I understand a liberated woman to be free from societal expectations and judgment. A woman who does not have to stay within gender roles that take away her freedom of speech and choice. To me, liberation means freedom. The freedom to express yourself and opinions, to make decisions for yourself, and to live your life the way you want to. Not under any guidelines dependent on a man or society. Women have been kept under the power of someone else that declared ownership of her like a father or husband. A liberated woman isn’t under anyone’s power and has full control over her own life.

Liberated woman encourage others to follow and support them. They are important for women’s liberation because they are leading the movement by example. Society has restricted women for years, keeping them in a position dependent on men. The idea of breaking away from gender norms could be scary. The patriarchy made the idea of independence seem unachievable and scary for a lot of women which is why they would be hesitant toward liberation. Liberated women lead by example, showing fearful or hesitant women that they are capable of supporting themselves and their families and continue to thrive independently.

It takes personal action to create political change. If women didn’t make the personal decision to strive for liberation, the liberated woman would not exist. I like to think of it like it only taking a drop of water to cause a dam to overflow. It only takes one person’s action to begin a movement.

These pieces show that “the personal is political” because women’s shared personal struggles are rooted in political issues. Gender inequality and the patriarchy are political issues that effect women’s personal lives. The societal opression of women plays an important role in the power imbalance between men and women. Liberation being something women have to fight for shows how politics are related to their personal experiences. If that weren’t the case, gender roles, gender inequality, and opression would not be prevalent issues in our society. Women wouldn’t need liberation if they were never opressed by a male dominated political system. “The personal is political” express how women’s personal issues are often the result of political issues and how both are so intertwined with one another.

The reading from this week was very interesting for me. I was confused at first when I read the first reading which was “The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi. The article mostly talked about societal gender standards/roles that men and women are forced to do. In the article, women are expected to always do the housework and avoid asking for help from a man. Whereas men are not expected to be helping around the house except for when it comes to carpentry. I think the article really explains how men react to doing household chores and their excuses. A lot of men find the work to be tedious when done constantly and oftentimes they are not willing to help their wives. 

The article also explores the topic of how men can’t survive without women since women do most of the work within the house. A lot of males are raised to think that females are supposed to do housework. This is all based on patriarchy. 

The second article that I read was a little interesting. It gave me a huge amount of information about female sexual anatomy. I find that it was interesting to know that a lot of women back then were forced to see a mental health professional because they had problems in bed. I thought this was ridiculous that they had to go through all this. If they had any sort of problem they were thought I was mentally mad or something. I learned that a lot of women don’t really know how to achieve orgasm during sexual intercourse. This is because a lot of men don’t know how the female anatomy works and thus they recreate a lot of myths about how the female body works. Sex is all based on satisfying the male partner. Women aren’t satisfied by their male counterparts A lot of men don’t know how the female anatomy works and thus they create a lot of myths about how the female body works. 

I feel as though a liberated woman is a feminist who advocates for greater gender equality. A wave of liberated women opposed sexism in culture and politics in the 1960s, attempting to modify perceptions of what women should be inside and outside the house. A woman who is truly sexually liberated rejects cultural expectations and conventions of “proper” womanly behavior in favor of sexual openness. A free woman chooses when, where, and with whom she wants to have sex, and she isn’t required to be married or even in a relationship in order to do so.

During the 1960s, the majority of women in the United States had fairly circumscribed lives, with “women accounting for only six percent of American doctors, three percent of lawyers, and less than one percent of engineers”. Women’s advancement in society was severely hampered as a result of the clear imbalance. In her essay “The Politics of Housework,” Pat Mainardi addresses the gender stereotypes that pervade her society. “Man’s triumphs have always depended on seeking help from other people, especially women,” Mainardi says, criticizing her menial status to explain why the patriarchal system persists. (Mainardi) The men’s reliance on women to look after the house and children illustrates the troubled relationship that existed at the period. Mainardi explores the various gender roles in society to show how, despite being the dominant gender, men rely on women for many areas of their lives. Because the powerful gender should not rely on the “weaker” gender for tasks, the irony displayed thus reveals the dysfunctional patriarchal system. The sarcastic and antiquated concepts that underpin patriarchy in the United States effectively led many women, like as Pat Mainardi, to believe that repressive gender norms might be eradicated from society through politics. In contrast to the communal mindset that typified the women’s liberation movement, liberated women sought and exercised freedoms that centered more on their individual desires. Women’s attitudes on clothes, sex, and family life evolved. Some ladies defied conventional beauty standards, opting for jeans and a more natural look free of make-up and hair curlers. In 1968, a group of women protested during the Miss America Pageant, screaming against the contest’s promotion of the ideal of the “perfect woman.” They encouraged other women to throw their “bras, girdles, curlers, artificial eyelashes, wigs… any such woman-garbage” into a Freedom Trash Can (Takin’ It To The Streets, 482). Miniskirts were fashionable as well, owing to the idea of sexual emancipation.

