《英语毕业论文》word版.doc

山西师范大学本科毕业论文 二十世纪美国妇女的社会地位 姓 名张 婧院 系外国语学院专 业英语双学位班 级0702班学 号0619010219指导教师李 楠答辩日期成 绩 14内容摘要妇女在社会中扮演着十分重要的角色，但是由于各方面的原因，妇女的社会地位与其重要性却不对等。作为一个移民国家，美国妇女由白人、黑人和华裔妇女组成。鉴于美国这一国家自身的独特性，关于美国妇女的社会地位问题一直以来都是学者们研究的重点，尤其是二十世纪。这一时期，美国社会发生了巨大的变化。美国妇女的社会地位也随之发生了很大的变化。这两种变化交互影响：社会的变化为妇女社会地位的改善创造了条件，反过来，妇女社会地位的改善有促进了社会的进步。总体上来说，虽然期间有一些波折，但是二十世纪美国妇女的社会地位主要呈现一种上升的趋势。本文主要是通过一些重要的数据对比和重大事件，从经济，高等教育和政治三方面研究妇女社会地位的提高，描述这种变化的表现，分析造成这种变化的原因，以及妇女社会地位改变对美国社会的影响，最后，呼吁人们为改善妇女的社会地位创造条件。 关键词： 妇女社会地位；工作机会；高等教育；平等；政治参与AbstractWomen play an important role in the society, but for all kinds of reasons, their social status is out of proportion with their importance. As an immigrated country, the American women were mainly composed of the whites, the blacks and the Chinese women. Since the United States of America is distinct as an independent nation, the American womens social status has always been an important problem for researchers. The American society witnessed a lot of changes in the 20th century. So did the American womens social status. These two changes also had an effect on each other: the social transitions provided some conditions for the improvement of the American womens social status, in reverse, their status improvement also promoted the social progress. In summary, although there were some setbacks during the 20th century, the American womens social status presented an increasing tendency. This paper mainly discussed the improvement of the American womens social status from the perspectives of economy, higher education and politics by comparing some important figures and significant events while describing the manifestations of the shifts. The paper studied the factors which had caused these shifts and these shifts influence to American society as well. At last, the author called on people to create some conditions to improve womens social status.Key words: womens social status; employment opportunity; higher education; equity; political participationContents1. Introduction.1 1.1 The American society in the 20th century.1 1.2 The factors that influenced the American womens social status.22. American Womens Economic Status.32.1 The American womens employment opportunity.32.2 The working womens role in family.53. American Womens Status in Higher Education.7 3.1 American women as students in higher education.7 3.2 American women as faculty members in higher education.84. American Womens Political Status.94.1 American womens effects in politics.94.2 American womens political participation105. Conclusion.12ReferencesAcknowledgements The American Womens Social Status in the 20th Century1. Introduction Women play a vital part both in family and social life, but their importance and value are always overlooked by the people and the society. So do the American women. For a long time, the American womens social status was dramatically out of proportion with their importance. They suffered from the social prejudice and bias which provided them with only limited rights. This kind of unequal situation had not been greatly improved until the 20th century.1.1 The American society in the 20th centuryThe 20th century had witnessed unprecedented changes in the American society and the American womens life.The development of industry which was known as the Industrial Revolution changed the American society significantly in the 20th century. As a result of the American Industrial Revolution, the labor market was greatly enlarged. Under the circumstances, only men couldnt meet the enlarging labor needs. This provided an employment opportunity for women to work outside the home. Especially in 1939, the Second World War broke out. Almost all male workers were asked to join in the army. Women were encouraged to work in factories due to the severe labor shortages. Even though they returned home after the war, women still made a great contribution to American society during the war time. Besides, with the development of science and technology, many great inventions were invented. These inventions such as tractors, mechanical cotton pickers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines affected not only the industry production but also the family life. Owing to these great inventions; women could free themselves from the heavy housework and had more extra time to work outside their families. At the same time, many regulations and laws about improving womens social status were proposed and put into effect. For example, the President John F. Kennedy organized an Advisory Commission on the Status of Women to make some public policies which were of benefit to women (Conway, 1995:6). In the 1960s, in particular, the feminism movement gathered strength. And the total number of women organizations was increased drastically as well. These organizations were aimed at fighting for womens legal rights and improving womens social status. They also provided a stage for women to start a new life.All these social transitions contributed to the improvement of the American womens social status.1.2The factors that influenced the American womens social statusThere were many factors that influenced the American womens social status in the 20th century. All these factors were not isolated; they were closely connected with each other. Based on the essence and category of the factors, we can classify these factors into two categories: the internal factors and the external factors.The internal factors were the arouse of womens self-consciousness and the desire for self-fulfillment. Women were not satisfy with their current conditions in the society, they began to place a great emphasis on achieving personal satisfaction and individual growth and struggled to fight for their own rights and benefits. Not only did they campaign women movement, they also established