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Progression of female roles in society
Progression of female roles in society
The evolution of gender roles and its role in society
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Throughout much of history, Females have played a role that can be considered akin to being on the back burner of society. While this role maintains a level of arguable importance, especially when it comes to the raising of children, when it comes to the affairs of politics, government, and world progress, women haven’t had much, if any, say. While things have changed for the better in different ways in modern times, when one looks back just fifty years, or more, you can see how that change came about. The purpose of this essay soon will be to explore and understand the impact that the industrial revolution had on this process, and just how much of a change it actually did bring about. Even though things could often be slow to change in the way of women’s rights, change they did. Women’s roles had been evolving from one of a simple “reproducer” to one of an actual “producer”. While in today’s standards this may not seem significant, for the women of the time, it turned out to be a change of a large magnitude. The argument that this paper will portray to the reader, will be one based around the understanding of how gender rolls have changed for the better, in the past few hundred years. Have women really gotten more of an equal place in society as time as gone on? The opinion present in this paper, states yes. To back this argument up, several quotes will be present which provide supporting information.
Within the pages of the Murder of Mary Bean, many mentions are made about the new shift in gender rolls by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. While things may have been the same in many ways as before, what would later be seen as somewhat of a revolution, started to take place. Women had been no longer trapped within the confines of home life...
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... centric lifestyle that had preceded in most places for a long time. This new found freedom had been brought about in some part by the life of the mill girls. As they advanced from living in a household, to working long hours to earn a personal wage, they began to fight more and more for their own rights as human beings, eventually leading to a breakdown that would in the future, bring them to near equality with the rest. What we have today may not be perfect, but by examining the past, we can see just what an impact certain factory based revolutions have left with us. Further more, this helps support the argument that the gender rolls of females have changed for the better, specifically through the years of mill work. All in all, mill work, and the new age industry that the industrial revolution brought about, caused a major shift for the better of women all around.
Women of the nineteenth century had very set expectations. There were only two types of women: upper class bourgeoisie and lower class farmer’s wives or daughters. Women were considered physically weaker to men, which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere while the men workers and made the money. The mill girls defied all of this, and created their own class of women: wage earning middle class women. These women were not like farmers’ wives that were typically uneducated, nor like the bourgeoisie women that were educated, by mostly in domestic and “womanly” skills. The mill girls went to college if they so desired, most of the time doing that in the stead of getting married and becoming a housewife. The mill girls were a
Although the roles of women were altered completely by the new machines, they were taken advantage of and overworked. The Lowell mills caused many deaths, but it helped many families to survive because each cent counts. Even the hardest times in history can lead to the brightest moments and such was the case for the United States during the Industrial Revolution. People were dying, starving and struggling to survive; however, the strong industrialized nation have those people to thank for their improved economy, extensive railroad and telegraph lines, and the improved rights of women. One, let it be a person or a nation, does not gain strength without struggle.
Throughout most of recorded history, women generally have endured significantly fewer career opportunities and choices, and even less legal rights, than that of men. The “weaker sex,” women were long considered naturally, both physically and mentally, inferior to men. Delicate and feeble minded, women were unable to perform any task that required muscular or intellectual development. This idea of women being inherently weaker, coupled with their natural biological role of the child bearer, resulted in the stereotype that “a woman’s place is in the home.” Therefore, wife and mother were the major social roles and significant professions assigned to women, and were the ways in which women identified and expressed themselves. However, women’s history has also seen many instances in which these ideas were challenged-where women (and some men) fought for, and to a large degree accomplished, a re-evaluation of traditional views of their role in society.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
The 19th Century is an age that is known for the Industrial Revolution. What some people don’t realize is the effect that this revolution had on gender roles in not only the middle and upper classes (Radek.) It started off at its worst, men were considered powerful, active, and brave; where as women were in no comparison said to be weak, passive, and timid (Radek.) Now we know this not to be true, however, back in the day people only went by what would allow ...
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
The Changing Roles and Status of Women In 1903 the suffragette movement was born with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) by Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters Christabel and Sylvia. At first the newly formed suffragettes relied on spreading propaganda to gain support. However, on the 18th October 1905 they gained considerable unplanned publicity when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney stood up at a public meeting and asked if a Liberal government would introduce women's suffrage. Receiving no reply they stood on their seats waving a banner which said, "votes for women".
Women were perceived as either being a housewife, a nurturer, or a person for company. They did not have the right to vote till later on, work, and if they had an opinion that a male do not agree with, women are considered “wicked”; not savvy, not prudent but wicked to the core. It is unfair, unethical, atrocious, but through it all there was one female who dared to challenge the mind of men and the notion that women can be more than what men perceive them as being. Her name is Margaret Fuller. The goals of Margaret Fuller were precise. Men should realize that women are not an epitome of a statue but human beings, just as men, women can achieve full adulthood and citizenship, but most vitally Margaret aimed to change the assumptions about
This was the start of a new age in the history for women. Before the war a woman’s main job was taking care of her household more like a maid, wife and mother. The men thought that women should not have to work and they should be sheltered and protected. Society also did not like the idea of women working and having positions of power in the workforce but all that change...
Instead of being confined at home, the women joined labor forces, worked with wages, and experimented with different types of behavior that would have been unreasonable a few years back. Along with these dramatic changes were their fashion styles. This style changed their rights and relationships with others completely. With that change, a new woman was born. There were not many ways for women to stand up for themselves and what they believed in.
In John Mill 's’ essay, “The Subjection of Women”, Mill evaluates and analyses, the social differences between the sexes of the Victorian era. Mills raises some valid points about the subjection of women pertaining to the 19th century. Mills argues that during this time women are treated by their husbands as slaves to a master, not offered an equal opportunity in terms of employment, and their educational achievements aren’t recognized nearly as much as their male counterpart.
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.
Indisputably, roles and characteristics of opposite genders have been ubiquitous, since historical evidence proves so – dating back to when the practice of oral tradition was favored over written language. This historical evidence is especially apparent in literature from previous time periods. In these works of literature, men and women often have very different social and economic positions within society. Particular duties, or tasks, are practiced depending on the gender of these individuals. However, in the advancing world we are currently living in, these duties are beginning to intertwine in an effort to allow equal rights amongst opposite genders. This effort to break the sexist barrier, which encompasses our world, has already begun rattling the chains of politicians and the like. However, with the progressions made thus far in retaliation to sexism and unequal gender privileges, the United States of America is heading in a positive direction towards gender equality. Nonetheless, the female gender is perceived as a lesser entity in society while the male gender is dominant and controlling. The masculine individuals in literary works usually govern, or direct the feminine individuals. These characteristics are often evident in various literary works – including “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “A&P” written by Ernest Hemingway and John Updike, respectively. The slow and steady transformation from a sexist society to one that allows inferior genders to perform similar tasks, if not the same as their superior counterparts, may disturb the ideological mindset of figures with authority; however, it provides inferior genders with the opportunity to branch out socially, economically, and politically.
Women’s lives have changed dramatically, for the last half-twentieth century as Paula England said. One significant change has been an increase of women in the labor force. In 1950 only 30 percent of women were in the labor force. By 1994, the number of women in the labor force had reached 58 percent. Most women were married with young children. Women worked in the same jobs as men did. However, they got less pay and fewer opportunities. At that time, women did more work than men in the housework, which was unequal.
Then there was the woman’s movement and women felt they deserved equal rights and should be considered man’s equal and not inferior. The man going out to work, and the wife staying home to care for the home and the children would soon become less the norm. This movement would go on to shape the changes within the nuclear family. Women deci...