The Grain Sifter And The Ironers

2078 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender roles during the 19th century

“Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism,” wrote American journalist and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller in 1843, “there is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman... Nature provides exceptions to every rule.” (((Margaret Fuller, Jeffrey Steele, The Essential Margaret Fuller, Page 310, American Women Writers, 1992))). Her statement during the mid-nineteenth-century was symptomatic of the changing dynamics of the traditional household and workplace in Western Europe and North America as a result of rapid industrialisation, and improvements in education and medical standards. This essay will discuss how women who took part in this transformation and ventured into the workplace – usually in low-skilled …show more content…

In The Grain Sifter and The Ironers, it’s noticeable how one of the women is seen to be tired and stressed, while the other female is straining as she works – both reflecting the heavy workload for women. In The Gleaners, two of the women are stiffly over towards the ground with one arm behind their back and their heads hanging limply. A third lady is raised slightly above the pair in a forward bent over position. Millet uses block colouring and creates the feeling of the three figures being dense. He uses earthy colours such as brown, stocky thick bodily shapes and composes the figures so that they don’t break into the upper half of the painting to alter the viewer’s perception of gravity. This is results in making the figures seem weighed down, with heaviness perhaps being instigated by the extreme pressure of working women to maintain their home and work lives. The same earth which the female gleaners need to pillage the produce to feed themselves and their families, the Millet painting almost depicts them being sunk in the turf, rooted in an endless cycle of gleaning, as the mass clouds of industrialisation approaches threatening opportunities for gleaners. With increased demand from the urban cities for wheat and coin, the pressure on farmers to improve productivity was immense, sparking the increased prevalence of scythes throughout the nineteenth-century. In 1836, 44% of Doub’s farmland totalled 216,513 hectares was saved for cereals – with nearly half being for wheat – underlining the scale of the demand. [http://www.princeton.edu/rpds/papers/WP_12.pdf]. Therefore with the increased efficiency on plots, there were much less crops available to pick off land for gleaners’ role a hard one. The effect on women is almost doubled, Karen Sayer argued, as gleaning was often one of the number of different unpaid work they would do on the farm, in addition to caring for their

Show More
Related

  • The Gender Politics of Work Exposed in The Yellow Wallpaper

    2465 Words  | 5 Pages

    The literature of the nineteenth century cataloged the social, economical and political changes during its period. Through it many new concerns and ideologies were proposed and made their journeys through intellectual spheres that have endured and kept their relevance in our own period today. The literature, sometimes quite overtly, introduced the issues arising with the changes in society specifically due to the industrial revolution. In this mixture of new ideas was the question of women's labor and functions among this rapidly changing society. American authors as well as Victorian authors, like George Gissing and Mabel Wotton, explored these issues somewhat explicitly during this period. In America, Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed these issues in short stories with strong implications of the dangers of unfulfilled or unsatisfying labor available to women.

    Read More

  • Elizabeth Stanton and Eliza Farnham

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even before this event, the struggles of women in society were surfacing in the media. Eliza Farnham, a married woman in Illinois during the late 1830s, expressed the differing views between men and women on the proper relations between a husband and wife. While Farnham viewed a wife as being “a pleasant face to meet you when you go home from the field, or a soft voice to speak kind words when you are sick, or a gentle friend to converse with you in your leisure hours”, a recently married farmer contended that a wife was useful “to do [a man’s] cookin and such like, ‘kase it’s easier for them than it is for [men]” (Farnham, 243).

    Read More

  • ROSIE THE RIVETER AND HER CONTRIBUTION TO WWII

    1836 Words  | 4 Pages

    As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...

    Read More

  • A Woman’s Place: The Catastrophe of Sexism Taken to the Extreme

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fortin, Elaine. "Early Nineteenth Century Attitudes Toward Women and Their Roles as Represented by Literature Popular in Worcester, Massachusetts." Teach US History. http://www.teachushistory.org/detocqueville-visit-united-states/articles/early-19th-century-attitudes-toward-women-their-roles.

    Read More

  • Women in the Workplace

    2059 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the 1920s, women struggled to develop a work identity that would give them professional status and preserve their femininity (Walkowitz, 1051). They wanted to be eligible for an executive position, but at the same time they also wanted to be Women finally began working outside the home, but not yet at the level, status, and rank they deserved. They deserved

    Read More

  • Northern Middle-Class Women in America Dbq

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day. Women wanted to be given an equal chance, just as the men had been given.

    Read More

  • Women and the Workforce

    3921 Words  | 8 Pages

    received the right to work menial jobs for minimum pay with less job security. She has

    Read More

  • How Margaret Fuller and Fanny Fern Used Writing as a Weapon For Women's Rights

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the nineteenth century the inequality of women was more than profound throughout society. Margaret Fuller and Fanny Fern both women of the century were much farther advanced in education and opinion than most women of the time. Fuller and Fern both harbored opinions and used their writing as a weapon against the conditions that were considered the norm in society for women. Margaret and Fuller were both influential in breaking the silence of women and criticizing the harsh confinement and burden of marriage to a nineteenth century man. Taking into consideration Woman in he Nineteenth Century by Fuller, Aunt Hetty on Matrimony, and The Working-Girls of New York by Fern, the reader can clearly identify the different tones and choice of content, but their purposes are moving towards the same cause. Regardless of their differences in writing, both Fern and Fuller wrote passionately in order to make an impact for their conviction, which was all too similar.

