Structural Inequality In The 1970's

During the early 1970’s, the United States of America had many structural inequalities integrated into its society. Many Americans lives were affected by the social standards of race, gender, and economic stance. Anne Sexton’s transformative poem “Cinderella” allows the speaker to use satire to show the structural inequalities of the economy, gender, and race in the United States in the 1970’s.

With the use of mockery, the speaker shows how fairy tales and unequal distributions of authority were used to ensure a lack of social mobility in the United States. Throughout the economic social structure of the United States in the early 1970’s, unequal regimes and the idea of social mobility were used to maintain the structural harmony of the society.

American women were beginning to break down barriers, such as educational opportunities and equal pay for certain jobs, which had been entrenched in the American society for years. Although women had overcome many barriers, it was found that “gendered and sexualized assumptions still shape the class situations of women and men in different ways” (Acker 444). As the class system continued to impact the inequalities of gender, men had the ability to alter their class status, where as women were unable to change their social class based solely off occupation. In the 1970’s women were influenced to undergo alterations of their identity and appearance to marry into a higher class. In “Cinderella” the idea to resemble a higher class was made by the father, who “brought presents home from town, jewels and gowns” (Sexton 33-34). By making his stepdaughters look of a higher class than they were positioned in, it was easier to marry them off in order to achieve social mobility. Overall, by altering their identity and appearance, women were more likely to obtain a higher social class through marriage than they were able to achieve through occupation. Through the use of ridicule of appearing to be part of an upper class to gain social mobility, the speaker of Sexton’s “Cinderella” was able to show the subordination of women in the

When the idea of race was discussed “it [was] treated as a parallel system of stratification: an analogy [was] often made between ‘women’ and ‘minorities,’” (Glenn 87). Although an analogy was able to be made between women and minorities, white women had the opportunity to increase their social status more easily than non-Caucasian groups due to racism. With the similarities of the standards given to women and minorities, some white women could be “pretty enough, but with hearts like blackjacks” (Sexton 28-29). By creating an analogy linking white women with minorities, it shows that different groups of people were held to the same social standard, but during the early 1970’s only certain people had the ability to succeed in social mobility. While white women were able to at times change their social status, African Americans found social mobility more difficult due to the racism in the society. In the poem the speaker discusses those who “walk around looking like Al Jolson” (Sexton 31). By imitating an African American person, the white people in society could disregard the structural inequalities occurring and the unequal ability of the African American people to reshape their disempowerment. In the transformative poem, the speaker of Anne Sexton’s “Cinderella” was able to show the racial inequalities of the United States during the