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women's changing roles in society history
the role of the woman in history
women's changing roles in society history
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Throughout time women have struggled to acquire the same rights that any man has. There is proof throughout history that documents this struggle. On the week of June 10, 1937 The Saturday Evening Post published an article titled "A Truce With Men." It documents the closing of the gender rights gap around the 1920's and 1930's. The article states, "The woman of today has finally made peace with her men." From this statement one can define a few things. The first is that there is some sort of battle going on between the two sexes and this battle has been resolved. Furthermore, is infers that some sort of treaty or negotiation must have been made to keep the barrier equalized. The struggle that occurs between the sexes in society is portrayed in John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums. By taking a closer look at both Steinbeck's story and the article published during the time period, one can see how these two texts interact.
Before The Great Depression, the men of the house worked and the women cooked and cleaned. For a long time this was accepted in society as the way things were. Societal roles were directly related to gender and the barriers were set in stone. This probably was linked to the fact that before the turn of the century times were even more primitive and living was much harder than is was twenty years later. Therefore the stronger of the sexes took on the more physically challenging role and the women did her part. This doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two had a more difficult role, it's just saying that there were limits for each sex and they were not to be crossed.
Beyond the individual's perspective, society also looked at women as separate from men. It wasn't until The Women's Suffrage Act of 1920 that women were given the right to vote. With this on their side it was only a matter of time until the women of society were to break out. Nine years later on one very dark Tuesday, the stock market crashed and then came The Great Depression. When it hit the modern day workingman was now worth no more than any housewife. Because money wasn't worth enough to have a job, these professions that only could be held by men were no longer a factor in the limitations between the gender gap.
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
When you think of American history, do you think of war, slavery, or segregation? Something that these have in common is gender equality. Gender equality is something that has been an issue in America since the first day it was inhabited. This is a problem in America. A more particular time period would be, World War II. During this time, women were being used to do men’s jobs and duties but, they still had to have a feminine aspect to them. While most men were at war, the women picked up jobs playing baseball, and working in factories to build the necessary items for war and daily living. During World War II, it was necessary for women to work. The government statistics prove this:
The fight for women’s rights began long before the Civil War, but the most prominent issue began after the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments joined the Constitution. The rights to all “citizens” of the United States identified all true “citizens” as men and therefore incited a revolution in civil rights for women (“The Fight for Women’s Suffrage”). The National Women’s Suffrage Convention of 1868
The idea of “family” is almost entirely socially constructed. From grandparents, to friends, to wives and fiancés, the means by which we decide who is related to us and who is not is decided by the person and their milieu. In Mignon R. Moore’s “Independent Women: Equality in African-American Lesbian Relationships”, Eviatar Zerubavel’s Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity and Community, and Franz Kafka’s The Judgement, this idea is tested. Who do we consider close enough to us to share our most intimate details and how do we choose them? Each piece offers a different view, which is the “right” way for each of the people described, whether broad (as in Zerbavel’s reading) or specific (as in Moore’s reading), but there are also many similarities in the ways family is defined and actualized.
As women started working, patriarchal control of the family was upset (Faragher 400). Women were now bringing in income just like the men were and to them this was empowering. They now longer depended on a man to survive. Now that women were working many also wanted an education beyond high school. Women started going to college and with a better education were able to further increase the interest of the women 's rights movements (Knight 361). Despite these advances women still were not close to gaining equality to their male counterparts. However they did gain more control of the family’s well being.
This short time of women's freedom came to a halt when The Great Depression came in the 1930s. The government favoured male employees over female ones.
British Women's Independence at the end of 20th Century I believe that although women in general had made huge advances towards equality with men by the end of the twentieth century there were still many areas in which there was still very little equality. I also believe that in different groups in British society women have advanced in equality in different ways, and at different rates. In the workplace women have made advances towards equality, as the number of working women both married and un-married has been rising steadily since the 1980's. In some jobs such as teaching there are now a majority of working women, roughly 57% of teachers are women.
