Back in the 1960s, women were held down in many different areas but the lack of career options available and just being expected to raise a family was the biggest form of women being oppressed to me. Life was great but it always felt like women were just there to have children and cook. That has clearly changed thankfully since when I was a young woman. In the early 1960s women had very few jobs available to them, if any. Jobs were fairly limited to being a secretary, nurse, teacher, or a homemaker. Many ads were directed to woman staying at home and being in the kitchen, they didn't recognize the fact that some women were pursuing a career because it was pretty unheard of still. Even in the workplace there was not a lot of respect towards …show more content…
By the 1980s woman made huge advances in balancing life, work, and family life. Sadly many woman except for a rare few were still getting stuck in low paying jobs and jobs that didn't have any hope of advancement for them. The number of working women increased from around 33 to 51 percent, which doesn't sound like too much but it was a lot of progress for women. By the 90s, women were 47 percent of the entire work force, the percentage between men and women was almost evened out finally. More women were less likely to leave their jobs or even reduce their hours even if they had children or their husbands were earning more than enough money. In the past decadez women weren't taken seriously as workers or seen as just secondary earners but in the 90s, that idea started breaking down as more spouses started taking on shared duties, women were still more likely to take a larger load of household duties and taking care of children. I thought that was the biggest change in gender roles that the country had seen. From the 2000s to today, many women are doing the same jobs as men and job equality is pretty
In the early 1900’s, women who were married main jobs were to care for her family, manage their houses, and do housework. That is where the word housewife was come from. During the 1940's, women's roles and expectations in society were changing quickly and a lot. Before, women had very limited say in society. Since unemployment was so high during the Great Depression, most people were against women working because they saw it as women taking jobs from men that needed to work. Women were often stereotyped to stay home, have babies, and to be a good wife and mother. Advertisements often targeted women, showing them in the kitchen, talking with children, serving dinner, cleaning, and them with the joy of a clean house or the latest kitchen appliance.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.
The world was a very different place sixty years ago. The men came home from the war to take back the work force from the women and sent the women back into the home to follow traditional domestic roles. All aspects of life had to be cookie cutter perfect, to include the gender roles. The roles of both genders have been portrayed by the BBC Television show, Call the Midwife, as they use to be in the 1950’s. The men were the breadwinners of their family by working arduous hours, protect their family and home, and have zero contact with feminine things and activities; the women were expected to get married early, always look their best, and never indulge in their aspirations for a career outside of the home unless they were single.
Women of the 1920's Women during the 1920's lifestyle, fashion, and morals were very different than women before the 1920's. Flappers became the new big thing after the 19th amendment was passed. Women's morals were loosened, clothing and haircuts got shorter, and fashion had a huge role in these young women. Women before the 1920's were very different from the women of the Roarin' 20's. Gwen Hoerr Jordan stated that the ladies before the 1920's wore dresses that covered up most of their skin, had pinned up long hair, were very modest, had chaperones and had men make all of their decisions (1).
The social perception of women has drastically changed since the 1950’s. The social role of women during the 1950’s was restrictive and repressed in many ways. Society during that time placed high importance on expectations of behavior in the way women conducted themselves in home life as well as in public. At home the wife was tasked with the role of being an obedient wife, caring mother, and homemaker. Women publicly were expected to form groups and bond over tea with a slice of cake. All the while government was pushing this idealize roll for women in a society “dominated” by men. However, during this time a percentage of women were finding their way into the work force of men. “Women were searching their places in a society led by men;
While the 1960s were a time of advancement for minorities, it was also a time of advancement for women. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on a person’s sex (Foner 944). To ensure that women would have the same opportunities as men in jobs, education, and political participation, the National Organization for women was formed in 1966 (Foner 944). The sixties also marked the beginning of a public campaign to repeal state laws that banned abortion or left the decision to terminate a pregnancy to physicians instead of the woman (Foner 945).
It is hard to believe that women only 60 years ago were still viewed and inferior to males and had little to no rights to protect themselves. When men returned from World War II some men resulted to domestically violate as a way of punishing his wife for something she did and to affirm dominance that he previously lost. Assaults that were inflicted on to women during the 1950s were seen being a part of male aggression and something that is normal. Women who did report the crime were viewed as being the actually perpetrators and the assault was actually their fault because they were unable to defend themselves. Domestic abuse during the 1950s was not considered as a crime but as a family matter, and law enforcement would not get involved. Since women were unable to defend themselves from abuse and assaults during the 1950s, the excuse that it was the woman’s fault was an excuse that was popularly used.
There is many decades that people would call the Decade of change but the 1960’s is the decade that changed the most. The 60’s was a very crazy and wild time because of the historical events that happened. Everyone was starting to experiment with LSD and Other kinds of drugs. There was also a huge surge of musical history that had happened in the 60’s that changed the History of music forever. The 60’s is what I like to call the best decade in history. The 60’s is the decade of change because of the political, technological, and Musical advances that happened in America. The music industry went from poor to the number one hit in America. The technology went from nothing to systems that would change the world, and last but not least America went from a place where blacks were not accepted to everyone getting along. It is crazy to see how the 60’s changed the history of America.
It is no secret that no matter how much women continue to strive in the workplace, politics, etc., inequality will always persist. Throughout American history, the oppression of women has caused an adverse effect on humanity. Some men believed that embracing women as worthy of equal opportunities was a threat to them, as all the rules would be changing. However, the 1900s witnessed a change in that trend, as women started to fight and stand up for their rights. Women have stood on the frontline of this conflict, but at the end of the day they are only requesting “The power or privilege to which one is justly entitled” So, how did women’s role in society evolve from 1919 to 1941?
The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.
Due to the idealization of domesticity in media, there was a significantly stagnant period of time for women’s rights between 1945 and 1959. Women took over the roles for men in the workplace who were fighting abroad during the early 1940s, and a strong, feminist movement rose in the 1960s. However, in between these time periods, there was a time in which women returned to the home, focusing their attention to taking care of the children and waiting on their husband’s every need. This was perpetuated due to the increasing popularity of media’s involvement in the lives of housewives, such as the increasing sales of televisions and the increase in the number of sexist toys.
In the 1960’s women were still seen as trophies and were beginning to be accepted into the work industry. They were still homemakers, raised the family, and made sure their husbands were happy. That was the social norms for women during that time period. They were not held to high work expectations like men were. But something amazing happened that would change women 's lives for centuries; it was the 1970’s. The 60’s put the equality movement in motion but 70’s was a time of reform where women were finally able to control their own paths. Not only was the 70’s a historical marker for the fiftieth anniversary for women suffrage, it was also a marker for the drastic change of different social norms, the changes of the American Dream, and the
also managed to prove that they could do the jobs just as well as men
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.