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1、本科毕业论文美国妇女地位提高所带来的思考学生姓名： 学生学号： 200320207023 院（系）： 外国语学院 年级专业： 2003级英语本科5班 指导教师： 二七年五月A Reflection on the Improvement of American Womens Status Du Li Under the Supervision ofZhang ChunSchool of Foreign Languages and CulturesPanzhihua UniversityMay 2007 Contents AbstractKey Words.摘要关键词.Introduction.1
2、. US Womens Status Today2A. Education.2B. Politics.2C. Economy.3. Why Can They Make Great Progress? .4A. Exterior Causes.41. Development of Capitalist Productive Force .42. Efforts of Government and Non-government Organizations.53. Influence from Literary Works. .6 B. Interior Causes.7 1. Self-aware
3、ness.7 2. Womens Emancipation Movement.8 3. Consequence of More Education.10. Women in Other Countries.10 A. The Low Social Status.11 B. Why Do They Fall Behind? .11 C. What Should Be Done to Improve Womens Status? .12Conclusion14Acknowledgements.15Bibliography.16Abstract This paper describes the wo
4、mens status in the USA from three points: 1.womens rights in education; 2.womens rights in politics; and 3.women in economic field. And it discusses why American women can improve their status. There are two main reasons: one is the exterior cause (such as capitalist productive force, bourgeois ideo
5、logy; the efforts of the government and non-government organizations; the guide from some literary work), and another is the interior cause (womens self-awareness; womens emancipation movement and help from education). On the contrary, women in other countries are in unfavorable conditions. This pap
6、er discusses why they fall behind and how to change this condition. Key Wordswomens status; causes; labor force；womens movements; measures 摘 要 本篇论文主要从三个方面描述了美国妇女的地位:1.妇女在教育上的权利;2.妇女在政治上的权利;3.妇女在经济领域的成就。本文讨论了美国妇女能够提高她们的社会地位的主要原因。第一是外部原因,例如资本主义生产力的大发展,资本主义思想的传播;政府和非官方组织的努力，以及文学作品的指引。第二是其自身的原因，如自我意识的觉醒
7、，妇女解放运动的影响和教育的作用。相反，其他大多数国家妇女的地位却是很低的。本文旨在讨论为什么她们的地位提高不明显，以及要解决这个问题，应该采取何种措施。关键词妇女地位；原因；生产力；妇女运动；措施Introduction Since 1975, the first Womens Conference was convoked in Mexico City with the help of UN, the advocates of “Gender Equality” and “improving womens status” have appeared. Now, many years hav
8、e passed, but the progress is not so remarkable: in Asia, many girls are not allowed to receive education, female babies are killed or abandoned; and in Africa, women are considered as a part of belongings. Their value lies in giving birth to children and taking care of the family. On the contrary,
9、great progress has been made in improving womens status in the United States. The writer tries to find out the reasons for the progress, so that people can understand what shall be done to achieve similar success in other countries. . US Womens Status TodayIn history, there was a long time when woma
10、n was legally treated as subsidiary of man. During all her life, man was her owner or manager. A woman should obey what her man or her father said and serve the mans need. There was no need to have education, for knowledge was a sign of status. For this reason, women had no right in politics and no
11、one would hire a person lacking in skills and knowledge. However, conditions have changed. A. EducationIn the past, women received little schooling because their lives went around home. Yet, the situation has changed. By 1980, women earned a majority of all associate and bachelor degrees, and in 199
12、8, the proportion was 56% (U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, 2001) College doors have opened to women, and differences between mens and womens majors are becoming smaller. In 1970, women just earned 17% of bachelor degrees in the natural sciences, computer science, and engineering; by 1
13、998, that proportion had increased to 31%. For all areas of study in 1998, women eared 57% of masters degrees and 42% of doctorates (including 56% of all Ph.D.s in sociology). Women have also broken into many fields that used to be occupied by almost all males. For example, in 1970 only a few hundre
14、d women received a masters degree of business administration, compared to more than 39,000 in 1998 (US National Center for Education Statistics, 2001).Nonetheless, the proportion of women in all these professions is rising steadily. For example, the American Bar Association reports that law school c
15、lass of 2004 across the US is about evenly spit between women and men. (Gest, 2001) B. PoliticsOnce the Supreme Court decided, in Minor V. Happersett (1874), that womens suffrage was not a right inherent in the national citizenship. In fact women were legally barred from voting in national elections
16、 until the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920.Today, thousands of women serve as mayors of cities and towns across the U.S., and tens of thousands hold responsible administrative posts in the federal government. In 2001, 22% of legislators were women.The year 2006 can be viewed as Amer
17、ican womens politic year. Women from the Democratic Party were so bright in the past American mid-term elections. They helped the Democratic Party to get dominations of Congress. Pelosi was going to be the Speaker of Houses of Representatives and this was the first female Speaker in the U.S.A; Hilla
18、ry, wife of the former President Clinton, won 70% votes and she will continue to be the senator of New York City. Let us take Rice as an addition, the Secretary of the State from the Republican; those three women are brisk in the peak of the American politics. And the number of female candidates of
19、Houses of Representatives congress is 2468. There are 10 states that women are voted as candidates of governors in the country. According to the vote proportion, womens is higher than the average of this nation.All the data shows, now, American women pay much attention to the politics, and participa
20、te in it positively than ever before. And they win and get more in this field.C. EconomyBack in 1990 , only 1/4 of U.S.women were in the labor force. In 2000, 60% of women aged sixteen and over worked for income, and 3/4 of women worked full time. The traditional view that earning an income is a man
21、s role no longer holds true.Moreover, we can see a fine trend toward greater gender equality. In 1977 , 65 % of all adults endorsed the statement“It is much better for every one involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”By 2001, however, su
22、pport for this statement had dropped shapely to 39 %. (NORC, 2001:266) According to a recent report, more and more women operate their own companies. In the U.S. 1/3 medium and small-sized enterprises are run by females. There is an investigation showing that companies owned by females increase at 4
23、5%. From 1990 to the year 2000, the proportion of females companies was 40% of the whole companies in the U.S.Those data shows us clearly about American womens great achievements in this field. Why Can They Make Great Progress?The change is remarkable. A century and a half ago, women occupied a posi