Anne Koedt’s “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” was published in Notes from the First Year, a twenty-nine-page typed journal published by New York Radical Women in 1968. The notion of sexual freedom, the political relevance of sexual pleasure, and the psychological underpinnings of male dominance and female submission were all addressed by Koedt. When Koedt challenged it as a myth, or more specifically, as a deceptive misinformation campaign that caused a slew of psychiatric issues for women, she appeared to be questioning the basic core of heterosexuality as it was understood in psychoanalytic, medical, and public discourse. Despite the fact that Koedt’s paper became one of the most extensively read and well-known on the political relevance of sexuality, it was not the only one to discuss the topic of orgasm. In reality, a lot of feminists authored anthologies about the meaning of sexual pleasure for women in patriarchal societies. While recent events imply that we should reconsider the meaning and purpose of “the personal is political,” I believe we should stick with this thorny but worthwhile feminist slogan. The slogan’s meaning has been muddled over time, allowing for opportunistic exploitation.

What I consider a liberated woman to be, is a woman who breaks away from the stereotypical boundaries placed by society and fights against society. A liberated woman fights for women’s equality and breaks the repetitive cycle placed on us throughout history. This term is important because in the past, if women even dared to stand up to their husband or any man, they were crazy and could be killed. This is important in Freud’s analysis on what makes a woman “frigid”, which is any time a woman reacted in a way men didn’t like (Koedt). “It was Freud’s feelings about women’s secondary and inferior relationship to men that formed the basis for his theories on female sexuality” (Koedt). In all honesty, how would a man come up with conclusions about a woman. No one knows better about themselves than themselves. This is why liberated women are important. A liberated woman is important in the women’s liberation movement, because that movement is completely made up of liberated women. These women are the ones who are fighting against their stereotypes and the misogyny placed on us by men. They fight for those women who aren’t capable of fighting themselves. They take the backlash from society as soon as they step a foot out the door in contrast to what society expects of them. These pieces show “the personal is political” because most times the Women’s Liberation Movement isn’t seen as political. In Pat Mainardi’s “The Politics of Housework”, they wrote, “I am only interested in how I am oppressed, not how I oppress others.” This quote was merely focusing on why most men and people don’t see women’s liberation as a political movement. They don’t want situations in which they are seen as the bad guy, they only want to blame others as being the bad guy and therefore, this movement doesn’t count towards it. Every day is a battle, whether you are a woman, a person of color, and in the LGBT community. Throughout the years, women had to hide away in order to respect a man’s ego, not all men, but the majority. I think it’s important for everyone to be educated on what’s happening in the system, that way we can learn how to at least improve it even though certain changes aren’t expected. I learned a lot while reading these texts and I hope to learn more, they were very interesting.

Hello classmate and Professor This week I’ve Read 2 pieces of text informing me on new topics I’m unaware of or know little to nothing about. I’ll be quite honest; I don’t like how the first text is written to much. It’s a little bit confusing. The author could’ve done a better job explaining the difference between liberated women & women’s liberation.  “The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi Talks about the difference between Liberated Woman and Women’s Liberation and housework being a main example. A Liberated women shows that she is free from traditional ideas, especially when it regards to sexual roles it seems like. The author states “Liberated women-very different from Women’s Liberation! The first signals all kinds of goodies, to warm the hearts of the most radical men.” and author also states “who wants that old commodity anymore, the Standard American Housewife, all husband, home and kids? The New Commodity the Liberated Woman, has sex a lot and has a Career.” The liberated woman does not seem like the average house wife and she is not following traditional social norms. She   goes on to talk about how over time History has made it seem like Women have to follow these norms the author  goes on to explain why they shouldn’t. Housework is brought up into the picture because this is a good example of men I guess feeling like women are supposed to do housework and be housewives… When in general men can put just as much effort into doing these tasks it’s not something only women do. ? The freedom of women from sexism,  The fight for equal rights for women is Women’s Liberation, a liberated woman is a Free Women. 

“The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” by Anne Koedtwas the second article I read that I liked the most out of the two readings. The discussion of vaginal and clitoral orgasms is what the article is basically about. There are many myths presented in articles that I find interesting. The author states “ The vagina is not a highly sensitive area and is not constructed to achieve orgasm. It is the clitoris which is the center of sexual sensitivity and which is the female equivalent of the penis”. I find this information being true, and good for high school freshmen to know. They don’t tell you this in Sex ed. Sadly there are many people failing to please their partners. They don’t show this area enough love.  Something else the author also states that I like and agree with is the point that ” We must discard the “normal” concepts of sex and create new guidelines which take into account mutual sexual enjoyment. New techniques must be used or devised which transform this particular aspect of our current sexual exploitation. To make things more fun and experimental we should find different ways to reach Climax by using different techniques. For The article being written in the 1970 this generation has definitely found out new ways to do that using different devices and contraptions and having such easy accessibility to these resources. Another myth debunked or spoken about that I like and knew before was that “The Clitoris is a small equivalent of the penis, except for the fact that the urethra does not go through it as in the man’s penis. This has a connection to the concept that Everyone starts the same in utero. Slowly from then we develop into either boys or girls. From the author’s explanation the clitoris is internal, and the penis is external but still similar. In conclusion the author debunks many myths in this article I just spoke about some of the ones that catch my eye the most. 

