Womens Rights Essay, Research Paper

In Maya Angelou?s ?Sister Flowers? a little girl finds

encouragement from the woman she idolizes, Mrs. Flowers. Mrs.

Flowers provides Marguerite with attention and with feelings that

are most essential for the development of a child – self-respect,

confidence, and the feeling of being liked. A little girl grows

up to become a great writer, and remembers Sister Flowers with

great admiration as the woman who changed her life.

Similarly, in my life there?s someone who helped me become a

better human being. Her name is Betty Friedan and she?s the

person responsible for the Modern Women?s Rights Movement.

As a married woman with 3 children, Betty Friedan devoted

all her time to being a wife and a mother. Her life as a

homemaker led her to develop a theory on women. It concerned the

dangers of the idea that women should be completely satisfied

with their roles as wives and mothers and that somehow it was

abnormal to want a career or an identity separate from the

family. But women did want more out of life. It was not that they

wished to give up their families, they simply wanted to use their

well-developed minds for more than just deciding what to cook for

dinner, or which detergent is better.

After finding out(by mailing out questioners) that she

wasn?t the only one being unhappy with the role of women in

society, Friedan wrote an article and sent it to the leading

women?s magazines, but it was rejected with the response that

only ?sick? women could possibly feel dissatisfied with being

full-time mothers and wives(Friedan, It Changed My Life). But

Friedan knew otherwise and turned her article into a book, which

took 5 years to complete and was called The Feminine Mystique.

Thought she had not planned to start a revolution, Friedan

began the modern women?s liberation movement- the movement to

gain equal rights for women- with the writing of The Feminine

Mystique. Friedan was immediately cast as the leader of it.

Letters of support from women throughout the nation began pouring

in to her, with most saying that the book drastically changed

their lives.

Friedan took her new leadership role very seriously. She

began lecturing throughout the country, explaining her ideas for

change. She wanted more than just criticize the current climate

in which women lived, she wanted to offer real solutions that

could be applied quickly and relatively easily. She advocated

professional training and shared jobs, where two women share the

same position and split the hours of work. This would accommodate

the millions of mothers who wanted to work and spend time with

their children. She called for day care centers to be set up at

or near offices and maternity-like leave for men as well as women

so that both parents could share in early childhood experience

without having to sacrifice their careers. Also, Friedan became

one of the first of her era to call for ratifying the Equal

Rights Amendment to the Constitution, which would outlaw sex

discrimination.

As Friedan toured the country advocating her ideas, she

began to realize that women need a national organization to

promote their interests. Inspired by the civil rights movement,

which had just succeeded in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964

passed, she met with women in Washington, to discuss starting

?an NAACP for women? (Friedan, It Changed My Life, p.61).At the

Washington Hilton Hotel in June 1966, Friedan and several others

wrote out on a napkin the first major structure of the women?s

movement. They set out to take the actions needed to bring women

into the mainstream of American society and obtain full equality

for women, in fully equal partnership with men. That brief

purpose became the cornerstone of the National Organization for

Women(NOW), which was officially launched a few months later on

October 29, 1966. (Friedan, It Changed My Life, p.83).

Under Friedan?s presidency, NOW concentrated on enacting

Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed

discrimination on the basis of race or sex. She made it NOW?s

mission to see Title 7 inforced and to get women equal pay for

equal work, since they were paid 60 cents for every dollar men

earned. She also directed activities for legalizing abortion and

making birth control widely available.

By the 1970?s, NOW was making significant strides in its

campaign for equality. Title 7 was beginning to be enforced

throughout the country, women were being admitted to more and

more professional schools formerly restricted to men only, and

rapid changes were occurring in the workplace( which began to

adopt shared jobs and to guarantee maternity leave).

In 1970 Friedan resigned the presidency of NOW to

concentrate on political reform (promoting the Equal Rights

Amendment), teaching, and writing. She was finding herself

increasingly at odds with some other women?s liberation leaders

who, she felt, were promoting ?female chauvinism?, in which women

consider men second-class citizens. She saw these leaders as

endangering the progress of the women?s movement. Friedan felt

women?s liberation should be about choices and equality of

opportunity and should include all who believed in those ideals.

She defined feminism as a woman?s right to ? move in society with

all the privileges and opportunities and responsibilities that

are their human and American right. This does not mean class

warfare against men, nor does it mean the elimination of children

(Friedan, It Changed My Life, p.245).

In 1981, thinking about the movement she had done so much to

create Friedan wrote: ?There is no question today that women feel

differently now about themselves then they did twenty years

ago… It has been great for women to take themselves seriously

as people, to feel some self-respect as people, to feel that they

do have some equality even thought we know it has not been

completely achieved… We?re only beginning to know what we?re

capable of? (Friedan, It Changed My Life, pp.330-332).

In the 1990?s every women has a chance to persue their career or

stay home and take care of a family. Most women have an

opportunity to do both. But if it wasn?t for women like Betty

Friedan, we would be still considered as inferior. Personally I

can not imagine not being able to chose the course of my own

life, and thanks to the Women?s Right Movement, I will always

have a choice.

Angelou, Maya. ?Sister Flowers?. The Rinehart Reader.

3rd Edition. Jean Wyrick. Beverly J.Slaughter.

Friedan, Betty. It Changed My Life. New York: Clarkson N. Potter.1981