A Womans World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A Womans World - Essay Example Sarah Moore Grimke sets the mood of her letter by talking about the set or "appropriate sphere" as she terms it, for women to lack intellectual inclinations and invite discussions about her character by not dressing, eating, socializing in a certain way or even reading novels that have been shunned by the press or people in general. This "appropriate sphere" has come to mean many things to many people where feminist policies and their formulation is concerned. Further, if she is to be believed, this period of time boasted of a distinct class consisting of a sizable amount of people, where owing to a certain amount of awareness and achievement of academic qualifications, women believe that arranged marriages are not the end all and be all. Also, this class of people held the belief that catering to the husband's every whim and fancy is not the only chore in life. While these ideals struck many as "absurd", in Grimke's own words, majority of the women were "trained" to carry out wifely duties and not bother about choosing a husband of their own liking. In this regard, it was made clear that a woman may never have a choice in anything in her life. Was this fair According to Grimke - not at all. In her letter, Grimke uses an underscore of sarcasm to show the absurdity of the situation where men enjoyed more freedom than women merely due physical strength and other attributes. Unfair as it was, this attitude shaped the belief that women are a machine that produces babies besides cooking and cleaning - a machine that does not and should not, require any kind of education or intellectual stimulation, let alone having a say in how her home must be run. This thought process was mainly an overthrow from the common notion that men are more superior. This was apparent in the fact that even if a woman did the heavy work that generally only a man does, she is not given the same pay or compensation as a man. In this way, there was always major discrimination regarding the areas of work that a woman could enter into - if at all she was allowed to embark on making a career for herself. Further, there was consensus to slavery especially among women, who have always been regarded among min orities. This led Grimke to end her letter by saying that rendering dignity alone will lead a woman to truly serve and respect her husband besides giving her a real objective and sense of duty in life. Therefore, in her letter, Grimke mirrored the trends of her time by going ahead of the same to show her concern for this plight. TOPIC 2: The Spiritual Role of Women (550 words - excluding title) No woman is complete unless she reaches into her soul to show the world her strength and to use this very ocean of strength to build a family and keep a happy home. In the Appeal to the Christian Women of the South - Heath Anthology of American Literature, Angelina Grimke starts her letter by taking a stance - one that revolves around genuine interest in the welfare of women belonging to the Christian sympathy, as she refers to it. Talking to the women from the same religious denomination as that of the Gospel fellowship, Angelina wishes to