The Egalitarian Society

Paper Summary:

This paper examines whether an egalitarian society exists, and to what extent men and women in society are equal. The author looks at past events in history such as the industrial revolution and technological advancements that have impacted the way women work and are included in society. The author argues that until family values and equality is recognized, a true egalitarian society will never be achieved. Before this is done, women need to be recognized as more than domestic workers, responsibilities in the household need to be equally shared and authority needs to be equally upheld.

From the Paper:

"If feminism has taught us anything, it is that until we understand " and change " the dynamics of the family then we will never be able to create a more egalitarian society. And yet, as this paper discusses, few tasks are more daunting. There is nothing more natural than the idea of family. Everyone knows this. Family is, after all, about genetic links and procreation, about the ancient basis of life, about the ways in which we humans as animals reproduce our physical bodies in exactly the same way (well, except for the surface details) as do dolphins and penguins and paramecia. And yet, of course, this is not true. There is nothing at all natural about the concept of family, something that can be easily determined to be true by looking at the very wide range of different types of families that exist in different cultures throughout the world. There are polygynous families and polyandrous ones, matrilocal and neolocal marriages, people bound by marriage and by genes and by the laws of adoptions and by the requirements of culture and religion. We call all of these households families. This diversity signals to the careful observer that there can be nothing natural, nothing universal to all human cultures, about the nature of the family."

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