The Transformation of Women's roles in families from 19th Century to Now

 
Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J40Mec2AnR8&feature=related

The Awakening – Kate Chopin
 
Kate Chopin
           Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the daughter of Thomas O'Flaherty, a successful businessman who had emigrated from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza Faris, was a well-connected member of the French community in St. Louis. In 1870, at the age of 20, she married Oscar Chopin and settled in New Orleans.

 
           
 

Plot Summary
        In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson takes a position teaching "History of Art" at Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college because she wants to make a difference and influence the next generation of women. At her first class, Katherine discovers that the girls have already memorized the entire syllabus from the textbook. Therefore, she uses the classes to introduce them to Modern Art and encourages spirited classroom discussions about topics such as what makes good art and what the Mona Lisa's smile means. This brings her into conflict with the conservative president of Wellesley College who warns Katherine to stick to the syllabus, or she will lose her job. Katherine comes to know many of the students in her class well and seeks to inspire them to seek more than marriage to eligible young men.

 
Throughout the entire film, Katherine Watson contends with the theoretical adversaries of social convention and antiquated values. When she giving her lectures, she discovers her students thinking whatever anyone tells them to think, be it a textbook or society. She challenges her students through popular media advertisements to consider what future generations will think of what these women have made of themselves. Also, she denies through her own personal life that marriage, motherhood and home are honorable things to give your life to, and this is the bottom line of what she communicates to her students—following the traditional roles and simply doing what someone else tells you to do are not only restrictive, but also deny a woman her individual identity and personal fulfillment.
 
When Betty writes an editorial to attack Katherine, Katherine projects a series of images of American magazine advertising from the 1950s depicting women as appendages to men, children, homes and appliances. She includes a girdle advert that paradoxically restricts the body while promising freedom. In other words, she asks the students to consider if they are willing to conform to these dominant media stereotypes. It is also worth waiting to view the film’s final credits because they include a montage of clips from American television advertising and newsreels illustrating the restricted domestic role of women following World War II, when many had done men’s jobs in wartime factories.

Chapter 2 of The Feminine Mystique is an interesting compilation of stories showing the modern (1960′s) woman only wanted the hearth, home and husband. According to Friedan’s observation in Chapter 1, women had given-up their desire for independence and instead turned all their attention to:
 

 


Second-wave feminism

 
 
This is a film about what it can mean to be a woman in the United States, and in particular, a working class woman with few options in life. It is also about women who suddenly realize that they may have more potential and freedom that they ever thought was possible, particularly freedom from the male dominated society that has so badly mistreated them over the years.
At the beginning of the movie, when the two heroines appear on the stage, almost most of the scenes try to portray the social status of women at that time—Louise is a single woman who works as a waitress in a small restaurant, while Thelma is an ordinary housewife who got married at an early age. All the scenes follow the stereotype of the society: an obedient housewife, a chauvinistic husband, the husband supports the economy of the family, etc. Moreover, these scenes seem to be the “normal and right behavior” of women in daily life.

 
 
Author: Sarah Jewett; Genre: Regionalism; Realism; Collection of Short Stories
An 1896 short story sequence by Sarah Orne Jewett which is considered by some literary critics to be her finest work. Henry James described it as her "beautiful little quantum of achievement." Because it is loosely structured, many critics view the book not as a novel, but a series of sketches; however, its structure is unified through both setting and theme. The novel can be read as a study of the effects of isolation and hardship experienced by the inhabitants of the decaying fishing villages along the Maine coast.
Sarah Orne Jewett, who wrote the book when she was 47, was largely responsible for popularizing the regionalism genre with her sketches of the fictional Maine fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Like Jewett, the narrator is a woman, a writer, unattached, genteel in demeanor, intermittently feisty and zealously protective of her time to write. The narrator removes herself from her landlady's company and writes in an empty schoolhouse, but she also continues to spend a great deal of time with Mrs. Todd, befriending her hostess and her hostess's family and friends.
Themes of The Country of Pointed Firs

      


First-wave feminism