Student. Mother. Employee. Employer. Women today juggle many different roles in and outside of the home. Until the ’70s, however, it wasn’t as common for women to work outside the home, and the more accepted gender role was to be the perfect wife and mother in the nuclear family model. But now, as society begins to transform, so do the roles of women and what is expected of them.
Now, it is common for young women to pursue a higher education and often become the breadwinners of households, a role once typical of men.
According to the U.S Bureau of Labor, in 2010 the percentage of young women enrolled in college was 74 percent versus 62.8 percent of young men.
That wasn’t always the case before the feminist movement of the late, ’60s says women’s history professor Sherri Patton, who teaches American history at City College and specializes in the progress women have made in education and the work field.
During that era, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, women lobbied for anti-discrimination laws, Patton says.
“Do you realize [that before that time] you could be fired for being pregnant? There were no laws in place,” Patton says. “Women weren’t even protected against rape, and often asked questions like, ‘Well, what were you wearing?’ or ‘Are you having premarital sex?’ which have nothing to do with rape, and yet they’d blame the women.”
Patton also notes the impact of equal rights for women not only for employment but also to be able to expand into different careers. Until the ’70s most women were limited to female gender-oriented careers, such as nurses and teachers. Now, women can be lawyers and work in government, but there is definitely room for improvement, she says.
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Even in everyday life there is evidence of a double standard.
“I feel like for most Latin American cultures, we still see the machismo mentality, and men expect us to [to be successful and beautiful and then] still do what is expected of us as women [like cooking and cleaning and raising children],” says Yisel Santacruz, child development major.
Society, television and fashion in modern culture give a clear definition of what is considered desirable and undesirable.
“In some ways a women’s idea of beauty today is even more narrow then the ’50s though,” Patton says. “It’s like a backlash from all the progress.”
Some City College students say they see double standards in their classes every day.
“Men can [easily] accentuate a woman’s body [sexually] when designing clothes, but with women it seems like there is stricter formatting on how they have to behave, especially in a work place,” says Alana Hirotani, fashion major.
Women are achieving equality slowly but surely, Patton says. “We haven’t suddenly arrived to where we need to be, but we definitely have made changes,” Patton says.
