The Changing Role Of Women In The 1900's

The role of women has changed over the generations: from Shakespeare’s time of being someone’s property, to the Victorian times as an ideal women, to being rebellious women, to today’s present day that women are permitted to be and do whatever she would like. Women back then, didn’t as much freedom as the women in our today’s generation, the role of women has changed dramatically.

In Shakespeare’s time, the role of women were if they were property to their husbands. They were only to be at their house doing everything a wife should do, like clean, cook, any duties that had to be done. They were to do whatever to please their husbands, which was mostly in sexual ways. In the play Twelfth Night, the Duke Orsino says “For women are as roses, whose

As an ideal Victorian woman, according to the article “Women of 50’s” it states that an ideal women “…is a women who was a home loving, loyal to her family, sympathy, sacrifices and supports her husband, and has the same mind and goals set as her husband…” In the book Dracula, Van Helsing says “She is one of God's women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble.” (Stoker 201). This quote was towards Mina, who represented the ideal woman. In Dracula, she was the faithful one to her fiancé, Jonathan, while he was away. Even when she didn’t hear anything from him after writing to him, she remained loyal. She was smart, young, had beauty and wanted to help Jonathan through everything. Mina wrote in her journal, “I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married, I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan...” (Stoker 58). Mina was very supportive with Jonathan’s job and tried to keep a mindful to please her husband. "The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me..." (Stoker 288). Jonathan wrote in his journal, saying how much Mina was attached to him, her loyalty remained the same as before. Victorian

Around this time, women revel to have freedom to do what they want to do and be. They rebelled because they were being judged because they were females. According to Juliet Gardiner’s article, she say’s “Women might have had the vote on the same terms as men since 1929, but for most that was pretty well the limit of their equality: working women were paid much less than men and despite the responsibilities and sheer hard graft many had endured in wartime, were still regarded as submissive and inferior beings. Educational opportunities were limited…” (Gardiner 3). Many reasons why women rebel to have the same equality as men. For example, Rosa Parks fought for equality. Society placed on them as if they couldn’t do what males could do. Young mothers were seen and encouraged to stay at home for the family. In an article “Mrs. America: Women’s Roles in the 1950s” it states “women who chose to work when they didn't need the paycheck were often considered selfish, putting themselves before the needs of their family...” (paragraph 6). Females looked like they were trying to be independent instead of depending on a man. Once women were tired of being treated unfair against males, they rebelled to have equality as men as in jobs, wages in their jobs, to not discriminate them just because they were women and society made them look like something that they may