and developed lots of women organizations, for example, the National Organization for Women, General federation of Womens Club, the League of Women Voters (Rix, 1987: 29), to improve their social status. The movement and the organizations strengthened the American womens collective consciousness and encouraged them to work together to fight for their social status. They realized self-value and achieved accomplishments through the movement as well. The external factors were the transitions of the society. In the 20th century, the American society experienced the Great Depression, the World War , and the economic boom after the war. All these changes made it possible for women to step out of the domestic sphere and offered an opportunity to broaden their horizons. It is needless to say that the American industrialization also played a key role in liberating women from the traditional roles as full-time housewives. Furthermore, some great inventions such as tractors, mechanical cotton pickers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and the like so largely reduced the time which women devoted to housework that they had more spare time to do what they favored. They participated in some voluntary associations: temperance societies, charitable associations, settlement houses and so on (Rix, 1987:39). In these associations, they realized their own value. They were not content with their current situations in the society. They wanted to improve their social status, theyd like to work outside the family, have access to higher education and take part in the political activities and what not. In addition, the legal guarantee such as the enforcements of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Economic Equity Act, Higher Education Act, the Womens Educational Equal Act of 1974, Title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964(Conway, 1995:6), and all played an important part in improving the womens social status ,too.All these factors caused the American women strive to improve their social status in the 20th century.2. American Womens Economic Status2.1 The American womens employment opportunityThe American womens employment opportunity can be discussed from two aspects: the number of working women, the job they did and the pay they earned.For a long period, women were not allowed to work outside the home. Even if they could work outside the family, they just did some jobs which didnt need too many skills in limited fields. They were denied access to many kinds of jobs. Their working choices were often confined to nurses, teachers, social workers or most commonly, domestic services. Only a few worked as the clerks in offices. Whats more, womens work outside the home was temporary, always ending with their marriages (Rix, 1987:41-42). In brief, their work outside the families was not encouraged.In the 20th century, especially after the World War , because of the severe labor shortages and some cultural and legal obstructions to the employment of the married women were eliminated, women were encouraged to work outside the home. On one hand, the number of working women increased significantly; on the other hand, a good many womens work shifted from farm, domestic and service work to skilled industrial jobs which was previously closed to them and only opened to men (Rix, 1987:49). Even though they returned home after the war, their devotions to the American society and economy were of great importance. And of course, this also paved the way for women to work outside the family. Since then, in several states, for example, major labor unions and states legislatures adopted the equal-pay-for-equal-work standard (Rix, 1987:51) .It was estimated that by 1980s, more than half of adult women worked outside the domestic sphere, and by 1990s, the figure reached almost 60 percent. While in the middle of the 20th century, there were less than 20 percent working women (Conway, 1995:4). From these figures, we can see that there had been an increasing number of women working outside the home and the ratio of working women had steadily increased in the 20th century.The increased proportion of women in the labor market aroused the concern of inequities in pay and employment opportunity and their status in the workplace (Conway, 1995:61).They started to ask for equal-pay-for equal-work. In the early half of the 20th century, women were only admitted to some less skilled jobs, such as clerical jobs, sales jobs, nursing and teaching and all that sort of thing. The higher paying or professional and managerial positions were only admitted to men workers (Conway, 1995:61). In the latter half of the 20th century, with the implementation of the Title legislation and Title of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, discriminations against women pursing advanced professions such as law, medicine, management, bank and so forth were abolished step by step. Womens proportion in the managerial and professional occupations had increased. But it was an undeniable fact that although women had taken a footstep towards the formerly man-dominated professions, they were less likely to be advanced to a higher position. For one thing, from government civil service to university faculties, private companies and banks, women were underrepresented at the top, however, overrepresented at the bottom, when compared with men (Rix, 1987:123). What they did was more auxiliary than specialized. For another, because they were considered as the primary care providers for both children and elderly parents, it was impossible for women to be employed as full-time employers. Womens average working time was less than mens. And also, the proportions between men and women who worked in the formerly male-dominated professions were unbalanced. Women