I Want A Wife

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In ‘I Want a Wife’, Judy Brady outlines some of the expected duties of wives and therefore of women. Through clever use of satire, Brady highlights some of the supposed duties of women or what men might look for in a wife such as: cooking, cleaning, watching after children, never complaining, and taking care of her husband’s every whim. “I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook… I want a wife who will keep my house clean...I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children… I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean… I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me…” (Brady, para. 3-5). The perpetuation of these stereotypes can be very harmful; however, in today’s society most of these arguments don’t hold …show more content…
In 1972, when this piece was written, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only about 20 million women were enrolled in college in contrast to the over 30 million men. In 2011, about 50 million women were enrolled in college. According to the United States Department of Labor, “For 2013 graduates, the college enrollment rate was 68.4 percent for young women and 63.5 percent for young men.” Women have broken the glass ceiling, the CEOs of Yahoo, IBM, General Motors (GM), the TJX Companies, PepsiCo Inc., and General Dynamics are all women. Women have been elected to exalted positions for the first time: Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House, although she lost the position in 2007, and Loretta Lynch, first African-American and second woman Attorney General. On the flipside, what is left of the sexist ideals can lead to a positive as Sandra Cisneros can attest to in ‘Only

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