Follow Up Post 1/25

These readings help to give us context into the history of feminism. In Echols, she discusses the history of social change and how women’s issues played their part in many social movements and how the women’s movement was eclipsed or bolstered by the times of social change. Levy discussed feminism and how there are women who are opposed to it and women who are for it. Simone de Beauvior discusses women in the context of how they have been seen through history going very far back to perhaps the beginning of views on this issue and tries to give an overview of how the world is today for women and why this is. The Feminine Mystique presents a sad picture of life for women and the way that women struggled to get where they are today and do the things they do. These four texts made me appreciate how women have been able to make progress in this world for themselves but also made me realize that there are still things that are not as they should be for women.

The Feminine Mystique made me think of life for women not long ago and made me consider how women have so many choices today. I also thought of how though for some women it might be their life’s goal to be a mother and to take care of her family and how this belittled that type of work. I don’t think it was meant to come across like that but it felt to me like the author was saying that women should not feel complete without a more mentally taxing occupation. With this said, the strides that women have made are amazing and the way that a woman can balance many different things in their lives today is to be commended. This made me think of how people now my age are considering what they want to do with their lives professionally and how its seems that many men plan their careers around what they would like to do knowing that the time when they would like to have a family may come and won’t interfere with their professional goals, while it seems like women like myself have to consider this when planning their career or if they don’t have to, they are more aware of how their professional life will effect their personal life.

The reading by Simone de Beauvior was very interesting to me because of the way she compared the women’s movement to those of other oppressed groups and how women were in a different position than these groups because they needed men in a way that these other groups did not need the men they were against in that women were linked to men through the way women and men compliment each other yet are against each other. She shows how other groups had more clear lines of separation between themselves and their enemy so there was no confusion over what they were fighting for. She also shows how long and complicated the issues between men and women are and why this has possibly added to the unresolved issues in the women’s movement.