ipl-logo

Allusion In Housewife

1608 Words7 Pages

Imagine being told that you are only good in the household, cooking and cleaning. Imagine trying to work, facing discrimination if you do so. This was how society was in the 1960s-70s concerning women’s workplace rights. “The 38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs as teacher, nurse, or secretary”(The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement). In this time period, 62% of women did not have a job, they were stay-at-home wives rather, who cooked, cleaned, and took care of children. The other 38% of employed women were very limited to the professions they could be respected doing. The poem Housewife, Written in 1962 by Anne Sexton, uses feminist theory to portray a woman in the 1960s who is devoted to maintaining a household, something most women in this time period are forced to do by society. To portray …show more content…

Sexton alludes to Jonah from the story in the bible Jonah and The Whale to convey the actions of the woman’s husband. Another literary device used by Sexton is Personification. She personifies a house as a living thing in which they marry along with their husbands. The last major literary device used is metaphor. Sexton compares women to their mothers, which is a common theory.
Anne Gray Harvey was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1928 and raised in Weston (poetryfoundation.org). She had a complicated relationship with her parents which was possibly abusive (poetryfoundation.org). After graduating from boarding school she attended Garland Junior College for 1 year. As early as 19, she married Alfred “Kayo” Sexton II (poetryfoundation.org). Anne was actually a fashion model in 1950 and 1951 (Sexton, Anne (1967)). Sexton gave birth to two children, one in 1953 and the other in 1955 (poetryfoundation.org). She suffered from postpartum depression, this means that her depression was triggered by the birth of her

Show More
Related
812 Words | 4 Pages

In the middle of the 20th century, women were at a cultural crossroads in American society. Work or not to work? Ration or consumption - a ration? These very concerns were a hot debate across the nation at the time, as women of this period were expected of nothing more than keeping the house and raising children, but the goliath that was World War II opened up opportunities in manufacturing and other non-traditional jobs for women because of the fact that there was no men to fill these vacancies. Many women upon hearing Congresswoman’s Clare Boothe Luce’s speech in September of 1942 directed to the women’s banking committee were motivated to fill these spots that men normally would’ve worked at.

Read More
1707 Words | 7 Pages

Several social changes in the post-war years opened women to feminism's message. P. 2, The demand for a larger and more skilled labor pool generated by the Cold War, and postwar consumer economy were the driving force cause American society to become more open to feminism’s message. No doubt WW II created the demand for expanded women’s roles in the workplace, Document 1. Having proved their equal abilities during the war, they stood ready willing and able to contribute moving forward. Nevertheless attitudes toward women staying in the workforce after World War II were not favorable.

Read More
1391 Words | 6 Pages

During World War 2, women began to enter the workforce on a large scale, making up almost 50% by 1960. Despite making up a large portion of the workforce, there was still a need for major reform, as businesses paid women less than men for the same work, and women had limited access to high-paying, prestigious jobs, like doctors or lawyers. In addition, many housewives felt dissatisfied and undervalued, as depicted in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The increase in female workers, coupled with the changing expectations of women, led to the growth of the women’s movement.

Read More
468 Words | 2 Pages

Industrialization in the United States created increased employment opportunities in factories and metropolitan regions, liberating women from conventional homemaking responsibilities. Consequently, women sought independent lives, gaining financial independence and personal expression (Source 4). Women from various racial and cultural backgrounds, particularly those from working-class neighborhoods, entered the workforce, advocating for better working conditions and fair pay. These advancements shattered preconceived notions of gender roles, laying the groundwork for future women's rights

Read More
736 Words | 3 Pages

Women faced discrimination based on the fact that many people still held their traditional values and were even more outraged at the thought of women taking their jobs. The purpose of this piece was to reflect on the absence of women society and to ask what could have been happening to them during the time. Men believed that it was wrong to hire women when their were mass numbers of unemployed men. Although women were suffering in the same fashion, people believed that they were taking away jobs and should return to their role in the home. Women like Frances Perkins were advancing during they were not always accepted in the positions they were taking.

Read More
1605 Words | 7 Pages

The purpose of this document is to show that women are helping in duties outside the household. This is important because this was unconventional at the time. Additonally, there is a chart that shows that there was a significant increase in jobs held by women in professional fields such as clerical, professional, service, and sales workers which shows that women were climbing up the ladder in terms of jobs. This increase in women in the workforce is further confirmed with the drop in jobs such as household, factory, and farm workers (Doc 3B). Women are now taking on more professional jobs that were typically for men and that alone is a significant change.

