Throughout history, a woman’s role was clearly defined to be a mother and dutiful wife to her husband. There was a time where women were considered to be less intelligent than men simply because they were women. However, this changed during the nineteenth century. Although women were still considered to be defined as mothers, they also sought out work as workers in factories and became more than just mothers and wives.
In the nineteenth century, there was a shift in the view of women. They were given more of an education in order to prepare their sons to become better citizens. The reason was because the men had realized that woman needed to be better educated to teach the values of a good member of society to their children. This took place during the Revolution period. “Woman, wrote Benjamin Rush, needed to have a “suitable education” to enable them to “instruct their sons in the principles of liberty and government.” (Foner 2014). Benjamin Rush supported the right for women to receive educational opportunities.
In the 19th century, there was a female reformatory network that had led to the distribution of some strong techniques that are normally practiced in prisons in order to maintain control. For example, techniques such as set periods of confinement, rigid timetables and compulsory labor into specialist institutions in the community. (Barton 2011) There, these methods were combined with 'familial' forms of regulation (i.e. domestic training, religious instruction, supervision and guidance) normally administered within the family home. (Barton 2011). They were known as reformatories, refuge and homes. (Barton 2011). They often brought together the divide that existed between formal state punishment and informal domesti...
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...n hours per day, although women could volunteer to work longer hours. (Tentler 1982)These various groups did help women factory workers live more comfortable lives. (Tentler 1982) Regardless of the awful working conditions and extremely low wages, factory work, no matter how dismal and unfair that it was, offered women the benefit of having additional opportunities and it gave them motivation to look for even greater political, economic, and social gains. (Tentler 1982).
Works Cited
Barton, Alana. 2011. "A Woman's Place: Uncovering Maternalistic Forms of Governance in the 19th Century Reformatory." Family & Communtiy History 89-104.
Foner, Eric. 2014. Give Me Liberty. New York: W.W Norton & Company.
Tentler, Leslie Woodcock. 1982. Ohio History Central. Accessed May 19, 2014. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Women_in_the_Industrial_Workforce?rec=1516
The role of American women has changed significantly from the time the nation was born, to the modern era of the 1950s and 1960s. Many people, "... believed that women's talent and energies ... would be put to the better [use] in the new republic." (Clinton 3) Clearly showing that society has seen the importance of the women's talents and that their skills can be very useful, exploited this and thus, the change of the women's role was inevitable. Society has understood that the roles of women played an important role on all parts of life.
Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.
After the Revolutionary War, the major debate in America was over how the newly independent nation would be different from Great Britain. Individuals held differing opinions on how to establish a distinct country from the one it won independence from. One of which was Benjamin Rush, an expert in medicine and republican who believed that republicanism would bring reforms to American society and morality. Rush advocated for the education of women in America, in a time period when academically educated women was looked down upon by society. However, despite Rush’s seemingly progressive support of women’s education, he is only in favor of it for the benefit of males and the creation of an American society different from the British.
... sixteenth and nineteenth centuries the role of mothers changed discreetly though significantly. Although the changes are not noticeably dramatic to most people today, these changes had a significant impact on the activities mothers performed as well as their quality of life. Although it can be argued that the most common role of mothers has always been to bear children, by the mid eighteen hundreds women began to have more choices on when and 0how often to have children. Another big change was that in later centuries women had the time and were encouraged to raise their children themselves rather than leaving their children to their own devices or sending them to be raised by strangers. While these changes in the roles of mothers are not the most obvious changes that occurred during this time period, they were certainly significant to all those that they affected.
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.
The function of women in politics, the economy, and communal events in American society moved significantly from the pre-Revolutionary war era to the early beginnings of the 20th century. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, women were looked upon as being “subordinate to males” and so as a result women were affected by the laws and regulations forced upon them by men. It was almost as if it was a woman’s right, to get married, have kids, and live out the obligation of being a thorough wife and mother. Because the government was mainly ruled and controlled by men, it was often that women didn’t have the lawful rights, for example the power to vote or be in possession of property.
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
“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.
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.
The first possibility of woman's ideal social role, revolving entirely around her domestic responsibilities, has its origin in the past. Women of white middle class standing had historically taken on the responsibilities of clothing, feeding and caring for all members of the family, while the men had ensured that the raw materials for these duties existed. Stereotypically, the husband would work the farm cultivating the crops and caring for the animals, while the wife would turn these raw materials into the necessities of life, including food and clothing. When industry began to take over in the early 1800's the specific tasks of gender shifted, but the general spheres d...
During the 19th century middle to upper class women were faced with dichotomous roles. On one hand they were expected to be idle, fragile, not engaged in intellectual activities outside of the home. On the opposite hand these same women were expected to withstand the vagaries that were common during the 19th century such as the death of their husband or a reversal of their financial situation(i). This contradiction of roles bore heavily on women who often lacked power or control over their own lives(ii).
Education for women in the 1800s was far different from what we know today. During her life, a girl was taught more necessary skills around the home than the information out of school books. A woman’s formal education was limited because her job opportunities were limited—and vice versa. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or the law and therefore did not offer her the chance to do so. It was much more important to be considered 'accomplished' than thoroughly educated. Elizabeth Bennet indicated to her sisters that she would continue to learn through reading, describing education for herself as being unstructured but accessible. If a woman desired to further he education past what her classes would teach her, she would have to do so independently, and that is what most women did.
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