The Disadvantages Of Uneducated White Women

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”.

One major issue that the other Wes Moore’s mother experiences is not being able to get an education due to a lack of funding. Mary had become pregnant at the age of 16 and was unable to continue her education. While she was just barely providing for her family through side jobs the paid minimum wage, she was also trying to receive an education by attending John Hopkins University. She was able to do this through a program of Pell Grants. She was only able to get 16 credits done when government decided to quit funding the Pell Grants. Mary, along with many others trying to receive a college education, was unable to finish her education. Due to the cut in funding Mary could no longer afford it. Without being able to receive a college education, Mary would continue to live in poverty because without an education she would not be able to get a good job.

     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

In America, we all have these certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado, having experienced all levels of the lower economic class, in a voice of brutal honesty, takes all the perceived notions of Americans and shatters them to bits. Linda Tirado’s story begins with explaining her introduction to poverty after she dropped out of college and went out on her own. Tirado claimed that she constantly had to work multiple jobs in order to keep up with all the bills, especially the medical bills from her accident, childbirths, illness, and depression. Tirado was in an accident in which the uninsured other driver escaped paying for the jaw surgery she needed, so she found herself not only in constant pain and without teeth, but in serious debt. And so it began, with no car, severe pain, and increasing depression, Tirado’s story continued to struggle down.

Ehrenreich demonstrates how men have suffered from being the family breadwinner. Men are less healthy than women, from both physical and mental standpoints, because they bare the majority of economic responsibility for their family. Despite the growing number of women who have joined the labor force in recent years, men are paid almost forty percent more, which makes their salary more valuable to a family than a woman's. A family must retain a man as their beast of burden because America places increasing emphasis on the value of its citizens through their material possessions. This makes many men feel that their role unduly taxes their resources. "Perhaps men will live longer (and more enjoyable lives) in America when women carry more of the burden of the battle with the world, instead of being a burden themselves" (102).

Thesis: Ginzberg argues that women of the Antebellum-era, particularly, those that were white and middle-class, believed that is was their moral and civic duty to aid those less "fortunate" (economically or spiritually) than themselves, and by doing so, they were serving a purpose in this life.

Like the previous example of our class activity, you can gather some information about the family to personally consider whether you think the people portrayed deserve help. In the opening of the book, Andrea Campbell gives us information about the couple’s job status, income, and family size, which allows the reader to make a first opinion on the family’s deservedness. Once this introduction is made, the reader can see the twists and turns that can lead a family into needing government help, which is often the part of the story that gets lost – as most assume those in poverty are there because of their own ambition or actions. The wife gets in an accident, which forces the couple to take an insurance plan from the California government that is designed to keep them in poverty by taking away their income after a set cap is reached (Campbell 2014). The book continues to take the reader through the experience of trying to survive on social insurance and means-tested programs (those where recipients must hold a job or other status to maintain benefits), and ends with three Chapters discussing the difficulties that means-tested programs create for those in poverty. By forcing the reader to, in some way, experience a very average story about surviving in poverty, the book forces the reader

Throughout history, women have faced with a plethora of challenges that called for them to transcend society’s limitations. One of these situations was the challenges presented by the terrible living and factory conditions in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire took the lives of 146 immigrant women and devastated New York; and due to the theft-preventative measures of locking the doors to the factory, owner, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck led to even more lives being lost. This situation, although terrible, was not that uncommon. As these immigrant women arrived in the United States, there would be a typical and similar experience among many; one that started with the problems offered upon arrival,

In Vance’s society (the white working class in the Rust Belt), there was not much hope for economic success. In the book, Vance mentions the Pew Economic Mobility Project, which studies the financial well-being of American families and how their characteristics (race, gender, class, etc…) relate to both short-term financial stability and longer-term economic mobility. According to the project, only 44% of white working-class Americans believe that their children will fare better economically than them. This means that there was not much hope for the society’s children to be financially stable.

Based on the evidence supplied by author Kent Anderson Leslie, slaves in antebellum Georgia did not always live under the oppressive system of chattel labor. According to Leslie, the rules that applied to racial hierarchy were not strictly enforced, especially when it came to propertied and wealthy planters such as David Dickson who chose to raise his mixed-race daughter at home. Amanda Dickson’s experiences during Reconstruction demonstrate that she had much more freedom after slavery was abolished than may have been expected before the Civil War. Amanda Dickson’s experiences and those of her mother in particular do not fit the presumed mold of oppressed slave with no opportunity for a better life.

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

The economic “market revolution” and the religious “Second Great Awakening” shaped American society after 1815. Both of these developments affected women significantly, and contributed to their changing status both inside and outside the home. Throughout time, women’s roles and opportunities in the family, workplace, and society have greatly evolved.

The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, asexual and often obese Mammy to the promiscuous Jezebel who lures men with her sexual charms. However, the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. The typical stereotype about Black men is the violent, misogynistic thug, and the ever-enduring pimp. These images portrayed in media and popular culture createpowerful ideology about race and gender, which affects daily experiences of Black women in America. With few healthy relationships portrayed in the media, Black women

(Rogers 407) Since 2012 more African Americans are attending college to work toward a higher education to at least help them out of poverty. There is also an increase in older college students in their late thirties to fifties that also returned to school for a higher education. (Ebony Magazine, 2012. Women of African American seem to have a much harder time, than other race of people, in poverty and are even harder for them in older age. “The term triple jeopardy has been used to describe “female ethnic-minority elderly.” Members of this particular group face discrimination in three ways-being a women, elderly, and a member of an ethnic minority group-putting them even more at risk for poverty than other adults”.(Rogers 407). People who live in poverty often have other problems such as stress, prolonged illness and disability, reduced access to health care, poor living conditions and malnutrition problems. The formal support system for African Americans who experience living in poverty can get help from: Tax Credits (Snap), subsidies programs – Section 8 program, Habitat for Humanity’s and free school lunches for children. The problem with some of these programs is that many people do not qualify for these services even as they struggle with poverty. Some ways of helping themselves is to help at home and lower the electric and gas bills by turning off lights when not needed. When taking shorter baths,

Betty Friedan singles out women to be the invisible minority in America. The invisible women in the American society