Notions anglais the Idea of Progress

Sujet du devoir

I’m going to talk about the notion of the Idea of Progress. To begin with, I’d like to give a definition of this notion. The idea of progress is the belief that the world and human society can and do improve, and that art, science, technology and society are all a part of that. Progress implies change and can also include preservation and learning to distinguish change that is truly an improvement from change for its own sake. Although technological and scientific breakthroughs now take place constantly, there are also rising concerns about the ethical, social and environmental consequences of those changes.

I would like to illustrate this notion through the theme of social progress especially for the family.

We may wonder if human rights are making progress?

My presentation will fall into 3 parts: first, I will concentrate on housewives and their role, then I will analyse mixed marriages with the film “guess who’s coming to dinner” before finally focusing on same-sex families with the article of the Guardian on June 26, 2015.

Foremost, the document: “Women and social changes, from housewives” is about family life in the 1950’s. in this period, the family life was composed of a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home wife. So, there are many references to women in this article which refers to the fact that women were socially or financially limited. All this shows the difference between men and women. However, the family profiles and the role of women have evolved since 1950’s, because women have more rights, divorce is commonplace, and they have more opportunities. Thanks to the women who fought for their rights without ever giving up.

Then, the 2^nd is an American comedy drama released in December 1967 directed by Stanley Kramer: “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner”. The film was controversial for its time because it is a love story about an inter-racial couple. The daughter, Joanna Drayton brings her new fiancé (a black man, widowed and physician called John Prentice) to her upper-class. Both families don’t agree with their children’s choices and decisions even though Joanna’s parents have instilled in her the idea of racial equality. Here, the film goes against its message of racial equality, as all of the real power is held by the white man. The power of the white man is so ingrained in history and society that it bleeds into social movements that have nothing do with white men at all. The plot of “Who’s Coming to Dinner” is indisputably about race, but within this examination of racial division, the topic of gender inequality becomes apparent. Reflective of society, there is never just one social issue to be addressed.

Finally, the third document is an article of the Guardian on 2015 about the same-sex families, it’s called: “Gay marriage declared legal across the US in historic Supreme Court ruling”. The same-sex marriages are now legal in all the USA and that represents a very big step forward for future generations. Also, there are different sorts of family’s structures and not only one like the nuclear family. For example, nowadays, single-sex families can have children and there are many single-parent families. I think it’s good to have different sort of families and not only one because it shows that there is not a typical family structure. Concerning women, they are almost the same rights that men. Indeed, even they are not considered as perfect housewives like in the 1950s, we know that a woman gains 19% less than a man for the same job. It shows that even if the situation had evolved, there is still progress to do.

As a conclusion, social progress was often started by a desire for equality and improvement of the living conditions expressed by some parts of the population. In some cases, they had to go through severe opposition and to fight for their rights. The Idea of Progress is an important one in our society that’s why we must raise questions to go forward to create new advances. Thanks to these 3 documents, we have been able to see that over the years, human rights are constantly progressing in the right direction.

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