Sunday, December 14, 2014
"When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present"
The book, "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present," by Gail Collins, focuses on women and how they began to fight against sexism and sex discrimination; how they started to realize that they were not happy with the lives they were living as homemakers and housewives. They wanted something more. They wanted to experience more than just marriage and children and chores. They wanted what only men could have and the women were definitely not happy about that. So some women started to get together and talk about how they felt and what they wanted to do.
While reading this book, I started really thinking about the main issue being informed about, and I thought about the social inquiry questions we've been learning about in class. So I asked myself: Whose perspective is missing? (Also, keep in mind that I have still not finished the book, so my answers could, and will most likely, change.) In my book, so far, I feel that the black woman's perspective is missing; and maybe also black man's perspective. They have been mentioned a bit, but I haven't heard from them directly. I've mostly been hearing about the white male and female perspective. What is the effect on the story of having that side excluded? Well, we don't get the whole view if we don't have a black male/female point of view. They were also a big part of the movement. But once again, I just think I haven't gotten up to that part yet (hopefully...). The Message: Which type is it? It is a "bearing witness" message because it talks about the history/past of the women's rights [movements]/feminism and how they got here today. Is justice served? Not really, because women today still struggle to be [seen] as equal to men. But there has definitely been a lot of progress, which is wonderful! Who blocks justice? Men and the government block justice. Because it's mostly men that affect the government's decision (because they rank higher) and then the government makes the final decision.
In conclusion, so far, in the book "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present," a black male/female perspective is missing (and their perspective is quite important!), it is a "bearing witness"—it informs us of the history of women's rights/feminism, justice is not really served, and men and the government block justice.
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You did a really great job at understanding the book, I could tell because you answered the inquiry questions really well. I do have a question though, have your answers changed? Also, what's your opinion towards feminism and how do you feel about women still having to struggle to be treated equally to this day? Great job on your response!
ReplyDeleteThank you. In response to your first question, I think my answers have changed because as I continued reading, I could see new perspectives were being added. My opinion towards feminism? (Eileen, you know it. Haha!) Well, I'm actually not so sure how to word it, but I think it's great. Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights—feminists want equality, they want to be seen as equal to men. I think it's sort of ridiculous that women still need to fight for their equality because of sexist and/or misogynistic people out there. It's ridiculous how some can be so narrow-minded and ignorant.
DeleteI hope I answered your questions appealingly.
DeleteAdding on to Eileen, what is your opinion on feminism? You didn't specify how you feel and what you think could change based on how women are being treated back then and now. Also, I think this issue that you have chosen to talk about (because if this book that you wrote this response on) is very interesting and the way you answered the inquiry questions proves to show how much you care about this issue.
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