Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 9 Questions/Comments"

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(Militant Housewives During the Great Depression, Annelise Orleck)
(The Despair of Unemployed Women, Meridel LeSueur)
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Meridel LeSueur pointed out some very interesting things about women and their reactions to the depression.  I think she was expressing that you don’t know what fear and hunger are until your faced with it, as well as the humiliation of asking for help.  I thought what LeSueur said about the women who took their last little bit of money and bought a hat.  She described it as being foolish and lustful,but in some ways I think, these were attempts of women reaching out for what life once was for them.  That if they could only have that hat, it might make themselves feel better, somehow regain what they had lost and feel whole again, and erase the humiliation they faced daily.  The hat became inward expression of a broken and humuliated women. -Mhimes
 
Meridel LeSueur pointed out some very interesting things about women and their reactions to the depression.  I think she was expressing that you don’t know what fear and hunger are until your faced with it, as well as the humiliation of asking for help.  I thought what LeSueur said about the women who took their last little bit of money and bought a hat.  She described it as being foolish and lustful,but in some ways I think, these were attempts of women reaching out for what life once was for them.  That if they could only have that hat, it might make themselves feel better, somehow regain what they had lost and feel whole again, and erase the humiliation they faced daily.  The hat became inward expression of a broken and humuliated women. -Mhimes
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This piece was nothing short of heartbreaking for me to read. It must have been so hard for women the Great Depression era to deal with starvation and lack of work. After coming so far in society (beginning to work more, obtaining suffrage), women far so far. To me, it seems as if there was an intense struggle between dependence and independence going on. On one hand, women wanted to be independent and able to provide for themselves and their family, but were unable to do so as a result of no work, poor wages, etc. This is especially evident when LeSueur says "if she's proud then she starves silently" (146). On the other hand, women were almost regressing to a state of dependence upon males and their roles as providers. LaSueur describes such a desolate time for women. A time of intense loneliness and hopelessness. It was an eye=opening read for me, predominantly because I have been given or blessed with so much. It is hard to recognize the hardships that so many women have had to overcome to arrive at today's societal norms.--MDvorak
  
 
==American Women Ask Eleanor Roosevelt for Help==
 
==American Women Ask Eleanor Roosevelt for Help==

Revision as of 14:24, 17 March 2010