Essay Assignment #4. The Journey of Feminism. History Essay

The Journey of Feminism
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[date]The women's battle against the patriarchal society has gone far if we look at the differences from the time of Betty Friedan to the present. True enough, the first activists of women's rights stabilized the fight to reclaim their places and spaces in society (Foner, 2020, p. 1015). However, there is still wondering about how far have the feminists come in getting their rights and liberty from the patriarchal system. In the past, women had to march and shout to the world that they have the right to vote, choose their careers, and liberate themselves from the expectation of being a housewife (Foner, 2020, p. 1014). Women's suffrage was only able to happen because women activists had fought for it. Before this, society only gave the right to vote to men who the world saw as superior beings. Careers and professional jobs were also places for men and not for women. Society did not see women as capable in the corporate world. What everyone expected from women was to become a wife, bring a child to the world, and rear them while taking care of the household (Neuhaus, 1999). Women were only supposed to be housewives.
After some time, women were given their chance to pursue careers, aside from eventually becoming a housewife and a mother. However, despite the opportunity, patriarchy was still roaming around for women. Betty Friedan was among the pioneer feminist activists who wrote about the discrimination that women would get in the corporate world (Foner, 2020, p. 1015). Friedan was able to encourage many women to rise against the system that looked down on their capability to work alongside men. Since then, women have been seeking to justify the space they occupy without getting humiliated and compared to men. One of the achievements of Friedan's movement was the Equal Pay Act and The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which both consider women as equal laborer...