As a female, we are placed with obstacles that we are expected to tolerate, regardless of the difficulties that may arise. On top of having to endure, we are also left with the fact that men criticize and judge our every move, in what Mainardi sees as complaints from males. No one is exempt from this and I personally am all too familiar with this scenario, as I see it even with the older generations within my family. I understand the liberated woman to be a person who is able to see amidst what is said, read between the lines and handle herself as these situations come about. This week’s reading reaffirmed my belief that to be a woman is to be complex, be it in terms of our biological anatomy, our minds and our emotions. I personally see the importance not only in men understanding our bodies, but in us understanding ourselves deeply first, that way we can easily see when men do not truly see us for who we are. I think self-awareness stems from not having been understand in intimate relationships, which can be duly noted when men do not know how to help women reach orgasm. This is what a liberated woman is, someone who knows herself well enough to not allow a man who does not appreciate her enough to attempt to get to know her, around her and into her life. Self-awareness, autonomy and assertiveness arte key elements for a liberated women and this week’s reading helped me understand as to why, on a deeper level.

            A liberated woman is vital for women’s liberation because a liberated woman knows herself well enough to know how critical women’s liberation is, to our wellbeing collectively. A liberated woman knows herself and is not afraid to fight for what is right. Feminism requires a liberated woman because the patriarchy is an institution that has been instilled in many and we need fierce women to help tear it down and ensue liberty, equality and justice for all!

            The readings from this week show that the “personal is political” through showcasing that all problems must be acknowledged in order to create real change in the world. When we choose to disregard or ignore our true feelings, we are holding back ourselves in a collective way. It is important to be vocal because that is how the feminist movement even came to be- through the courage of those who saw the unfairness and inequality, and decided that they would not settle for that. 

This week’s readings gave us a very visual and raw understanding of what females endure, and how they can learn and become more aware of the power they hold as a woman. In our first reading, Mainardi breaks down the complaints from men (that I’m sure every woman has heard at least one of those examples before-) and gives us strong translations to showcase the truth behind these dismissive remarks. A liberated woman is someone who can see through that, understand the translation, and know what to do when these situations arise. This also ties into our second reading when Koedt shares how intricate the female anatomy is, and how it is necessary to understand it. Men can be selfish when it comes to sexual intercourse and not go out of their way to help their partner reach orgasm, just as they did. This is yet another example of a liberated woman. One who is self-aware and wants a partner who is willing to put their own needs aside and work together. Outside of these readings I came to the conclusion that a liberated woman is also someone who does not require a man to do her bidding for her- or for anyone to take care of her, she is able to do it on her own.

The importance of a liberated woman stems from our past discussions about feminism and its significance in fighting patriarchy. Without the millions of self-aware woman who can fend for themselves and takes pride in their strengths, feminism would not continue to prevail, as it has for centuries. The more we educate ourselves on these oppressions, the more progress is made in changing the way we think about such topics. Had it not been for people like Pat Mainardi and Anne Koedt, we would not be inclined to share our knowledge and change the preconceived notions about how women should act, what they do, and what they should look like.

These readings showcase “the person is political” because these issues are all political issues that require an intervention to create change. Some women stayed comfortable in their decision to be a stay at home cooking and cleaning mother, while many were extremely unhappy and concealed these feelings as a private issue. Once these personal issues were talked about and women started realizing these “private issues” were very common, it was able to generate change on a broader scale.

The liberated woman has realized her freedom to set her own standards for the way she lives her life personally, sexually, and professionally disregarding societal systems and standards that have been in place for much of history. She does not look for validation from society in these areas of her life and is confident in these decisions. She is a feminist and pushes for more equality for women and is trying to be an example of change in regards to what is expected of a women in and out of the home. This woman wants to acknowledge and be acknowledged for not following traditional social conventions as it has become clear to her that there is far too much inequality, injustice, and oppression placed upon women compared to lives lived by men as it seems that for no apparent reason, it was decided that this gender is superior. This woman can be instrumental for women’s liberation because traditional roles such as the Standard American Housewife and what that entails for women is challenged because the liberated woman represents a new standard/option attainable to all women if they should decide to step into this freedom that every human wants and has a right to desire and act upon. In The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi she states, “I can only explain it by stating that we women have been brainwashed more than even we can imagine, probably too many years of seeing television women in ecstasy over their shiny waxed floors or breaking down over their dirty shirt collars” (Mainardi, pg 2). Here, she is stating the conditioning women have received throughout history to make us feel like this is just how it is for us yet men do not get this message ingrained in them by society from birth and because they reap the benefits from this oppression haven’t done much to equalize the playing field. Therefore, the liberated woman poses as an essential and new example of another way life can be experienced as a woman. “The personal is political” is portrayed in both readings this week as each highlight on two specific yet distinct aspects of a woman’s life that have been subliminally socially oppressed- the female orgasm and distribution of housework in cisgendered heterosexual relationships that have resulted in the disparity between the significance of men and women’s values and “designated” roles hence, the commencement for the revolting of women through the feminist movement, suffrage and women’s liberation.