The Oppression and Progress of Women.
I agree with Adrienne Rich that every women needs to educate herself in what she needs to know to know for survival in the world. I believe that it is the responsibility or every woman to take control of her own life and become a self-conscious and self-defining human being. Education is crucial to this. However, I feel times have changed in America since 1979 when Rich wrote this speech, and women are making great progress. This can be proved true do to the fact that in universities today, women outnumber men for the first time in history. I also feel that Rich neglects to include the roll society, the way young girls are taught by their mothers, and American culture played in the oppression of women.
I feel that times have changed since 1979 when women's lib and the feminist struggle were newer concepts. In America today, I feel we have almost achieved equality between men and women. I also feel in America today, we are all born with the same opportunities, though some people may have to struggle more than others to attain that opportunity. .
Rich suggests "enforced ignorance has been a crucial key to women's powerlessness. I feel that Rich's anger toward men prevents her from seeing the role women play in their own ignorance. Her mother will be the first one a young girl will look to as a role model. In the past, and more so in some cultures, mothers teach their daughters that a women's priority in life is to find a suitable husband and to be good wives and mothers. And that was the only place for women in the world. They were taught to hold their marriages together, no matter the situation or the cost, to tolerate abuse, and look the other way with infidelity. They watched their mothers abused, putting their own happiness and needs aside, and make sacrifices to accommodate their husbands. Then they grow up and repeat what they know.