has remained unchanged till last century. In the early times, women’s most significant profession was that of wifehood and motherhood and a “little more than a slave of her husband”(1). They were viewed as a creative

Publication of books and periodical revealed to the public the problems that women endured within their homes, education, labor, and health. In a male dominant society, men premeditated what roles women should play at home. Women were perceived as weaker than men, unable to think for themselves and their opinions were view as useless. Male dominating view of a woman’s role was to have no other aspirations but to take care of her husband, family and home.

Upon first glance, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” may appear to simply trace the course of a woman as she impulsively engages in the passion of a one-night stand. Yet, from a psychoanalytic lens, elements in the sonnet function to inform a different interpretation, one that transcends the manifest content of the poem to suggest that the speaker’s distress stems from her repressed homosexuality.

Breaking Tradition the story of women’s roles. The author of this very detailed story, compared to “family affairs, gives its readers Incite on how women were apart of something so dangerous that change the lives

1.) Overall main topic of this book connects between the issue of motherhood and feminism. One major key point I found while reading this book is the author, Amber Kinser explains the growth and progress of the role of mothers in the american society meaning how the roles have changed overtime. A major theme of Kinser’s book is that the public debates may focus on mothering, but the issues affect us all.  Cutting back on health care for women, on education, and on jobs for teachers, social workers and others in the service sector have their greatest impact on mothers, but they affect all of us. Motherhood becomes a symbol for how men and women, single and married, gay and straight, deal with the need for individual options and the need to act for the good of others.

Social reproduction refers to the continuous intergenerational physically and emotionally exhausting household labour that is needed to maintain life (Trotz, lecture, Jan 13, 2016). This kind of labour though is considered to be a woman’s duty. Since an economic activity happens where there is a market, social reproduction is not considered as one as it doesn’t have a visible market. Even though, it doesn’t have market value, domestic work greatly contribute to the economy (Waring, 2013). Since this work is done in homes and by women who are usually marginalized, it remains invisible and thus not considered for pay. This kind of work depends on the traditional division of labour in which women are seen as housewives while men, breadwinners. Thus, the gendering of social reproduction is a result of “doing gender,” where women’s abilities to be mothers are naturalized (Coltrane, 1989); in other words, women are made to fit into the simplistic “domestic = family = heterosexual woman = care and love” equation (Manalansan & Martin, 2008, p.2), while any man who does the caring work in a family is feminized and considered a lesser man (Coltrane, 1989).Thus, a woman’s femininity depends on her motherhood while a man’s masculinity depends on “not doing mother’s work” (Coltrane, 1989, p.473).

Scholars have researched on how to integrate gender within the main organizing constructs of social life. One social realm where scholars have vastly research is family structure. The family institution has encountered much gender problem issue, starting with "who does the housework". During this period of time, where women are gaining more civil freedom in society, there has still been a struggler for equality within society and family spheres. I investigated how gender role is significant within the family institutional context, especially in the division of labor in household. The second shift, which is used by Hochschild, "borrowed from the industrial life" is an "idea that homemaking was a shift", it is a second shift because the first shift is labor force." Moreover, the idea of the "devotion to family scheme" is a culture model that defines marriage and motherhood as a women's primary vocation. Therefore with these two notions on the family roles, the main driving question of this research is how do urban employed married couples with children divide the housework.

In the national General Social Survey (GSS), more than one-third of the public agree with this statement: “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” Thus, the cultural belief of Woman’s Rights is (and is still) being used today. Though with it’s positive actions also comes with its strained bias and social issues. Women are often treated by men as “pure” and should be “protected”

1. The writer defines the role of women in the society. She points out the extent women take to raise a family despite unemployment. She highlights that women do not need the dependency on men to fulfill their goals.

The world of education, economics and everyday life is constantly changing with needs and demands changing in every part of the world. The reliance on humans is also decreasing with modernization of factories and buildings, but the greater change is the roles of women in society and everyday life. Through the text, essay and speech, it is revealed that gender roles have changed since 1881 in the areas of employment and marriage; thus, the sources demonstrate that gender roles have changed because the needs and outlooks on women have changed over time.

The role of women goes far beyond being a caregiver at home, breeding of fun for kids or men, as Sor Juana reflected in his work. It is the first responsible for all social change as it is transmitting values of life and other human beings. It is able to release an entire society of authoritarian submission of any government to education that gives them their children at home and the example set in your environment.

Current media is an influencing factor of the pressure placed on western women to juggle the “double burdern”. “New media” as describe by writer Susan J. Douglas “is just as culpable as the “Old media” in perpetuating unrealistic cultural expectations about women, mothers and mothering” . The media portrays what J. Douglas refers as the “New Model Mom”, which describes the expectations of working mothers. The “New Model Mom” is athletically slender, always well groomed, smiling, always attentive to their husbands and has a perfectly balanced diet. This unrealistic image of the prefect mother is placing women with the sole responsibility of caring for the child, domestic duties and still being expected to return the workforce with no extra ask

It has been experienced from time immemorial that there has always lain a very big and noticeable gap in the roles that both women and men play in the everyday societal developments. The issue according to most of the renowned researches is more elusive to the women as they are the ones that are mostly faced by the double standards in the society and this could include very harsh challenges as far as economic and financial status is concerned. Some of the roles of women in the society and more typically, in the house-hold, were very much considered inferior as compared to that of the men who in addition, were given an upper hand

Throughout this paper I will be discussing the role of women in the American society. I will reference the importance of gender and gender inequality. The definition of gender aims to clarify for of all the historical framework of the topic, the role of women in the American society. The paper will lead from the role women were given around World War II and then transition into the role women can now choose in the American society today. Addition to the role of women I will also discuss the differences of how the genders are treated in the same places, for example work place. Men and women are culturally molded when referring to gender in the American society. The gender roles play a lead part into how the model family, education, and liberty are. The reason I chose to write about this topic is due to my strong belief that although I don’t agree with the characteristics society gave to gender, I do believe in gender equality.

Women and men have had certain roles in society that were understood amongst them to be specified for their particular gender. Males were known to have the leading role as head of the house hold and the bread winner while the woman’s duty was to stay at home and take care of the house and children. While many people years ago deemed this way of life and practice to be the right and ethical thing to do, times have changed and so this kind of treatment towards a woman’s equality must be questioned. Even though times have changed, this mindset of a woman’s ability to be as good as a man has not completely gone away. In today’s society a woman contributes to the economy and her family as equally as that of a man. Therefore, women should share equal rights and opportunities as their gender counterparts.