The F-word... Quotes

I really enjoyed reading "A Tsunami in History". I think the title in itself represents a change that was massive, but much destruction had to have occurred to got to this unrecognizable state compared to where it had begun. A quote from the beginning of this essay that I think ties in the destruction made is "Before women achieved their goal, many suffered for the cause- some were jailed, fined and endured hunger strikes-..." And through the generations the author describes each unique struggle women went through. I think that The author did a good job breaking down the generations into "waves", or cycles of how the movement slowly evolved. Women began with hardly any rights at all. I feel that each generation had a goal for what they strive to attain. The first was gaining the right, or the privilege to vote, but more deeply to obtain a voice, Instead of having the men speak for them. Taxes and literacy test were created to weed out the "lower class" voters. This also separated out people of different races. Equal Opportunities were no where to be found. I believe this was formed to weaken the group of women. The less there were, the more vulnerable, and easily attacked. Once the women attained a voice, it was now time to attain their freedom. Women around the 1950's were stereotypically the stay at home mother. " It took  another wave to break through the barriers that confined many to 'womens work' which at the time included a quite narrow job selection". At this time jobs were limited that women were "allowed' to do and they didn't pay much either. Many women so badly wanted to expand their horizons. Women are always in the home taking care of the family, they do not have a chance to earn their own money and expand their freedom. This was a time of struggle between being a home-maker to a money maker. Also at this time women of color were less acknowledged. "Many allege that the second wave represented mainly the concerns of middle and upper class white women issues and did not focus on the voices and many of the issues of women of color..." This means that they had even more minority hurdles to over come and they were battling apart from white women. Finally, in the last wave the struggle for a title. To be able to boast yourself up in the world and gain the same job title that a man has and gain it with equal opportunity.  This is not only true between men and women but also between different races, and classes in society. We are still struggling today with this. Gender and racial segregation still is an issue today.  As they say in the finale wave, " The glass ceiling has only cracked..." this mean that there is still work that needs to be done to fully overcome in equality and equal opportunity.We are a part of the Forth wave.
In Fear of feminism the author is attempting to explain why women are afraid of feminism, and that there is reason behind that. I think that to stand out against majority or crowd about anything is a scary thing to do. The more voices you have doing that the louder you’ll be heard. But before you go around doing so you need to know what you are talking about and what your getting yourself into. There is a fear of male violence. In the article they state, “-itself a recognition that it could happen to me.” Women need to not be in denial about this. Do not allow yourself to become vulnerable. Be aware! Young women do not like to imagine this because they don’t think it may happen to them but it so easily could. But allowing yourself to think about it can help prevent it from really happening. Another quote that supports this is …sexual harassment and date rape on campuses all over the country, still insist on believing that women’s equality has been achieved.” This is something that is a serious issue. The system need to change. Also the fact that men trying to over power women is being reiterated in this article. I think this article is taking everything shown in the previous article about gaining a voice, and is now showing us how to use it!