Bailey 1

Taylor Bailey
Connie Douglas
UWRT 1101-037
3 November 2014
To Fight like a Girl
Since the 1960s, women have been fighting to achieve rights and recognition for their
gender equality. Unfortunately, in todays society, women are still experiencing discrimination
from a variety of different areas. To understand how far women have come and to understand
what still needs to be addressed is highly important when observing those women of todays
society. Society still hasnt seen exactly what it truly means to fight like a girl.
The New-and-Improved Housewife
The beginning of womens rights in the United States came during the 1960s within the
Civil Rights Movement. This decade was full of new ideals and new thinking, one of the bigger
movements happened to be gender equality. From this movement, we are introduced to the term
feminist. This label that people are given by others or are claimed by themselves has had trouble
at times standing for what its actual definition is. The role of the feminist is to advocate for
equality between men and women. This equality is spaced out between several areas in society.
The main areas include womens rights as citizens of the United States, stereotype norms, and
societal role rights.
The first goal of the feminists for the womens rights movement were equality driven.
Often called the first feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft was among those women whose approach

Bailey 2

was focused primarily on the individual rights of women (Lewis, Mary Wollstonecraft Legacy.)
Some of the rights that they fought for involving their citizenship and recognition as individuals
included the right to vote and the right to fair justice. Wollstonecraft also had first-hand
experience with domestic abuse from experiencing her family go through it, so she was also an
advocate for justice for women against domestic abuse (Lewis, Mary Wollstonecraft Legacy.)
Moving on from the changing and creating of laws and legal matters, women also fought for
their role as individuals.
The stereotype of a woman before the Civil Rights movement was defined as a homebound, child-bearing, in-home cook and house cleaner. Women then were basically only seen as
the help, while men did all of the work and were credited for it. When the 1960s came, the
bizarre idea of having women go out of the house on their own to do more than cook and clean
was growing rapidly. Women started to believe that there was more out there for them to do and
that all they needed was the right opportunity. Women became much more interested in trying to
branch out their skills to become more than just a housewife. This new mindset powered the start
of the new societal roles for women that would change the United States forever.
The new-and-improved housewives of America were no longer stuck at home cleaning
while the children were at school, they were joining the work force and interacting with hobbies
to show their male counterparts how they are able to do the same things as them. The men in the
country were all shocked and/or frustrated at the fact that they were proved to be equal to
women, who they had always saw as weaker and less important in society. Today, this stereotype
has grown very much out of its shell; however, the issue within gender equality stills remains
imperfect. The feminists of today are having to fight more against discrimination than legal

Bailey 3

issues. Except not only do women have issues with men, but men also have issues with some of
what women are given.
Survey
To gain insight on how people in the United States today understand gender roles, their
social norms, and female equality I created an online survey for people to take. I did not record
their names or genders, so their identities remain anonymous; however, I asked several related
questions that help reveal modern mindsets on the subject of women versus men in society. The
questions asked were as followed:
1. Who should pay the bill after a dinner date? (Answer options: Guys, Girls, or Either)
2. Who do you believe is more equipped to handle childcare? (Answer options: Guys, Girls,
or Either)
3. Who do you believe is more equipped to handle house care? Inside or Outside. (Answer
options: Guys, Girls, or Either)
4. Who should be able to support the family no matter what? (Answer options: Guys, Girls,
or Either)
5. What would you describe to be the role of men in society?
6. What would you describe to be the role of women in society?
7. Do you believe that males and females have equally fair rights and opportunities? If you
arent completely for one side, choose other and explain why. (Answer options: Yes, No,
or Either)
8. Have you ever been discriminated because of your gender? (Answer options: Yes, No)
9. What are some issues that you have experienced or observed between gender equality?

Bailey 4

10. A feminist is described as an advocate of womens rights on the grounds of political,

social, and economic equality to men. Would you consider yourself a feminist? (Answer
options: Yes, No)
11. If you responded yes to the last question, have you ever been involved in any type of
advocacy events? If so, what was your role?
Out of all of the responses I received, I was shocked by how different the statistics on
them turned out after making hypotheses beforehand. On question number eight, the majority
said they had been discriminated against because of their gender before, but on question
number ten the majority wouldnt qualify themselves as feminists. My thoughts after
reviewing these responses tells me that the majority of people seem to be impacted by the
lack of gender equality recognition; however, the majority are also not trying to help improve
it for themselves or others like them.
Some of the examples that were given by people who responded to question number nine
were: men have to pay more for car insurance, women are favored more in child custody
cases, men are required to sign up for selective service unlike women, and women pay less
for health care. These examples given were truly shocking, because with todays generation
of people you would not think that there were still issues regarding men and women
requirements. It is almost as if those who were able to get women the rights they have today
could have gone far enough to over extend their rights beyond what should be equal. After
reviewing the responses received the view on todays gender equality and feminism seems to
of changed. Regarding gender equality, it is to believe that in modern society today men and
women seem to still have issues related to the laws and also related to society. More people
seem to believe that women have the benefit of the doubt over men and in this new

Bailey 5

perspective, feminism seems to have directed away from political issues and has veered
towards social issues.
Observation
For the observational research, two locations were chosen. For the two environments that
were observed were a food court as well as a grocery store. The main question pondered
during the observation was which gender acts more of the leader? This meaning being how to
know if males or females dominated the interactions within the environment. The focus of
the observation centered itself on how women and men steered the group outings and if at
any time were their roles played out equally.
For the food court, location was inside of a popular mall. Time spent taking notes was
about an hour jotting down information while snacking in order to blend in of course. This
type of location was chosen because, there was a high probability that there would be a
variety of groups and couples of people to look at. The majority of these groups were
couples, families, and friends. All of which were of different sizes and types. One of the
groups looked for were children with only one parent. I found that there were many more
kids with their mothers enjoying lunch rather than kids with their fathers. This shows a
dominance in female lead when it comes to weekend mall trips with mom. Another
interesting observation I noticed was that those families with both parents present were
carrying out some stereotypes with the roles of the mothers and fathers. The mothers would
watch over the kids while the fathers tended to the familys needs by going to receive food
for everyone.

Bailey 6

The next environment I chose to observe was Wal-Mart. I sat for two 30 minute sessions,
both being on the weekends. In my time I noticed the majority of customers seemed to be
mothers with children or single females. Very few men were shopping alone, almost none.
Those couples who shopped together were also without children. While examining the
contents of the carts as people were checking out, I noticed that the women seemed to be
providing more for the entire family, rather than the men who seemed to be only stopping by
for a quick shop.
Conclusion
Within our country alone, gender roles and stereotypes have always been left up to ones
own opinion. Since the start of distinguishing between the two, both male and female, their
lifestyles as we define them have changed dramatically with several game changing
amendments throughout society. Even though the fight towards womens equality continues,
the sides seem to have flipped and caused men to start advocating for their equal rights as
well. Nowadays it almost seems ironic when girls joke with guys when they comment on
their behalf saying you fight like a girl.

Bailey 7

Works Cited
Harris, A. (2013) Everywhere and Nowhere: Contemporary Feminism in the United States.
American Journal of Sociology, 119(1), 297-299.
Lewis, Jone Johnson. Mary Wollstonecraft Legacy: Overview of Mary Wollstonecrafts Life
and Work. About.com, n.d. Web. 24 October 2014.
n. a. The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers for Women.
Tavaana.org, n.d. Web. 26 October 2014.