    Read More

  • 19th Century Women

    1610 Words  | 4 Pages

    19th-Century Women Works Cited Missing Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail, as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so. One of the most common expectations for women is that they are responsible for doing the chore of cleaning, whether it is cleaning the house, doing the laundry.

    Read More

  • Women of the Nineteenth Century: Sarah Stickney Ellis

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    The industrialization of the nineteenth century was a tremendous social change in which Britain initially took the lead on. This meant for the middle class a new opening for change which has been continuing on for generations. Sex and gender roles have become one of the main focuses for many people in this Victorian period. Sarah Stickney Ellis was a writer who argued that it was the religious duty of women to improve society. Ellis felt domestic duties were not the only duties women should be focusing on and thus wrote a book entitled “The Women of England.” The primary document of Sarah Stickney Ellis’s “The Women of England” examines how a change in attitude is greatly needed for the way women were perceived during the nineteenth century. Today women have the freedom to have an education, and make their own career choice. She discusses a range of topics to help her female readers to cultivate their “highest attributes” as pillars of family life#. While looking at Sarah Stickney Ellis as a writer and by also looking at women of the nineteenth century, we will be able to understand the duties of women throughout this century. Throughout this paper I will discuss the duties which Ellis refers to and why she wanted a great change.

    Read More

  • Mary Freeman's The Revolt of Mother and the Domestic Feminist

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    The late nineteenth century was a critical time in reshaping the rights of women. Commonly this era is considered to be the beginning of what is know to western feminists as “first-wave feminism.” First-wave feminism predominately fought for legal rights such as suffrage, and property rights. A major hallmark of first-wave feminism is the concept of the “New Woman.” The phrase New Woman described educated, independent, career oriented women who stood in response to the idea of the “Cult of Domesticity,” that is the idea that women are meant to be domestic and submissive (Stevens 27). Though the concept of the New Woman was empowering to many, some women did not want to give up their roles as housewives. These women felt there was a great dignity in the lifestyle of the housewife, and that raising children was not a job to scoff at. Mary Freeman's short story “The Revolt of 'Mother',” tells the story of such a domestic woman, Sarah, who has no interest in leaving her position as mother, but still wishes to have her voice heard in the private sphere of her home. Freeman's “Revolt of Mother,” illustrates an alternative means of resistance for women who rejected the oppression of patriarchy without a withdrawal from the domestic lifestyle.

    Read More

  • What Is Revolutionary Changes, And Limitations Of The American Revolutionary War?

    1695 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the many years before, American women had vastly less rights than men. After the Revolution, most women returned back to their jobs and/or duties at home, and women were no longer as socially involved as during the war (“After the Revolution”). The concept that women should only be housewives, and their job was to take care of the house and their husband became strictly prevalent again. Women’s voices were not taken as a serious contribution, and education for women was lacking. Sarah Grimke’s 1838 writing, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, emphasizes, “Much that she does and says and thinks is done in reference to this situation; and to be married is too often held up to the views of girls as the sine qua non of human happiness and human existence,” (Grimke). Grimke writes on how women’s value is commonly determined by her marital status and home life, yet not one’s own being or ideas. She also depicts how the study of homemaking was more pushed than an actual education, and that women’s mental and physical labor is worth less than a man’s. All of these points were widely accepted in society in the 18th and 19th centuries. This did not however stop women from trying to advocate for their rights and freedoms. Women like Abigail Adams, Dolley Todd Madison and Judith Sargent Murray were open in their distaste for the current

    Read More

  • A Feminist Perspective of The Lady of Shalott

    2170 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gorham, Deborah. A. A. The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Martineau, Harriet.

    Read More

  • “How Do I Love Thee?” Understanding the Victorian Era Through Browning and Stickney Ellis

    1181 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ellis, Sarah Stickney. “The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits.” The Longman

    Read More

  • A Long Road to Equality: Women in the Workforce

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is implied that since the dawn of time, women have been inferior to thy fellow man. It was not until the Age of Enlightenment, which began around 1650 in Europe, that the first ideas of women being as competent as men, lacking only education and not intelligence, began to circulate (Online MBA). As the end of the 18th Century neared, women were regulars in salons and academic debates, though schooling for women would come late down the road (Online MBA). Prior to the birth of the Industrial Revolution, women did not work. Those who did work were from lower class families and many of those were minorities. It was the primary idea that a women’s role was of that at the home; cooking sewing, cleaning, and caring for the children. There were many duties required of them around the house and their focus was to be the supportive wife who dutifully waited for the husband to come home after a long day at work.

    Read More

More about The Grain Sifter And The Ironers

Open Document