Oral d'anglais sur la condition des femmes dans les années 50 et 60

« First i’m going to present you the women’s conditions during the 50’s and 60’s, than i’m going to illustrate with the example of advertising, and i will finally talk about Simone de Beauvoir, who was an important feature of feminism at that time. - Women in the 50’s-60’s Women used to be treated as if they were not even humans.

They were USED as cooks and mothers.

Society was built based on a hierarchy where women were at the very bottom.

It was like women did not deserved to have an identity or even a mind.

They had to have a father or a husband to tell them how they should act, talk and think.

They could not exist on their own.

Finally, they had to feel ashamed about themselves and were not allowed to use their bodies as they desired to. At that time, sexism was everywhere, especially in advertising - Descriptions d’affiches sexistes « Don’t worry darling, you didn’t burn the beer ! » This drawing is an advertisement for a beer brand.

We can clearly see that the woman’s role is to cook for her husband.

At that time, women were expected to be housewives, notably with doing the chores and cooking. The sentence pronounced by the husband is probably sarcastic, because the woman is crying.

Actually, I think the husband has a violent behaviour with his wife and she’s crying because she’s afraid of him. - « If your husband ever finds out » On the second advertisement, we can clearly see the banalization of violence towards women.

If you read the entire document, the husband hit his wife only because of coffe.

It reflects the treatment of women at that time, and also the consideration of society towards women. But some women became aware of the seriourness of the situation and decided to act.

One of them was particularly memorable.

Her name is Simone de Beauvoir. - Simone de Beauvoir She was a famous author of the 20th century.

Today we say that she was a philosopher but she did not consider herself as one.

For a lot of people, she is the pioneer of feminism in the 20th century. She is mostly famous for The Second Sex, published in 1949, which is her best-known book, because it put in place the great ideas of feminism. She also gave a new definition of the word « Motherhood ».

According to her, it referred to the way women were enslaved in society.. »