The Color Purple By Alice Walker

During the 1900’s, women, specifically black women, were considered to be property of men in the United States, especially down south, in states such as Florida and Georgia. Legally, women had no voice. For example, if a woman was abused by her husband, the court system would not acknowledge it even if it did really happen. In the article “Sexism in the Early 1900’s”, Becca Woltemath states that “…a woman’s job is to take care of the house and to bear children. She’s no good for anything else. She’s just a simple thinker.” Women were forced into submission and there was nothing they could do about it. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston shows the

     Throughout United States history oppression of people has always been prominent, whether through African American’s and segregation or Asian American’s during the Vietnam War. What is often ignored is our history of the oppression of women. No matter what time in history, there is always a case to be found of the discrimination over gender. Many people know of how African American’s came into freedom and the long perilous road it took, but few know the struggles, changes and hardships that women have perceived to get where they are today. As the civil war halted and industrialization and urbanization came into play, the role of women changed dramatically and their status

Over the past five hundred years or so in america as the overall majority in Mankind, women comprise of the largest group in the world, but they are a vital asset in every aspect of our society. Woman and women's rights are tied hand in hand with american culture, which entails in these rights that they're dependent of social status, race, and geography in america like civil rights in the south. There were different types of economic changes for the different types of ethiniticities in America in which there were different of turning point that women won over their sufferage through their racial discrimination, these included the native american women, hispanic american, african americans and the chinese american women of the united states.

Women’s history in the United States has always been represented as a struggle for rights. Wealth and status were tied to either their fathers or husbands. In the early 1900s, women were afforded the traditional roles of society. The majority of women worked in the home. If they were of the 18% young or poor women, they also worked in factories as laborers, manufacturing items for the booming industrial revolution (U.S. Department of Labor, 1980). During this time period the workplace was not in compliance with current safety standards. There was no minimum wage yet, work conditions were horrible and they worked long hours, “In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was 53 hours,” (Fisk, 2003). Women took “pink

At the time, the women's movement was only just getting started, and the wide majority of American males viewed and treated women as less than equals, both socially and economically.

The revolutionary war brought many struggles to the lives of many women. Many of these women were known as Red-Coats while others actually fought in the war. Most of these women took small steps towards freedom, some were achieved, but they were still considered inferior to men. There is another way in which the general opinion, that women are inferior to men, is manifested, that bears with tremendous effect on the laboring class, and indeed on almost all who are obligate to earn a subsistence, whether it be by mental or physical exertion—I allude to the disproportionate value set on the time and labor of men and of women. (Doc 8-8 Grimke) Even though many of these women have helped change standing in society by inspiring other women, it has helped them obtain equal rights in the 1920s.

Women have been fighting for equality since the early 1700’s. Abigail Adams was one of the first advocates to bring up the topic in Massachusetts on March 31st. (5-1) Abigail writes a letter in response to her husband John Adams. In her letter she tells her husband to “Remember the ladies” when drawing a new federal government. Another case of equality came about in the early 1800’s with Deborah Sampson. Sampson pretended to be a man named Robert Shutlif and was shot twice in the Revolutionary War. (5-9) At the time of the Revolutionary War women were consider to be inferior to men. Even the first ladies had a number of privileges they could not receive because they were female. The Revolutionary War increased people 's attention to political things and made issues of liberty and equality very important. During the time of the Revolutionary War people began rethinking of the rules for society which also led to some reconsideration of the relationship between men and women. In the North, where states abolished slavery after the Revolution, black women attained rights to marry, to have custody of their children, and to own their own property. Only on paper they had the same rights as white women. In the Southern states, lawmakers continued to reject enslaved women these simple human rights. But even in the South, a larger number of freed black women enjoyed the same privileges under the law as white women.

