Women’s Liberation Movements of the 1960’s Essay Example for Free

Women’s Liberation Movements of the 1960’s Essay I guess if I had to choose a specific event it would be the women’s liberation movement, from the beginning of the 1960’s women were portrayed as serving the men, responsible for housekeeping and day to day child rearing and finally how women were best measured by their beauty, charm, and sexual restraint and men by their accomplishments, power, and sexual prowess (Farber, D. p. 241). What kind of a life would we as women have today if we didn’t have the women who spoke up for us in the 60’s, we would be bare foot and pregant taking care of a family day to day, there’s no wonder why many women had nervous breakdowns the same thing over and over daily, that’s not for me. I thank the women who stood up and spoke up our struggle for equality which had been going on since the late 1840’s and 1960’s. If it weren’t for the Women’s Liberation Group, where would we be right now probably still doing what we were meant to do by men’s portrayal of us, at home taking care of the house- keeping, children and of course them too. We would not have voting rights, opportunities to work and be equal to what men can do, we were told that we should take our place and to â€Å"embrace our natural roles as family nurturers and housewives† (Farber, D. p. 243.) At this point, I would not have been able to continue my education, pursue a career outside the home I really feel lucky to have had the opportunity that we women have now, we are able to vote, we can speak up and say no more sexual harassment in the work place, ask for more pay be equal to a man’s salary range. Women can now become doctors, lawyers, elections, and professors we can choose our own path and have control over our minds, body and soul. If we choose to have a career or run a household then that is our choice. It took a lot of marching and protests to get to where we are right now. Even in during World War II we were able to run a house and work to provide for our family. National Organization for Women in October of 1966 about 300 women and men held the founding conference of NOW. Betty Friedan was elected president. National Organization for Women’s board of directors was narrowly drawn from the academic world the government, and other well-connected elites. With no mass movement yet to draw on, National Organization for Women’s leaders aimed to work as political insiders, lobbying the executive branch to fully implement existing statures which outlawed sex discrimination. But NOW was not formulated to be just another inside-the Washington- beltway lobbying group. While their immediate aims were simply to force full compliance with the law, their larger goals were, in the context of the mid-1960’s a powerful challenge to the status quo: We reject the current assumpti ons that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife and family†¦or that marriage, home and family are primarily a woman’s world and responsibility-hers to dominate-his to support. We believe that true partnership between sexes demands a different concept of marriage, an equitable sharing of the responsibilities of home and of the economic burdens of their support. While women were trying to figure out why they felt â€Å"trapped† many middle class women especially the well-educated, were not satisfied with their lives, many sought help from therapist seeking solutions to their discontent. Many women had been dosed with tranquilizers some got better and learned to accept their prescribed gender roles many continued discontent and continued to search for answers. By the end of the decade many women would turn to the women’s movement for that answer. The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) was born in the US among students radicalized by the mass black civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. In Britain the WLM developed from the struggles of women workers for equal pay. The two movements had different characteristics but both w ere rooted in the effect of the long post war economic boom. This had pulled increasing numbers of women into the workforce and into further education. For example between 1960 and 1965 there was a 57 percent increase in women being awarded degrees in the US (the same figure for men rose by 25 percent). Suddenly a whole generation of women had new expectations. The universities of the US became centers’ of struggle and debate. By 1967 thousands of women had been on marches and protests. They had fought for black civil rights, opposed the war in Vietnam and challenged the state. Yet they faced sexism in their own political organizations and felt sidelined and trivialized by the mainly male leadership. It seems shocking that such brilliant radical movements did not take women’s rights seriously. But when the movements exploded in the 1960s they did so in a vacuum. The socialist tradition had been decimated by the witch-hunts of McCarthyism. There was no Labor type party or revolutionary left to speak of. The shadow cast by the experience of Stalinism made many feel that socialism had nothing to do with liberation. Women activists began to organize their own workshops, write papers and talk about their oppression. The movement in the US was dominated by the idea that women had to organize separately. Meetings often involved women talking about their personal lives – a process described as â€Å"consciousness rising†. Yet the world had changed. For the first time women could control their fertility. Millions of women were gaining a level of economic independence that gave them new choices. Imagine the life of a woman before the 1960s. Her life had been difficult– denied basic rights, trapped in the home her entire life and discriminated against in the workplace. Then, the 1960s came along with it, the thought that women could have a say in their government, that they could perhaps leave the home without feeling guilty about leaving their children alone, and that they could receive a job and earn wages like men. The women’s liberation movement of the 1960s helped all these changes to come about through its scores of policies and radical ways of thinking. In fact, to illustrate some of these radical ways of thinking, some extremist women made a â€Å"Freedom Trash Can† and filled it with representations of women trapped in the home. They threw objects like heels, bras, girdles, hair curlers, and magazines like Cosmo, Playboy and Ladies’ Home Journal in it. The women who put the Trash Can together planned to set it on fire, but decided not to do so because burning of the contents prohibited a city law (Echols 150). Nevertheless, given the numerous obstacles put in place to stop women from changing their status in society, the women’s movement of the 1960s made significant changes for women in regards to basic rights, in the home and in the workplace for the better. Since denied basic rights in most aspects of society, from political rights to reproductive rights, women in the United States fought vigorously for equality. For example, women fought for their rights not to symbolize â€Å"beauty objects† or â€Å"sex objects.† In 1968, 100 women protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant because it promoted â€Å"physical attractiveness and charm as the primary measures of a woman’s worth,† especially the swimsuit portion of the contest (Echols 149). Also, according to Estelle Carol, the founder of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, women began to get over this idea in the 1960s, but many women still felt Overly obsessed with [their] body shapes and were often prisoners of the fantasies [they] got from TV and magazine advertising. But [they] were learning to question these things and even some of the so-called ‘supermodels’ spoke out bravely about the need to get past this ridiculous ‘beautyà ¢â‚¬â„¢ thing. (Interview). Again, thanks to the women activist, we would not be sitting here today if we as women didn’t stand together and fight for our rights. I would not be taking my classes on-line have the job that I have now I was very young when I got married back then that’s how we were raised at least by my families morals, I didn’t graduate even though my expectations of myself was to graduate go to college and become an attorney instead I started to raise a family and had a husband who basically was raised to be the dominate person in the relationship. I did work outside the home and enjoyed working I became this woman that wanted more out of life and started looking at how a lot of famous women became leaders so I decided to be more aggressive and stood up for myself, at the age of 25 I became a Collections Manager for an attorney who worked on collecting bad debt for a Medical Hospital, it was a great opportunity for me. I don’t think that I would have had that opportunity if the women’s liberation movement would not have had existed how many women would be lost in translation not knowing where to go for help or how it would be for us in today’s society, where would we be at right now? Would we be able to make decisions that affect our own lives and our families or would we still be depending on our partners to make all of the decisions for the family. We are very lucky to have what we have now, freedom to express, freedom to vote, freedom to work and most of all make our own decisions whether to have or not to have children, and get married if we want. References Farber, D. R., Foner, E. (1994). The age of great dreams, America in the 1960s. (First edition). New York: Hill Wang Retrieved March 6, 2012. http://womensphere.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/the-rising-womens-liberation-movement-in-the-radical-1960s/ Retrieved March 6, 2012 http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/_notes/GrrlSmarts/sawhney.html Retrieved March 6, 2012

