Stephen Tower Dr. Montgomery ENGL - 2213 November 17, 2017 Commerce in The Joys of Motherhood In The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta, women are forced by circumstances to play the principal role of taking care of their families. Unfortunately, due to patriarchy, women are not able to secure well-paying formal jobs like their male counterparts. Their only hope is to engage in different trading activities to cater for their children. Some of the trading activities include selling cigarettes, matches, candles, firewood, groundnuts, and clothes (Emecheta 162). However, women face many challenges which adversely affect their commerce. The lack of a conducive economic infrastructure frustrates their efforts to engage in a successful trade …show more content…
This is what happens when Adaku and Nnu Ego decide to form an alliance and stage a cooking strike. The strike rarely affects Nnaife because his co-workers are generous enough to share their food with him (Dubek 209). Therefore, in view of this inequity, commerce offers the women in the novel a means of survival that enables them to take care of their personal needs and those of their children. Some of the commercial activities that women undertake include selling various goods such as clothes, matches, cigarettes, groundnuts, candles, and firewood (Emecheta 162). The desire to engage in commerce is so high that some of the women would not mind selling their daughters to get money (Razinatu 468). Women in the novel view commerce as the only way to support their large families. The burden to take care of their families pushes them to an edge where they are willing to engage in any form of trade, including selling their daughters into slavery (Razinatu 468). Nnu Ego sees nothing wrong with such a venture as long as it helps her look after her other children. However, although women are determined to engage in commerce, the challenges they face make it difficult for their commercial ventures to flourish. Nnu Ego is forced to abandon her trade in several instances
With the beginning of the 1980's came the introduction of a debt crisis. This put extraordinary financial strain on a community that prided itself on self-reliance and providing all that ones' family needs through farming. However, with the added financial burden, farming as a sole means of survival was not a viable solution. Therefore, women were forced to take a much greater role as a provider for the family. They were able to take on this role through "selling agricultural products, and making and selling weavings, pottery, and chichi."
These women, although they lived in a third world country, have the skill and gumption to go into business for themselves, and “be their own boss”. In the United States, more women have the ability
Guy Montag’s changes can be seen externally and internally as he starts off being a man who hides himself behind a perfect facade, but then progresses into a man who shows the world his flaws. Montag has grown up in a world in which flaws are suppose to stay hidden deep inside you and mistakes are to be bred out. This type of society will of course have certain sets of norms that has been drilled into every single one of their citizens to ensure that they will fit the ideal that the society deems fit. In Montag’s world you can not expose your flaws to even the closest person as the belief in that world is that flaws are the weaknesses of people and people must not be weak. All other emotions such as pain and sadness are seen as weaknesses in the society, therefore Montag must
This book shows how as women took on the gender male roles they still managed to food ration and shortages. Women found creative yet effective ways to clothe, feed, and care for their families in the absence of the men.
More directly, Tsurumi states “for the majority of peasant families survival was impossible without women and their work” (Tsurumi, 16). This makes the importance of Japanese women to their households during the period of history prior to the Meiji Era indisputable. Nevertheless, even as familial roles changed during Japan’s shift to a money economy, the support women provided to their families remained steadfast, as the earnings they made at factories were often sent back to their homes to support their families. As the need for women to find jobs that could pay them in cash grew, the potential for women to help support their families, or the ability to reel “for the sake of the nation” attracted women and girls to the first silk reeling mill in Tomioka. Tsurumi affirms this by saying “service to the nation, family economic interest, or a combination of the two brought young women to Tomioka to become part of a proud elite striving both for national goals and for regional prosperity” (Tsurumi, 30). By portraying the act of working for a textile mill as a service to both their families and to their country, Tsurumi furthers the idea that the women of the time were heroes of their era. However, as
As industrialization spread in Western Europe, the production of products and goods moved from the household to factories which drastically changed family life. Married women were unable to work unless they left their children and home in someone else’s care. Moreover, middle-class women generally did not leave their homes in order to work. In contrast, the women of Eastern Asia rapidly joined the work force after the introduction of industrialization and made up a gigantic portion of the labor force. This difference is probably due to the fact that the rural women of Eastern Asia were always laborers, and they make up the majority of the female population. Additionally, European women generally preferred domestic labor to laborious tasks. Rural women were offered independence by leaving their homes in order to perform domestic work; they generally sent their earnings to their families or saved it for themselves. Moreover, the European women that participated in the work force were forced to travel long distances and were separated from their families from long hours. Additionally, their wages were significantly lower than that of their male counterparts. Furthermore, women worked under poor conditions and were constantly susceptible to disease. Similarly, the poor women of Eastern Asia sought employment in the cotton and silk industry.
The Moms.com negotiation has two roles: Kim Taylor as the buyer for WCHI (Independent television station in Chicago) and Terry Schiller as a syndicated sales representative for Hollyville, Inc. an international multimedia corporation that specializes in producing television shows and motion pictures. On this negotiation I played the role of Kim Taylor.