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality,” this was stated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a very crucial women’s suffragist. Over time, women’s history has evolved due to the fact that women were pushing for equal rights. Women were treated as less than men. They had little to no rights. The Women’s Rights Movement in the 1800’s lead up to the change in women’s rights today. This movement began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. For the next 72 years, women continually fought for equal rights. In 1920, they gained the right to vote which ended the movement and opened the opportunity for more change in women’s lives. Because of the Women’s Rights Movement, women today are able to vote, receive
Change and hardship go hand in hand, because when hard times emerge society is forced to change. During the Great Depression the idea of gender roles stirred up a great deal of controversy but it also opened the door for change. It gave society a push into a new direction. In order to survive, a number of people had to move away from their traditional way of living in order to take care of their household (Goutour, November 5, 2013). It was now more acceptable and easier for women to find work, while men on the other hand had feelings of emasculation and hostility due to not being able to fulfill their role as the breadwinner (Hollingsworth & Tyyska, 3). This paper will argue that the Great Depression had a major impact on gender roles by examining the shift of dominance within the workforce, the traditional aspects that still remained present within the home and the new meaning that was placed on marriage for both male and females during that time.
Women were only second-class citizens. They were supposed to stay home cook, clean, achieve motherhood and please their husbands. The constitution did not allow women to vote until the 19th amendment in 1971 due to gender discrimination. Deeper in the chapter it discusses the glass ceiling. Women by law have equal opportunities, but most business owners, which are men, will not even take them serious. Women also encounter sexual harassment and some men expect them to do certain things in order for them to succeed in that particular workplace. The society did not allow women to pursue a real education or get a real job. Women have always been the submissive person by default, and men have always been the stronger one, and the protector. Since the dawn of time, the world has seen a woman as a trophy for a man’s arm and a sexual desire for a man’s
In the 1890s, American women emerged as a major force for social reform. Millions joined civic organizations and extended their roles from domestic duties to concerns about their communities and environments. These years, between 1890 and 1920, were a time of many social changes that later became known as the Progressive Era. In this time era, millions of Americans organized associations to come up with solutions to the many problems that society was facing, and many of these problems were staring American women right in the face.
society. Women’s rights and feminism did not exist. In the 1800s divorces were frowned upon and everything was given to the males.
In the 1800's, the audience was unfamiliar with the independence of women; Chopin introduces this concept in the short story. Back I the 1800's everyone saw women as mothers and house workers, it was very uncommon to see a wife with a job. The wife was the one who was supposed to stay home and take care of the kids. Mrs. Sommers shows the independence women can have. Mrs. Sommers was planning on using her money on her kids instead of herself, but she finds a pair of silk stockings. Mrs. Sommers starts to reveal her independence when she asks, "do you have any number of eights-and-a-half among these?" (Chopin 2). She decides its okay to help herself once in a while. She starts to show it more when she, "bought two high-priced
Men were taught to be superior to women since the dawn of time, whereas females were looked down upon. Ruled by patriarchy, it was hard for most of these women to do more than just be a stay at home wife. In some of the stories we have read, the women were portrayed as submissive, obedient, with no voice. Women have struggled to break out of this mold and find a voice for themselves. However, some managed to break out of these expectations and standards. Women and men have had to fulfill different set standards before anyone had stepped foot outside the womb. For both genders those standards came with different expectations.
From the beginning of time, females have played a powerful role in the shaping of this world. They have stood by idly and watched as this country moved on without them, and yet they have demanded equal rights as the nation rolls along. Through the years the common belief has been that women could not perform as well as men in anything, but over the years that belief has been proven wrong time and time again. So as time marches on, women have clawed and fought their way up the ladder to gain much needed equal respect from the opposite sex. However, after many years of pain and suffering, the battle for equal rights has not yet been won. Since women have fought for a long time and proven their importance in society, they deserve the same rights as men.