The Influence Of Cookie Cutter Society

Society has been and always will be seen as a negative force in the eyes of millions. Cookie Cutter society influences individuals to lose self and conform to the ways of “normal” society. Many writers and leaders, like Waldo Ralph Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, saw this problem and used their resources to fight to bring these issues to light. Through their writings they argued that true individualism cannot be found without having the liberty to do so. A prime push factor for the conformation to society was Industrialism. While America was industrializing, it forced men and women to work on a very strict schedule in very mean conditions which took away all joy from work. When that joy was taken, it pushed the workers
It brought about the social issue of female inferiority. It outlined how disenfranchised and mistreated women were as a whole and fought to gain them their own rights. This fight for rights can be exhibited through the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, a very bold rewriting of the Declaration of Independence that included the phrase “ all men and women are created equal” (Stanton 28). This act was almost sacrilegious as it corrected a very well respected document that symbolized American freedom. The document represented more than just a plea for voting rights, it was a sign that women and other feminists could gather, organize, and push for social change. It proved that the movement for equality would not stop if it falls upon deaf ears; the passion and drive that was pushed out of this counterculture movement allowed for women to attempt to find themselves a new place in society. Like industrialism for Thoreau, unequal treatment in society prevented women from truly living the best lives that they could work towards. The document enforced that women were going to gain their rights to have the same opportunities as men and could only do so without the suppression of the liberties of
Frederick Douglas, a free Black man, had plenty to say on the treatment of Black Americans during Fourth of July in 1852 in his famous speech: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. Here he outlined the social impact of celebrating a hypocritical nation for its freedom while that same nation denies freedom to half of its inhabitants. Douglas declared slavery the “Great sin and shame of America” plainly because of America’s indifference toward the inhumane treatment of colored people (Douglas 39). This mistreatment has cursed the slaves and free blacks to lives of very little social mobility and little respect. Without this mobility, they could not seek out their full potentials and suck the marrow out of life as Thoreau had. They fought alongside women to gain the liberty that white men had in order to live in an America in which they could explore individualism without the societal barriers that they faced