I Want A Wife Essay

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The place of women is a heavily debated issue today. The conservative side of the argument contests that the primary responsibility of women is to raise a family in the home, and they should be more concerned about their family than their career. The liberal argument believes that a woman is the same as a man and should be able to choose whether she pursues a career while being given the exact same opportunities and treatment as men in the workplace.

In her article, “Why I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady talks of the qualities she would look for in a wife if she were a man. Many of these qualities are of men’s tendency to forget their wife as a partner, and expect them to take care of them and the house. It brings to life the negative expectations
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We see more and more women opting to pursue professions, but just because they are leaving the house, does not mean they leave the social stigma at the door. Examples of this are prevalent in today’s new media are stories of women demanding equal pay and employment opportunities. Brady discusses that she would like “a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children.” This kind of attitude suggests that if women are in the workplace, it is not because they are equal to men, rather because the husband is either unable to work, or unable to fully provide for his family. This makes the woman’s place in the workplace see more of an extension of her home duties. Sacks expresses his similar experience with the blunt statement, “Working women…complain that men in the workplace don’t take them as seriously as they take men.”

Many argue that there are facts and statistics to show that women are paid the same as men, but being treated equal is much larger an issue than that of financial compensation. One can be paid the same and still feel and be treated unequally. Much of the business environment is trust. Trust between co-workers and between employers and employees is natural and needed. If a woman is seen as not belonging in the workplace, she will not be trusted to the level her male counterpart may

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