As the years progressed from the 1700s into the 1800s, women started to see that they were not treated as equal as men even though they could do anything men could. During the late 1800s was when women first started to fight for more rights and equality. They started forming more and more women groups, and even went on labor strikes to protest the diversity. Although it seemed that as hard as they tried to gain this equality, the harder it was for them to obtain it. They were treated horribly and unequally to men. While African American men received the power to vote in 1870, women still did not have a chance at that right. Even though many people disagree that women were treated fairly, the studies show that they were discriminated against. The treatment of women in the late 1800s was discriminatory because they

Honesty influences the lives of many people no matter religion, race, age, and has no boundaries towards the choices we make honesty can be brutal, rather than saving face to protect the ones you love honesty can hurt but it is usually always better. One lie can affect our outcomes, and these choices we make in life could have drastic consequences that could affect us in the end and make life very difficult. Celie and Nick follow the same journey pattern to better themselves, but with different realizations that prove the only life worth having is an honest one.

The most interesting book I have read in the past year was “Still Alice,” written by Lisa Genova. This book narrated the life of Alice Howland, a successful Harvard psychology professor who loses herself to Alzheimer’s disease. Alice is an intelligent, ambitious woman with a loving husband, John, and their three children. Initially, Alice starts off forgetting minor details, such as words during her presentations or where she might place some of her belongings. Dismissing it, Alice goes for a run in her town square where she’s run for several years. She suddenly finds herself lost and panics because she could not figure out how to get home. Eventually, she finds out she’s diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s and she is left to deal with her family and work life as well as do as much as she can each day before she loses herself completely.

Women’s right did not change or improve during this period of time. The laws before and during the war did not recognize women as equal to men in areas such as economics, politics and civil rights. In my opinion this week’s documents mention ways in how American women had many opportunities that did not exist in Europe at the time. But not enough to share the same rights as men and how it was believed that a better education would’ve improved their labor opportunities. Although the war did help raised the question, there was not a substantial change in the social or political status of women right away. As women filled important roles, the thought that women were inferior to men began to change. The war changed this, however, and women across

In On The Run, Alice Goffman focuses on a particular group of young Black men living in a poor neighborhood, struggling to live a “good” and “fair” life. These boys from 6th street are segregated from resources that would be found in more economically advanced neighborhoods. A “resource” that they do run into more than often is over policing in their neighborhood. As they are disproportionately targeted for arrest to fill quotas, this constant behavior and events deemed as a norm (even little children play a game about cops catching and being overly aggressive to Black boys), hinders their process at advancing within American society. Systematic oppression against a minority group slows and puts racial tension progress at a standstill, as they are continued victims of larger forces. What truly works against them once locked up and released, is that they were not given a chance based on race, now it becomes based on race plus their criminal history. People in such situations are left with one option, in order for them to survive and provide for their families, they must do it through illegal activity. Locking people up and returning then into the same environment which had limited resources does nothing to solve larger powers at play. Laws and documents may exist that describe an “equal” and “fair” society, but without action, words seem to hold less value. The Declaration of Independence, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are both documents meant to symbolize

Alice Walker has been an activist for most of her life. Walker travels the world to help fight for the poor and the oppressed. She also stands for the revolutionaries who want to transform the world for the better. She is a defender of not only human rights but the rights of animals as well. In her essay “Am I Blue” she discovers the feelings of a horse named Blue. The essay is meant to show a different side of animals and show the audience the human-like traits that horses have. She compares the oppression of the African Americans and American Indians to the way we now treat animals.

“The Color Purple” written by Alice Walker is a story highlighting the values and ideals of the culture and society in the beginning of the 20th century. During this time period certain women were alienated from society due to their clothes, beliefs, and their actions. Although every woman in this book was alienated from society the extent of alienation differed depending on how their words and actions were perceived by society.

The women of the late sixties, although some are older than others, in Alice Walker’s fiction that exhibit the qualities of the developing, emergent model are greatly influenced through the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Motherhood is a major theme in modern women’s literature, which examines as a sacred, powerful, and spiritual component of the woman’s life. Alice Walker does not choose Southern black women to be her major protagonists only because she is one, but because she had discovered in the tradition and history they collectively experience an understanding of oppression that has been drawn from them a willingness to reject the principle and to hold what is difficult. Walker’s most developed character, Meridian, is a person