Journal Article — My Work Utopia: Pursuing A Satisfactory Work Life Amid an Alienating World — by Irene Hartford

I began this paper describing how my emotional culture is about family and I made use of the word “choice.” This word is extremely indicative of my social location. I have been very fortunate to live in a country that, despite its numerous social problems, does in varying degrees allow its female population choices. American women are allowed more opportunities in how they structure their lives than most women in this patriarchal world we inhabit. Although we still work in sex segregated occupations, are paid less than men even when we are doing the same types of job, and do the lion’s share of the domestic work, I believe that equality between the sexes will eventually be achieved. The notion, if not yet the practice, of equal opportunity for both sexes has been part of American ideology since the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. The social world of the 1950s and 1960s, the time period that I grew up in, is vastly different from what is today.