Creative Story: Grandpa :: essays research papers

Creative Story: Grandpa We were going to Las Vegas for vacation. I was looking foward to having a lot of fun there. When we finally got to Las Vegas,it felt like an oven jacked up all the way. When we got to the room it felt like when you open a refrigerator. Then we went to see all the major attractions, like Cesar's Palace, this was one of my favorites because when you go inside the roof looks like the sky inside of a building. I also took some pictures in front of the hotel near the water fountain. The MGM Grand was my second favorite because when you go inside it this thing were you go in and walk around and see the play Wizard of Oz. I also liked thePyramid because outside the is this image of a persons face that appears on the splashing water. That image was all done with Lazers. Las Vegas is a nice place to see a lot of cool hotels and sites. Then it was even better because it was at night and all the hotels were lit up. It looked like it was Christmas everyday there. Every single hotel was lit up of all different pictures. We had fun seeing that but it was time to go back to the hotel room. When we got back the front desk informed us that somebody had called from San Fransisco. We all had an idea of what it was about. My mom and grandma were both sobbing. They were crying in way that didn't show. My dad and I felt very sad even though we didn't know my grandpa very well. Before we had gone to Las Vegas we sat down with my aunt and my mom said " if anything happened to my grandpa to call us at the hotel room." When we heard that they had called we were all sweating as if it was raining right above us. When we called back it seemed like an eternity. My mom called, you could hear every button that she punched in. We also could hear the ringing from the call. Finally, my aunt picked up and started talking to my mom about how they called from Lima, Peru saying that my grandpa was waiting to die until they got there. So that same night we called Hertz and said that we had to get back to San Fransico and we were going to leave the car tomorrow. There was a big fit because my dad had already paid for three days but we only used it one day.