There is currently a major issue in today’s college athletics. Universities and the NCAA make billions of dollars while some student-athletes go hungry. There is a huge debate over whether or not student-athletes should be paid as employees of their respective colleges. Personally, I don’t believe players should receive full-time salaries, but Universities and the NCAA should be required to increase the value of the scholarships that they award to student-athletes. By requiring that colleges provide athletes with an additional $2,000 per semester as part of their scholarship you can greatly increase the well-being (welfare) of the students.
The maternal instinct and family affection is woman's most holy attribute, but if she enters industrial life, that is not enough. She must supplement her family conscience by a social and an industrial conscience. She must widen her family affection to embrace the children of the community. She is wrecking havoc in the sewing-trades, because with the meager equipment sufficient for family life she has entered industrial life (Addams 57).
By working in factories, women made money that would support them in later aspects of their lives and proceeded to make their lives better. For example, most of the women used their money to save for their dowries so they could one day marry a richer man ("Daughters"). If a woman came from a farm, she would never have as much to give her husband than a woman who worked and got paid. Some women even used the money they earned to pay for an education to better themselves and have a successful occupation one day with more pay. Additionally, with the money they saved up, the women could enjoy their lives by using their wages to “purchase pretty, store bought clothing” (“Daughters” 8). Lastly, the women could even use the money to support themselves and their families (including children, a husband, and
"Motherhood is a great honor and privilege, yet it is also synonymous with servant hood. Every day women are called upon to selflessly meet the needs of their families. Whether they are awake at night nursing a baby, spending their time and money on less-than-grateful teenagers, or preparing meals, moms continuously put others before themselves and enjoy doing their jobs as mothers." (Stanley) . According to Betty Rollin 's essay, "Motherhood: Who Needs It?", Rollin argues that mothering, preconceived as a biological necessity, is in fact, a psychological desire. Rollin quotes psychiatrist Dr. Richard Rabkin: "Women don 't need to be mothers any more than they need spaghetti... But if you 're in a world where everyone is eating spaghetti, thinking they need it and want it, you will think so too." (Rollin 102) Although one 's society may have the power to influence his or her eating habits, a mothers desire to have children is an entirely different issue. Many women often want to have children and go through motherhood because of social pressure, to please their spouse, and to be "happy".
Gerald Early, the author of the essay Life with Daughters, describes the hardships of being African American especially when trying to raise two daughters who don’t believe they are beautiful . Early’s purpose is to inform the reader of all the difficulties that black girls face growing up in a society who has defined beauty with the image of a white, skinny blonde. He adopts a bitter tone in order to point out all of the difficulties these girls face in order to appeal to similar feelings and experiences of other African American girls their parents.
Baby suggs and Sethe are both the Mother figues in beloved and despite their suffering from slavery they both cared for their children greatly. Baby Suggs and Sethe connected through Motherhood to develop a close bond. They shared the love for their children a bond that all mothers can relate with. Sethe has four children that she loves very much but she could not deal with her past of sweet home. Sethe could not bare for that to happen to her children so she had to save them from the schoolteacher and slavery by trying to kill them. She kills one child whom is referred to as beloved for what is written on her tomb stone, but fails to kill howard buglar, and Denver. Sethe motherly natural instincts caused her
In this paper I will evaluate two artworks that share the same theme of “motherhood and breastfeeding.” In the last few years, the sexualization of breastfeeding has become a big issue. This is due to people see breast as sexual objects and think that women are being exhibitionist, and are doing it just to flaunt their breasts in public. Breastfeeding mothers are faced with the public criticism as they struggle to breastfeed their child, although it is the most natural and healthy method of feeding. The first artwork is by Mary Cassatt and is titled Mother Rose Nursing her Child. This painting was created in the 1900s and it depicts a woman breastfeeding her child. The second piece is a contemporary portrait created by Catherine Opie titled Self-Portrait Nursing. The portrait depicts a modern mother also nursing her child. When comparing both of these pieces of art I plan to focus on the beauty of motherhood and the bond between mother and child. In this paper I will discuss the social issue of mother’s being criticized for breastfeeding in public. Now more than ever women’s breasts are being overly sexualized when they are not a sexual organ, but in fact a part of their body used to feed another human being.
The poem “The Mother” written by Gwendolyn Brooks in 1945, is a poem that focuses on the immeasurable losses a woman experiences after having an abortion. The poems free verse style has a mournful tone that captures the vast emotions a mother goes through trying to cope with the choices she has made. The author writes each stanza of the poem using a different style, and point of view, with subtle metaphors to express the speaker’s deep struggle as she copes with her abortions. The poem begins with, “Abortions will not let you forget” (Brooks 1), the first line of the poem uses personification to capture your attention. The title of the poem has the reader’s mindset centered around motherhood, but the author’s expertise with the opening line, immediately shifts your view to the actual theme of the poem. In this first line the speaker is telling you directly, you will never forget having an abortion. Brooks utilizes the speaker of the poem, to convey that this mother is pleading for forgiveness from the children she chose not to have.