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

Although things were not always like this, by the end of the 1970s, more than 50% of women had jobs outside of their own homes. Before the second wave of feminism, in the ’70s, (opposed to the first wave of feminism, when women first had the right to vote in Canada, 1916) most women's only jobs were to cook, clean, and take care of their children. Even though this was a big step, many things were still

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

The women endured additional burdens like campaigns against hiring women because they thought jobs should go to male breadwinners and then three quarters of the school districts in the country banned married women from being hired as teachers (Henretta, 2009). The women in Minnesota in breadlines were subject to sit in employment bureaus and hoped for work to try to provide for their family (Bethel University, 2005). The women here are those who are middle-aged, some have families, while some have raised the children and now they are alone (Bethel University, 2005). The others are those who have men that are out of work (Bethel University, 2005). These women are left to struggle to fed many mouths by themselves, while the women who pride gets the best of them starves silently, leaving the children to find work (Bethel University, 2005).

Read More
290 Words | 2 Pages

In 1966, Betty Friedan wrote a document called “Statement of Purpose” which helped fight equality for women to be treated as equals with men. This document spoke out for feminists during, what was called, the “second wave”, of feminism. The audience of this document was targeted towards people who opposed equal rights for women and men. Women were often expected to stay home to take care of their children, and if they were employed they were often paid a significant amount less than men. In the document, it states, “…fulltime women workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn…”

Read More
1170 Words | 5 Pages

That quickly changed as the Great Depression began, The New Deal, a political motion saw a change in women’s roles within the workforce as unemployment increased; women saw this as an opportunity to join the workforce. The New Deal programs of the 1930s, such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), provided employment opportunities for Women. Though women did find employment, they often fought for equal pay and working conditions whilst learning how to multitask between looking after their household along with work. By the 1930’s women moved from having primarily domestic roles to being active members of society, this is shown through the statistical increase in women employment as it saw women’s workforce participation increase from 24.3% to 29.9% (study.com - US History). This significant increase saw many women as the primary breadwinners for their families as male-dominated industries became less productive.

Read More
1652 Words | 7 Pages

The women were expected to create a happy home, guard the religion, and the morality of her family. The unmarried and married women who tried to seek work outside the home faced limited employment opportunities because of their gender. Women were expected to only focus on domestic duties and her role were limited to continue living in the man’s world. Women roles were expected to be in line with the culture and norms set by the society. The American culture perceived that women were not intellectually and emotionally stable to be involved in the complex world of work and, therefore, women did not take up leadership and political roles.

Read More
803 Words | 4 Pages

in The Council on Contemporary Families Online Symposia explores the delicate balance of women working in and outside of the home. Placing work above family is still hurting the household, even in 2016. It seems many Americans feel women taking on the domestic chores while not working outside the home and the man being the breadwinner is the ideal living scenario, even in today’s day and age. This may be for the reason that employers have not caught up with women’s needs, nor the family’s needs.

Read More
1572 Words | 7 Pages

Have you ever wonder how the women’s right and roles have changed or shifted between 1965 to the present? People strongly see the progress and small development of women's roles in family and societies as time changed. History has strongly shown that women were seen as workers of the home who takes care of children, cook, and clean the house while the men were workers of the outside who provides money, food, and work. Even though women were limited in participation in the government and had roles only in the home, overtime this role has evolved and showed a progress of equal rights. There may still need for small improvements in women's equality today like woman and man equal wages, but history has shown a lot of progress on women’s rights

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

(1A) One of the factors that lead to women being treated differently in the job market of the United States is the fact that there are gaps in employment that women often take that do not as largely affect men. Since women often live longer lives than men that are faced with the challenges of taking care of dying spouses and even taking care of their older parents. This dilemma was discussed in the “Sandwich Generation” video from a previous assignment, where there was an unemployed mother that was taking care of her young son and very old and sick parent while her husband was at work trying to make ends meet. Women also often times are faced with the challenge of taking care of infant children post-partum resulting in time off of work.

Read More
1213 Words | 5 Pages

Women. Women’s involvement in the working world have contributed to many items that would be missing from the world today; if they had not been allowed to work.. Women have struggled with sexism in the workplace since before they were even given the chance to try to work. They were taught from a young age that their job was to provide children, cook, and clean for their husbands, while the husband worked and provided the money. What men did not know however was that women were capable of so much more(Jewell, Hannah).

Read More

More about Allusion In Housewife

Related Topics

Open Document