Lyle Alzado View of Steroid Use

Also I was undersized compared to the other players. After graduation no colleges gave me scholarships for playing football. Being undersized and playing averagely I wasn't the best athlete. I tried out for the Kilgore Junior College's football team in nineteen sixty four, but they told me that I wasn't good enough to play for them. I was finally accepted to Yankton College in South Dakota; I started taking steroids to play football better after being accepted, in order to play better and to insure my place on their football team.In nineteen seventy one I was the Denver Broncos fourth draft pick. I was a defensive lineman the same as in high school. I became a formidable player by the end of my rookie year. I outran, outwit, authenticated everybody. All along I was taking steroids and I saw that they made me play better and better. In nineteen seventy seven, I was named the Oaf's defensive player of the year and the defensive lineman of the year. I went from being and average player in high school, to being a feared professional football player in Just a few years.I was so wild about winning, it's all I cared about, I never talked about anything else, and steroids helped me keep on winning. In nineteen eighty four, I retired from football due to an injury to my Achilles tendon, which I believe was cause by my steroid use. I tried to make a comeback in nineteen ninety with the Raiders but I immediately had a knee injury that prevented me from playing. By the end of my football career I was name all-pro twice and had a total of ninety seven sacks In one hundred ninety six games. I had done well for someone who had no hope In high school of playing professional oddball.All during my college and professional football career I was taking steroids. I spent around thirty thousand dollars a year on steroids. All the time on the field I was fierce, mean, and determined to win, but off the field I had a hard time turning these emotions off. One of my teammates described me as have a split personality, â€Å"on the field he projected a tough image,† He said. But off the field I was like a gentle giant. When the game was over, I would be plagued with mood swings from the steroids; I could keep a good relationship with people.I was married four times over the course of my football career. Once a man sideswiped my car in Denver and I followed him home and beat him up In his front yard. I couldn't control my anger. I abused my second wife so much that she called the police five times on me during the course of our marriage. In March of nineteen ninety one, during my wedding to my fourth wife Kathy, I had a hard time keeping my balance while walking. A month later I was diagnosed with a chemotherapy treatment, in an attempt to cure the brain tumor.I died over a year after being diagnosed in my home in Portland, Oregon. I told Sports Illustrated before my death that I had started taking steroids in nineteen sixty nine and never stooped. I wanted to tell others to stop taking steroids. It wasn't worth it to me, steroids caused me to become detached from my friends and family, I couldn't keep a good relationship due to the mood swings caused by my steroid use. Ultimately my death was caused by steroids, they had made my appear strong on the outside while they wrecked my mind and body.

Occupy Wall Street - 1528 Words

Occupy Wall Street By: Jennifer Pates 2/1/2013 Professor Chester Galloway Bus301: Business Ethics I have to admit that even though the Occupy Wall Street Movement has been all over the news I did not truly understand the stance of it, nor did I really get involved with it. While doing research for this paper I was able to get a better understanding of the basis of the movement as well as the facts pertaining to it. The movement started on Wall Street but has spread across the US. The basis of the movement focuses on social amp; economic inequality, greed, corruption and the influence of corporations on the US government, primarily from the financial sectors of businesses. The main slogan of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is we are the†¦show more content†¦There is a strong emphasis is on the evils of the opposite of liberty, primarily oppression. Even though OWS didn’t has a set, specific list of demands, the overall consensus was clear, rein in the influence of big businesses, which cheated and manipulated their way to great wealth, in part by buying legislations, whi le leaving a trail of oppressed and impoverished victims in their wake. By naming the issue, the movement has changed the political discourse. The movement has unleashed the political power of millions of individuals and has issued an open invitation to everyone to be a part of creating a new world. If the protesters continue to focus on the gross inequality of outcomes in America, they will get nowhere. There is no equality foundation. Fairness means proportionality, and if Americans generally think that the rich got rich by working harder or by providing goods and services that were valued in a free market, they won’t support redistributionist policies. 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