Social Change Case Study Judy Phillips

For this social change case study, I chose to interview Judy Phillips, my grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born in April of 1940. When she was the age that I am now, equal opportunities and achievements for women were practically unheard of. In this report, the social change of women’s political, labor, and educational opportunities from the 1950’s to now will be addressed through the testimony of Mrs. Phillips. The first part of social change that was discussed with Mrs. Phillips was education and how the opportunities and achievements in this area of society changed over time. When asked how educational opportunity changed for women between the late 1950’s and present day, she replied that “most women went to junior college” but rarely worked toward transferring to a four-year university. Women at the time, if they chose to go to school at all, mostly just went to a two-year community college type of university with the hopes of learning skills such as typing. She stated that the majority of the time, “when someone went to college, they took typing for being a secretary” rather than trying to take other classes to obtain a more prestigious, top-tier career. Additionally, …show more content…
According to my grandmother, when she was my age there were very few women involved in politics and none that she could remember. This, similarly to STEM fields and business, was a primarily male-dominated career. At the time, women were not very involved in politics, although over time that gradually changed. Many women did not attempt to get involved in the political sphere and those that did faced great difficulty in gaining a foothold in this field. My grandmother stated that although there must have been women striving for political involvement, she “[couldn’t] remember too many women in politics at the