only accounted for a small proportion.The wage-gap can not be overlooked, either. In the past, womens average earnings were substantially fewer than that of men. This was in part because that womens work was less skilled than mens and their working time was also less than that of men. But when women worked in the male-dominated occupations, they still earned less than their men counterparts who did the same jobs. The situation was not improved until the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Conway, 1995:63). This was a small but very significant step toward requiring equity between men and women in employment. Since the passage of the two acts, there have been supports of legislative regulations for eliminating sex differences on wages. Ever since, the disparities between the earnings of men and women have been declining. But the laws implementations were not the sole reason that narrowed the pay gap. There were other reasons that caused the pay-gap between men and women narrowing. For example, they did more skilled jobs than before. More women were employed in the higher-paying professional, managerial, technical occupations. Furthermore, women worked more continuously than in the past (Conway, 1995:66). All these leaded to the narrowing of the pay-gap based on sexes.Although the wage-gap between male and female has been declining since the 1980s, the differences still existed. In order to get rid of the disparities on wages thoroughly, more efforts and actions should be taken. Improving the womens access not only to male-dominated but also to the higher-paying occupations and establishing comparable equal compensation in female-dominated professions were important ways to reduce the pay gap (Rix, 1987:126). Whats more, the equal employment opportunity especially in the higher-paying jobs between men and women was a more effective way to bridge the wage-gap and gain the real equality. 2.2 The working womens role in familyThe working women played an increasingly important role in both economy and family life in the 20th century.Generally speaking, people always thought that mens earnings were the main financial resources in the families while working womens income was secondary to mens and even non-essential. Womens work was not worthy of any monetary reward comparing to that of men. And women were not financially responsible for their family (Rix, 1987:103). Whats worse, womens jobs had always been undervalued and ignored since their work was paid fewer than mens work and they were not seen as important economic providers as men.However, in the 20th century, with the development of the society and the economy, a majority of women began to combine family life with work outside the home. Although women, on average, earned less than men, their contribution to the economic resources of the family was significant and could not be ignored any more. For example, in husband-wife families, a wifes earnings made a significant difference on the family living standards. Their family would be able to live a better life than the family with only a husband worked outside the home to support the whole family. The financial status of that times husband-wife families was also closely relevant to womens earnings. In a single-parent family, mothers income was more important because the mothers wage was the only economic resources. Without the mothers income, they even could not make a living. In summary, the working womens income played a critical part in family life. And also, the working women lessened their dependency on men, they were financially independent.In addition, women and men all worked outside the home to support the family, but women still had to bear the most responsibility of housework. The shift of women to paid employment didnt mean a reduce in the number of hours most women spent in the household. They not only had to work outside the home to support the family but also they had to do most or even all of the housework such as cleaning, cooking, shopping, child caring and so on after they returned home from workplace while men didnt (Conway,1995:80). Women devoted more total hours to the family economy than they did before the changes.The working women gained more rights in family in the 20th century as well. By 1960s, married women had the rights to deal with property. They acquired the right to own and control the property they brought to the marriage and that which they acquired during the marriage while in the past the family property was controlled by men. Women were also entitled the right to decide the residents and equal guardian rights over the children. Moreover, it was a tradition that a woman should adopt the surname of her husband after marriage. But since then, the married women could keep their own name without adopting their husbands surname (何家弘, 2001:248-249). All these were progresses which the American women made in the 20th century. To some extent, the American womens status in economy was upgraded in the 20th century. 3. American Womens Status in Higher EducationSince both the individual and society attached great importance to education opportunity, the higher educational right was also one of the most important areas in which women struggled for equal opportunity all around the time. The more education a woman received, the more likely she was to be employed or promoted.The American womens status in higher education can be analyzed from two aspects: women as students and women as faculty members (Conway, 1995:21).3.1 American women as students in higher educationIn American, for a long run, most women were excluded from the higher education. Only a small number of women had access to colleges and universities. In the early beginning of the 20th century, on average, there wer