The book Clear Springs is about Bobbie Ann Mason’s life growing up in the south after World War II and the changes within her family. Raised in Clear Springs, Kentucky, Mason and her family face many of the same changes economically and culturally experienced by family’s in the south during and after World War II. Changes in women’s roles, popular culture, and population effected every member of Mason’s family. Prior to World War II women were expected to be housewives by cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children. Women were discouraged to work outside of the home and often judged by the rest of society. Bobbie Ann Mason gives great examples of the duties expected by women of the time period and her grandmother is a perfect model of domesticity. At one point Mason talk about a conversation between her grandmother and mom. Mason’s mom, Christy, decides to go back to work, but her grandmother disapproves and says she should be home taking care of her girls (Mason, 116). Christy on the other hand is an example of the modern woman. A woman willing to go to work outside of the home to help support her family when needed. Christy gets a job at a clothing company. Mason says that many women were leaving the farm and taking work in factories (Mason, 83). During and after World War II many women began to work outside of the home changing the idea of what it meant to be a women and the duties that accompanied. Popular culture played a big part in Mason’s family and the southern region. Radio and television was introduced and brought about new forms of entertainment, access to world news and enlightenment. Southern people not usually accustomed to many forms of entertainment now had access to new options. Mason talks about many differe... ... middle of paper ... ... California and New York. She says that they even got great jobs at places like Disney world and Coca-Cola, but they were able to do this because they always remembered their true home (Mason, 41). Even with people leaving small farms and towns for the big cities the never forgot where they came from and could return at any time. Bobbie Ann Mason’s family faced the challenges of most southern families needing to adapt to changing times and cultures. Mason’s mom was able to adapt to the new idea of women’s role by leave the farm and working for a factory while maintaing her role as a caring mother and housewife. With new forms of entertainment and ideas by popular culture her family was able to stay in touch with changing times. And even though she left home for the big cities like a lot of people Bobbie Ann Mason never forgot her where she came from and her family.
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
Initially, Elisabeth is the matriarch of the four generations of women talked about in the story. Elisabeth works in the house, but she’s married to a field slave and has three daughters. Not much insight is given on Elisabeth and her feelings, yet through the narration it is as if she lived vicariously through her youngest daughter, Suzette: “It was as if her mother were the one who had just had her first communion not Suzette” (20) Even though Elisabeth too worked in the house, Suzette had more privileges than her mother and the other slaves. Elisabeth represented the strength and the pride of her people: “You have a mother and a father both, and they don’t live up to the [plantation] house” (25). She would constantly remind Suzette of her real family, which signifies the remembrance of a history of people and their roots. It is up to Suzette to keep the heritage even through the latter miscegenation of the generations to come.
In the times of darkness where women used to be worthy enough just to take care of the housework, kids, and husband; accordingly, women were categorized as housewives while men were the ones who work for the livelihood. It is important to highlight the women role in World War II because besides the war, deaths, ambition and misfortune; women during the World War II where for first time in the history; women were valued and they free themselves from the stereotype role they had. The time of labor inequality in the World War II between women and men was staring to break down; however, women were still stigmatized to just be able to work in jobs such as nurse and the textile industry. The timing of the initial advance
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
The two works of literature nudging at the idea of women and their roles as domestic laborers were the works of Zora Neale Hurston in her short story “Sweat”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Whatever the setting may be, whether it is the 1920’s with a woman putting her blood, sweat and tears into her job to provide for herself and her husband, or the 1890’s where a new mother is forced to stay at home and not express herself to her full potential, women have been forced into these boxes of what is and is not acceptable to do as a woman working or living at home. “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” draw attention to suppressing a woman’s freedom to work along with suppressing a woman’s freedom to act upon her
Unfortunately during the thirties women did not have these choices. According to Mary Kinnear in her book Daughter of Time, “In the United States the proportion of women workers engaged in professional work increased only from 11.9 percent to 14.2 percent between 1920 and 1940.” During this time, the role of housewives meant that they were responsible for most of the household duties and taking care of the children. Ann Oakley said in her book Woman’s Work, “In the social image of a woman, the roles of wife and mother are not distinct from the role of housewife.”
Contention (Introduction): At the beginning of the 1950's women faced the expectation that they must become a housewife. Towards the end of the 1960’s, women started to believe that
World War II affected the workforce of men and women in different ways, men were drafted to war while women took their place in factories and workyards. Patriotism influenced women into working while the men were at war. Once at work, women were convinced to go to work by the economic incentives, the women learned about the nonmaterial benefits that come with working such as learning new skills, contributing to the public good, and proving that women can do the jobs meant for men just as good as the men could do the work (1940s.org). Women in the 1940s were hesitant to join the workforce, that was until Norman Rockwell’s fictional character “Rosie the Riveter” inspired multiple women to join the workforce to help dedicate their services to the war. The creation of “Rosie the Riveter”lead to, many other images of “Rosie” to help bring forth volunteers for the
Betty Friedan describes that after World War II, becoming the esteemed housewife was ultimate goal of most women. In the article Friedan states, “By the end of the nineteen fifties, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and was still dropping into the teens.” (Friedan, p. 359). Describing even further how important getting married was at the time she says, “A century earlier, women had fought for higher education, now girls went to college to get a husband.” (p. 359).The housewife status was seen as a true feminine fulfillment and considered a man’s equal. “As a housewife and a mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to man in this world; she had everything that women ever dreamed of.” (p. 359).
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
...ues women’s work becomes wrong. Yes, in today’s society one could argue further that a woman who stays at home and does not work is only reinforcing the stereotype and prolonging the inequality. However, this essay was not written to change the world. It simply strove to identify and prove the reasons behind a ruined sense of self worth that many women in the early 1900’s felt as a result of their work being demeaned. By reaching out to people’s emotional sides, McBride relayed her grandmother’s tale so that people could clearly feel the hurt and demotion that women of that time lived with in order to have them persuaded that the oppression of women in any manner and capacity is wrong.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
It is fundamental to define “old” and “new” roles of women to make a comparison between them. The “old” role of women in the workplace involved menial jobs, and before World War II, women were expected to remain at home and raise kids. Roughly thirty states enacted laws to prohibit married women from working
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi is a narrated autobiography depicting what it was like to grow up in the South as a poor African American female. Her autobiography takes us through her life journey beginning with her at the age of four all the way through to her adult years and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The book is divided into four periods: Childhood, High School, College and The Movement. Each of these periods represents the process by which she “came of age” with each stage and its experiences having an effect on her enlightenment. She illustrates how important the Civil Rights Movement was by detailing the economic, social, and racial injustices against African Americans she experienced.
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurrin...