Feminism, And Existentialist Feminism

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

1.) Overall main topic of this book connects between the issue of motherhood and feminism. One major key point I found while reading this book is the author, Amber Kinser explains the growth and progress of the role of mothers in the american society meaning how the roles have changed overtime. A major theme of Kinser’s book is that the public debates may focus on mothering, but the issues affect us all.  Cutting back on health care for women, on education, and on jobs for teachers, social workers and others in the service sector have their greatest impact on mothers, but they affect all of us. Motherhood becomes a symbol for how men and women, single and married, gay and straight, deal with the need for individual options and the need to act for the good of others.

As part of the larger movement for equal rights, this feminist mobilization focused on a broad spectrum of economic, political, and cultural dimensions of the distribution of power that entailed the discrimination of women. Political struggles targeted the stigmatization of women as caregivers and the devalorization of this role in relation to that of the male breadwinner, a mainstream culture of sexism permeating all spheres of life and cutting across income and educational levels, as well as women’s unequal access to and unequal positioning within the labor market. (Azmanova 751)

Is there a common attitude society has towards women, and their roles as mothers? Betty Rollin, American journalist, reporter, and author, believes there is. She calls it the motherhood myth. She writes about this subject in her essay, “Motherhood: Who Needs It?” The myth is the idea that all normal women want and need to become mothers (Rollin 286). Rollin believes this is false, and argues that there is no biological drive or instinct, that makes women want to become mothers. Society reinforces this myth into us, through many forms of propaganda. Rollin argues against the belief that women’s most important role in life is to become a wife, and mother. She calls for the freedom to choose, and explains that becoming a mother is not an

Mothers around the world have a lot of work on their hands; the task of raising a child is never easy and requires plenty of hardwork as their child is growing up. Authors often describe mothers as a devoted parent and someone who would sacrifice anything for their child, because it’s a stereotype that applies to real life. Readers can relate to the text and understand it, making them want to enjoy the author’s book more. In “Lucinda Matlock” , a poem, and “Everyday Use”, a short story, authors Edgar Lee Masters and Alice Walker create two characters named Lucinda Matlock and Mama. Lucinda Matlock and Mama are two characters from different stories that have similar traits, in that they are dedicated and accepting women. Mama and Lucinda work hard in their lifetimes to provide for themselves in their children, and are dedicated to doing that, and they both accept the way life works and the unfairness that it might throw at a person.

The unfinished goals of feminism include recognizing that women’s work has equal value to their male counterparts, understanding that one of our human rights is reproductive freedoms, abolishing violence among women, and uprooting sexism and racism together (Steinem 2017). Instead of being a social issue, Steinem (2017) argues that reproductive freedoms are in fact human rights that affect everything else in life. In addition to equal pay for equal work, Steinem (2017) states that work needs to be redefined to include caregivers who make up two thirds of the adult population in the United States. Without a national program and standard for childcare, the cost of

In the article “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” author Leslie Bennetts states that people look over and under appreciate mothers, leaving them to have to handle responsibilities on their own. Bennetts supports this by providing stories, interviews, and using assertive language. In the article “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was,” author Hope Edelman expresses that she feels as if she has no say in her own home. Edelman proves her point by expressing her opinion and telling stories to persuade the reader to their side. Although Edelman and Bennetts both convey their beliefs about equality, Bennetts explains how she wants equality for all women, while Edelman just wants equality in her own home.

In this essay I will be talking about how feminist have contributed to our understanding of family roles and relationships. There are several different types of feminist theory, but all of them share certain characteristics in common; there is a fundamental division in society between men and women, that women are to some extent exploited by men and that society is male dominant or patriarchal this means “rule by the father” but is used by feminist to indicate that men have more power than women and the interest of men largely shapes how society is run. They believe that these theories are also critical of existing sociology arguing that it has a pro male bias. They call male-dominated sociology malestream sociology calming that most

Although women’s equality is important here in the United States, women not men are expected to take care of their children no matter what. According to Paulette Light, co-founder of MomStamp (2013), 43 percent of woman who are highly educated and qualified for amazing careers

More and more women are becoming single parents and raising their children on their own without the help of the father or of any man. Lately, and for several years, it is more common for women to be doing jobs for “men”. ( Kaiser, Spalding) Women who have been left by a male figure in their lives are very more likely to become independent and do as they need to survive. This was unheard of in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as said several times before, women do as men say and they are expected to do what they are told and live by a code. The morals of the realism and modernism era are unheard of in today's world. Women, and even men, either get married and have children, have children and don’t get married, or do neither and live their lives that way. Women have been acting this way for years, but is it really their fault? The leadership it takes for a woman to be on her own, and all the negativity that comes with being a woman who does what she feels is the right thing to do or what she wants to do, is absurd. (Bongiorno, Bain,

In the article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” author Leslie Bennetts explains her rage about the Mother’s Day holiday and the unfair expectations of mothers in modern America. Bennetts feels that the treatment of women and mothers is unfair, causing women and mothers everywhere to be angry. Bennetts proclaims that women feel inferior in most aspects of life, and she explains that this is unfair and all too common. Bennetts challenges women to realize that they are not alone and should keep fighting for themselves. In doing so, Bennetts loses credibility in her idea that women are oppressed housewives due to her negative tone and approach to men and husbands.

Motherhood and its implications have been the subject of serious discourse in the thought school of feminism. During the second wave of feminism, motherhood was looked at critically by many, including authors. Gender roles and female oppression were challenged. Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker are both notable authors in the realm of feminism during the second wave. In both Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale and Alice Walker’s novel

Mothers, according to society are the world’s perfect women. They can do it all, cook, clean, raise a family, and keep a job. All without breaking a sweat; people believe that women automatically know how to raise a well adjusted, well rounded child, that women who are also mothers know exactly what they are doing. Bette Greene, Tillie Olsen, and Gwendolyn Brooks show how a mother is nothing more than an average woman, in their works of “Ordinary Woman,” “I Stand Here Ironing,” and “the mother.”

Overall the literature reviewed that mothers have primary responsibility in child care, but there are many factors that affect child care. Accessibility, cost, and affordability are also very important. Another important idea is “Analyzing women's domestic labor, including the work of child care, provides opportunities to link gender and race/ethnicity and to understand the ways in which both are integral to the structures of economic and social life” 1994 Tuiminen, 242). This idea shows the overall importance of all of our lives. When we look at labor and the division we can start to make adjustments necessary to shoot for more social equality.

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)