Gender Roles In The Film Awakening

Throughout the last 50 years equality for women has increased and made great strives. Many more issues however still linger into the daily lives of women today revolving around perception. Voices through history have shaped the way women navigate through the workforce and are perceived today. The film “Awakening,” part one from Makers” Women Who make America features many of the pioneering women whom changed the role of the women in the world. Figures who have broke into male oriented fields proving women roles do not merely reside as “Betty Crocker wife” but as a provider, leader, and changer arose from the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s.

Betty Friedan brought attention to the constrains women endured as a result of the 1950s post-war

Exposure to the civil rights and anti war movements women were exposed to deep sexism even within those of the same rank and further pushed the needs for the women liberation movement. These radical groups of women pushed on to create the Women's Liberation Movement that seemed to bring change with action like protesting sit-ins and boycotting. Publications that further pushed the stereotype of the perfect house wife at the time, become prominent targets as they had the ability to reach millions of women. The movement however made little to broaden the issues of all woman.“One of the things that women of color and other marginalized women argued is that we have to broaden what you considered to be a women issue.” Due to this rift Betty Friedan began to distance herself from the movement and Gloria Steinem emerged as a new leader. Her urning to be heard lead her to begin “Ms. Magazine.” along with other figures. This created a mainstream voice for women all over the county who could now be reached and began the dialog from “an out siders insurgency to the main stream of american life were it would lay sedge to the countries most established institutions even the relationship between men and

Slaughter explains how men are still seen as having less pressures in the workforce achieving more them women. She tells of the pressures and concerns for women who have high ranking jobs to uphold the banner and how “women of my generation have clung to the feminist credo we were raised with, even as our ranks have been steadily thinned by unresolvable tensions between family and career, because we are determined not to drop the flag for the next generation.”(Slaughter) She mentions the superwomen of today who wakes up at four am to tend to family and career with never ending pressures as to not be scrutinized for placing family matters ahead of career in the workplace. She speaks about issues in the workplace that man do not have to uphold and the ways to fix them to achieve a more balanced way to marry life and career without having to compromise on either one, such as marrying the right person, picking the right schedule for time and family. She determine that the way technological advances have been slow to take to the workplace in an effort to achieve a more