C. Is radical feminism to blame for any social problems (e.g. increasing

UNIT 4

WOMEN IN THE CHANGING WORLD

Ι

1. Read an excerpt from the article “Feminism in the US” and summarize it.

2. What feminists’ achievements are mentioned in the article?

3. According to the article, is feminism dead or on the rise? Explain.

4. What problems do modern American women face? What about Russian women?

FEMINISM IN THE US

It has become fashionable of late to accuse feminism of being anti-family, too wrapped up in man-hating, and disrespectful of the "traditional" values of womanhood, whatever that means. But feminists' achievements should not be underestimated.

It was feminists who fought for the vote so that women could affect positive change in the lives of poor people, minorities, and families. It was feminists who protested the liquor industry and drunkenness. The image of women breaking up taverns with their hatchets might be amusing now, but what those women were protesting was the (still) rampant problem of drunken wife-beating, and the drinking-up of family fortunes to leave children and women destitute.

It was feminists who instituted programs in inner cities for childcare, providing pure milk to women to raise babies, and educating women so that they could take their reproductive lives into their own hands, and have only the children they could care for.

It was feminists who pressed hard for laws that could be used to prosecute men who physically abused their families; previously, it was simply seen as part of life.

It was feminists in the 1990s who pushed for the passage of the Family Medical Leave Act, insuring that anyone could take time off from their jobs to care for an ailing parent, spouse, or child, and not be fired or laid off.

As it is asserted by 20- and 30-something American women, feminism is not dead; it is on the rise again, but in a new form. Young American women call it the 3rd Wave. It is concerned with the lives of "real women who juggle jobs, kids, money, and personal freedom in a frenzied world." Women today are more interested in finding solutions to the problems that confront them than concentrating only on the problems themselves.

Women may have been granted grudging access to the job market, but they still bear much mоrе of the burden than men: it costs more money to be a woman, women have to work harder just to be considered competent, they do all the emotional maintenance work in relationships; they still do the vast majority of house work and child care, and all the old stereotypes that keep women from being respected unless they work like men remain firmly in place.

As they put it on their "The 3rd WWWave" website "we can't do the work for men, and we won't try. Social change requires efforts from both sides. We want to meet men in the middle, not do all the adjusting ourselves. We're here to encourage our brothers to do the hard work of examining themselves and their role, to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start a genuine transformation of the male role for our health and theirs."

READING

1. Read the article “Feminism in the 1990s” and answer the questions

Below.

a. What role has feminism played in transforming women's life and

expectations? Ideas and attitudes?

b. Is there full equality between the sexes now?

c. Is radical feminism to blame for any social problems (e.g. increasing

amount of sexual antagonism)?

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