Argumentative Essay – Lisa Ellefson The Advancement and Impact of Technology on Women at Home and at the Workplace “Improving women’s access to technology has the potential to spur their economic advancement and stimulate broader economic growth. Regrettably, technology has been underused in unlocking women’s economic opportunities. The gender divide is evident in both traditional and modern technologies.” (Gill, Brooks, McDougall, Patel, & Kes, 2010, p. 2). More specifically, technological developments including adding machines, typewriters, addressograph machines, office communication systems, and automated telephones, changed the stigma of women working solely at home to finding paid labor outside of their homes. On the domestic front, a rise of technological developments in household appliances and better-quality energy in the 1920s, allowed housework to become less time consuming and gave women more time to find paid labor outside of their homes (Lorance, n.d., para. 1). This essay …show more content…
1). A lot of these developments pushed businesses to hire more women to handle clerical and administrative tasks. However, inventions like the typewriter, gave a negative stigma towards women in the working world, “…women became stereotyped as able to carry out only menial clerical work, and had to fight to improve their position.” (20th Century London, n.d., para. 3). Since the beginning of time women’s roles have changed drastically, from mainly taking care of household duties in the medieval era up until the early 20th century to acquiring more skills later on in the 20th century, by working positions in the business, medical, and even accounting industry, on top of completing the majority of household
In order to understand how the world wars had such a significant change in how women were viewed in the workplace, we must first understand their experience in the workplace before the wars even started. Contrary to popular belief, women did in fact play a role in the workforce before World War I. In the early 1900s, the number of women in the workforce greatly increased. During this time, it is estimated that approximately one in five workers were women. This statistic is mainly due to industrialization, a period of significant economic expansion that took place from the 1870s to 1900 due to the process of mechanization. Mechanization is the use of machines to complete tasks formerly done by hand. As a result of both mec...
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...
Weiner, Lynn Y. From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United States, 1820-1980. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1985.
A huge part of the economical grow of the United States was the wealth being produced by the factories in New England. Women up until the factories started booming were seen as the child-bearer and were not allowed to have any kind of career. They were valued for factories because of their ability to do intricate work requiring dexterity and nimble fingers. "The Industrial Revolution has on the whole proved beneficial to women. It has resulted in greater leisure for women in the home and has relieved them from the drudgery and monotony that characterized much of the hand labour previously performed in connection with industrial work under the domestic system. For the woman workers outside the home it has resulted in better conditions, a greater variety of openings and an improved status" (Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, pg.4) The women could now make their own money and they didn’t have to live completely off their husbands. This allowed women to start thinking more freely and become a little bit more independent.
The 1940’s were a turning point for women in the workforce. Women were perceived to be the weaker sex by society and faced social prejudices in efforts to become part of the workforce. The common belief was that women were intellectually inferior to men, incapable of making decisions regarding their household, and should not work outside of the home. Their job was to maintain the home, raise the children, and be supportive wives of the working husband.
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
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
In the nineteen twenties, the crusade for women’s rights gained a much greater force than it had in the past. What helped to make this possible was the economic upturn. The wages of workers increased, and women also began to weigh more heavily in the workforce. Beginning in World War One, American women began to take the jobs of their spouses to support their families. They continued to work even after the war was over. The amount of women making up the overall labor forced increased about two percent in the time between 1920 and 1930, totaling to about twenty two percent in 1930 (“Women in the Labor Force”). Although they did not take the same jobs that men did, women were still an important ...
Tilly, Louise A. "Women, Women's History, And The Industrial Revolution." Social Research 61.1 (1994): 115. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 May 2014.
Ever since the end of World War Two women have become more and more involved in the business world. Especially today with the computerized technological advances many women who are secretaries have becoming well versed in the computer era creating a new path for women to follow. Though the role of a mother can never change to her children most woman spend the bulk of their day working in the business world only to have enough time to be with their children and keep the family peace around the house. In what has a become a dramatic change for women in the Western world women can now be seen as equal to men in most areas if not all. It all started with the age of the Enlightenment, the age of reason, when people began thinking rationally, and it has a become a 300 year process. Rational thought and technological advancements as well as many other issues have changed the role of women in our society today and all across the world.
For centuries, women has always been dominated and controlled by men. Society has viewed women as the weaker gender and relied on men in order to survive. As time went on, things have changed, society has became more advance and so are women. During the World War II, women have increased their role in the society by replacing the men’s in the labor market and also increased their status in the society. Today, the growth of women in the work force continually to raise and so are their status. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the National Bureau of Economic Research, statistics have shown 58.1% of women were in the labor market in 2011 (USBLS) compared to employment rate during the war was 35% of women in the labor market in 1945 (Bussing-Burks). So what factors must have interested women to move from being housewife to the work force? Explanations can be derived through observations of their relationship in the household, their relative status in the society, and their rationality in decision-making.
Men have dominated the workforce for most of civilization up until their patriotic duties called away to war. All of a sudden, the women were responsible for providing for their family while the men were away. Women went to work all over America to earn an income to insure their family’s survival. Women took all sorts of jobs including assembly line positions, office jobs, and even playing professional baseball. When the men returned home from war, the women were expected to resume their place as housewives. The women who had gotten a taste of the professional life decided that they wanted to continue working. Thus, the introduction to women in a man’s working environment began. Women were not taken seriously at first, because they were stepping into a “man’s world”.
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.
Women have fought through torture, blood, sweat, and tears to help women stand strong in our
Today’s secular women cringe at the words “modesty”, “submissive”, and “stay-at-home-mom”. Our culture is obsessed with the feminist movement. The idea of a woman having a different role than a man is disgusting to them. American women enjoy the most freedom the world over, one could argue, because of how Christianity improved the treatment of women. Even with women’s elevated status in American, arguments against the fair treatment of U.S. women are many. Included in those grievances are wage discrimination, unfair responsibility in the home, and eating disorders; showing how modern feminists have been swayed through propaganda.