24、tion of striking subordination. Husbands controlled property of wives, and laws barred women from most jobs. The movement toward equality has surged ahead. Two-thirds of people entering the work force during the 1990s were women. And the economy of the new century depends on the earning of women. Wh
25、y can they make great progress? This is the next question to be discussed.A. Exterior Causes1. Development of Capitalist Productive ForceBy the mid-eighteenth century, a second technological revolution was underway, first in England and then in North America. The development of industry brought grea
26、ter changes than agriculture did. At the very beginning of the foundation of capitalist production relations, women in lower ranks were greatly needed as labor force. And women going out from their houses for their families were poor so they must work to support the family. At that moment, specializ
27、ation, the product of Industrialization, was gradually popular in more and more factories, and such specialization raised production but lowered the skill level of the average worker. This condition helped women a lot to get jobs easily than before, since they had no professional knowledge.After the
28、 World War, there came new technological revolution, economic area, productive department and needs for goods and service. They brought ways to jobs and enlarged the need of labor force. This new condition shifted the nature of work from physically demanding tasks that favored male strength to jobs
29、that required intelligence and imagination. In this aspect, women and men were on even footing. There were more young women participating in the production of computers and other electronic productions. In 1947-1960, the proportion of American workingwomen was increasing from 29%-37.7%. Women became
30、 the white-collar workers; they worked as managers, directors of companies. And up to 1985, there were 5,010,000 career women in America, and it was 44%of the total labor force. Then, the times of knowledge economy came into being. Knowledge became the most important factor in work and people paid m
31、uch more attention to the employees knowledge and capability than gender. This was important to female, especially those who had high education and had enough skills as males. It was another peak for women having careers. 2. Efforts of Government and Non-government OrganizationsThe American federati
32、on, every state government, and non-government organizations contributed themselves to improving womens status. In 1992, a law to protect women in work was passed by the U.S. Congress. Since 1994, the Federation diverted US$ 10 billion per year basing on this law to help women working in IT and manu
33、facturing industry, which was traditionally dominated by men and with high salaries and good future. This measure made more women get better positions with high income (20%-30% higher than women got in traditional careers). On Oct.7, 1998, Congress passed Amendment to The Federal Higher Education Ac
34、t and the Higher Education. This act allowed people who live by social welfare to receive professional training and financial aids for higher education. In Tennessee, the local Womens Economic Committee formulated a plan to make sure that womens salary would not be less than the Minimum salary. In 2
35、001, the womens organization in Alabama published Alabama Womens Blueprint for Action to state the political position of females there, and it also pointed out that the development of economy was closely related with women. The American womens organizations frequently exchanged different ideas about
36、 how to develop womens status. They offered useful information to who needed it or who was in trouble through internet. The number of people using website to discuss how to deal with problems women met with in their daily life was increasing. They tried to help women to pursue their own business, be
37、 independent, overcome difficulties and also help women to know how to grasp chances leading to success. Some associations would invite famous or successful women in every area to give speeches or have some talks to inspire and help other women to keep far away from inferiority. In western countries
38、, according to Bible, women were thought to be connected with evil, so the organization would hold conferences or publish articles to correct citizens minds and to prove that traditional view was wrong and antiquated. To those who received no education, the government or organization would hire volu
39、nteers to be part-time teachers to reeducate them.3. Influence from Literary WorksOne day, a person told a poor guy, “Hey, dont you know you could live better, but there are some person rubbing your rights and your treasure.” What would the poor guy do? He would become angry and then struggle for wh
40、at would be robbed by others. This situation also happened in American womens world. The literary works acted as the character “a person”. Those works tried to tell women, “You are not as humble as men told you. Actually, both of you are equal; either in intelligence or body.” Simone De Beauvoir (19
41、08-1986), published The Second Sex in 1949.It is the first book to explore systematically the importance of gender to social life, and it get a great reflection echo worldwide. The Second Sex discusses what women are; why women are the wicks and why now women are still the second sex to men. She say
42、s, “Man explains what woman is on the opposite to him but not on the basis of womens essence.” “Women are never treated as independent peoplecompared with her essence, she is not human being but a subsidiary of man.” She also points out that ,“women are not born to be but taught to be.” In this book
43、, she tells females that the reasons why women are in lower position and controlled by men: Women have been enslaved and fettered for quite a long time. She asks women to deny it initiatively that women are inferior.Betty Friedan (1921-?), the Mother of American Womens Movement, the author of The Fe
44、minine Mystique. The main contents of The Feminine Mystique are critical evaluation to Freuds theory which is accepted as another Bible. This theory focuses on one thing: females are born to be inferior to males, and their body structures cause their inferiority of sense and moral, therefore, they a
45、re self-abased, passive, and compliant. They admire men of their sex organs. So Females are only fit for the positions of mothers and wives, which support the inequality between the two genders. With this effect, young females drop their business and studies, and choose to be housewives.Friedan analyzes that all Freud believed in the view from biology is a result trained by one certain culture. She also quotes some achievements
