Date: September 20, 1957
Dear Diary,
After a long class discussion on the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, I have realized three things about myself as a junior at Smith College. The first is that I, as a female, am truly lucky to be here. I am privileged enough to receive a quality education, that will aid in the pursuance of my dream of becoming a lawyer. Secondly, I have also gathered that I live in a time in which the dreams of someone like me are not always socially supported. As I think about my gender, I have concluded that I inhabit an identity that privilege and oppress different aspects of my life. I live in a time where the woman’s place is in the home, men hold all prestigious professions, rape is not addressed, and there are no major female elected officials. I also live in a time in which …show more content…
According to American culture, I should be a wife and a mother. According to Betty Friedan, “By the end of the fifties, the united States birth rate was taking over India’s…Where once they had two children, now they had four, five, six. Women who had once wanted careers were now making careers out of having babies. So rejoiced Life magazine in a 1956 paean to the movement of American women back to the home”. As a woman, it is also my duty to be beautiful, “Department-store buyers reported that American women, since 1939, had become three and four sizes smaller. ‘Women are out to fit the clothes, instead of vice versa’.” Lastly, it is my duty, as an American woman, to relinquish all of my personal aspirations because, “ The suburban housewife – she was the dream image of the young American woman and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world…She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment.” There must be more to womanhood than
Dear Diary,
After a long class discussion on the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, I have realized three things about myself as a junior at Smith College. The first is that I, as a female, am truly lucky to be here. I am privileged enough to receive a quality education, that will aid in the pursuance of my dream of becoming a lawyer. Secondly, I have also gathered that I live in a time in which the dreams of someone like me are not always socially supported. As I think about my gender, I have concluded that I inhabit an identity that privilege and oppress different aspects of my life. I live in a time where the woman’s place is in the home, men hold all prestigious professions, rape is not addressed, and there are no major female elected officials. I also live in a time in which …show more content…
According to American culture, I should be a wife and a mother. According to Betty Friedan, “By the end of the fifties, the united States birth rate was taking over India’s…Where once they had two children, now they had four, five, six. Women who had once wanted careers were now making careers out of having babies. So rejoiced Life magazine in a 1956 paean to the movement of American women back to the home”. As a woman, it is also my duty to be beautiful, “Department-store buyers reported that American women, since 1939, had become three and four sizes smaller. ‘Women are out to fit the clothes, instead of vice versa’.” Lastly, it is my duty, as an American woman, to relinquish all of my personal aspirations because, “ The suburban housewife – she was the dream image of the young American woman and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world…She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment.” There must be more to womanhood than