A Womans Place is not in the Home
I glanced at my watch; it was 3:30 p.m. I logged off the computer picked up my car keys and signaled to my boss. He knows the meaning of that familiar signal. It means I am dashing off to pick up my kids (ages 10 and 13) from school. After picking them up I will take them home and leave them to perform the familiar routine that they have been practicing for years. First they will have their bath, then take the microwave able containers with the specific day labeled from the fridge, placed it in the microwave oven, have their dinner, complete their assignments then head to the baby sitter. The baby sitter being none other than the good old television set or their video games. I would call from my office occasionally to ensure that everything is okay. They have strict orders not to open doors to strangers, and all emergency numbers are at their fingertips. This routine has taught them to be responsible and independent children. At approximately 7:00 pm I would drag myself home, check their assignments, have a little chit-chat with them and then head off to bed.
I compared this to the days when I used to get the bus home from school and would be greeted by my mother with a smile on her face and a cool drink in her hand. She would ask us the familiar question, which we sometimes forget to answer. "How was school today? Did you enjoy you nice lunch that I packed in your lunch kit"? After our bath we would sit at the dining table and enjoy a nice warm meal while sharing the days events. In retrospect I can only ask myself this question. "What has happened to those good old days"? Why did women abandon their place in the home?
Prior to the Industrial Revolution which took place in the Eigh...
... middle of paper ...
...ety.
Bibliography:
References
Anderson, M. (No date). Introduction to Erik Erikson's 8 Stages. (Online). Available
http://snycorva.cortland.edu/~ANDERSMD/ERIK/stageint.HTML (2001, January 27)
Creswell, Julie, & Bass, Dina (1998, December). The 50 Most Powerful Women in American
Business. Fortune 500 pp. 76 -- 82.
Fanovich, Souzanne. (1998) . Introduction to Sociology. Barbados: University of the West
Indies Press (Original work published 1978).
Haralambos, M, & Holborn, M. (1991). Sociology Themes and Perspectives. London:
HarperCollins.
Wirth, Linda. (1998) . Women in Management. Will the Glass Ceiling Ever be Broken.
World of Work: The Magazine of International Labor Organization. (Online) Available
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/magazine/23/glass.htm (2001, February 1)
For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.
In the beginning of television series with childless couples, the wife was the one that stayed at home, cleaned, cooked, and did the laundry. The husband was the one that made the money by going to work. Television series always portrayed women as the weaker characters. “Women in the early 1950s family were weak, secondary characters, and as such were usually dominated by their husbands and their own conceptions of marriage” (Hastings, 1974). Certain episodes of these shows always tried to prove that women should stay at home. When I Love Lucy came out with a woman as the main star, they still had her stay at home, cooking and cleaning, but still made her seem useless. “Women characters frequently were shown as less mature and less capable human-beings and their husbands often took a quasi-parental role by...
The Cult of Domesticity is an offensive gesture; however in the 1950s’ there was validity this gesture. The rise of feminism has created a society in which there are more single mothers than ever before, long side more children born out of wedlock. The United States Census Bureau states, “During the 1960-2016 period, the percentage of children living with only their mother nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent and the percentage of children…” (1). The article the Cult of Domesticity indeed points out the valid flaws of Ideal duties/expectations of domesticity in the 1950s’; however, I would like to state that anything man-made idea or material mechanism is not without faults. The agreeable points of the list were that there should be a genuine respect and act of service shown to our husbands each day. However, the list made a hard-left turn in suggesting that women are not to question the motives of their husband, and/or the location of their husbands if they chose to be late after work. Lastly, if husbands choose to
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;
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.
Traditionally men had more power and control in the home than women. Women stay in the home to care for children and the home, while men leave the house to work for money. Education was not encouraged for females because men did not find an educated girl appealing. My grandmother, who was my primary caretaker, ensured that I learned how to cook, clean, sew, and how to accept commands in hope that one day I would become a good housewife. However, living in a land where gender roles are equal made it difficult to accept the role my grandmother hoped I would take. I learned to embrace the American culture and conform to be able to fit in with friends around me. Although initially my life decisions created a lot of conflict between my family and me, I learned to conform to society by accepting society’s norms and rejecting the norms that my family
The workplace became masculinized, and the home feminized. By the separation of the masculine and feminine spheres that had been promoted, men and women now lived in separate worlds. By the turn of the twentieth century, men realized that their exclusion from the domestic sphere was, in fact, harmful to them: It left men “unable to experience the love, nurture and repose that the home supposedly represented” (Kimmel 158). Men were also worried at the “feminization” that potentially threatened their sons: men feared that women, who had the main responsibility for the upbringing of the children, would make the sons into
In the first place, during past generations and even today, but in less developed countries, women were supposed to stay home. Women would do the cooking, cleaning, and taking
Remember when children could walk down the street without having their parents with them? Maybe, you remember your dad sitting around the house on his off day in a dress shirt, slacks, and a tie? No? Neither do I, the reason we don’t remember this is because this took place back in the 1950’s, well before we were thought of. A time when siblings got along with one another, the mothers and fathers both had their own roles within the household, and neither of them shared tasks for the most part. People always seemed to use their manners, always dressed their best, and always seemed to want to be kind toward one another, within their households at least. As time has changed through the years, the changes through or within society has been the
One thing my grandma would always say every time she was doing work around the house is that, “A woman’s work is never done.” Posted on an online magazine website author, Jessica Grose, wrote an article titled “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier,” published March 13th, 2013. As she got into the article she argues that men in our lives more recently started taking on more of the childcare and cooking, while the cleaning still falls unfairly on women. Jessica Grose starts to build her credibility with personal facts and using reputable sources.
For a long time ago, women just did anything at home: clean the house, wash clothes, cook the meals, and work outside the house and nutrient their children. Then they followed to order from their husband at home, and listen to the words of their husband. In addition, they made many little things in the military: wash clothes, serve the meals, and fix the clothes. The next things that it was convinced me when women had their own value in society. They began to raise their own worth and sense of themselves to build their country even though no one explained to them. People can consider that they endured very much but they did not still accept
ago mothers would stay at home with their children while the father went to work
Over the years, the roles of women have drastically changed. They have been trapped, dominated, and enslaved by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can stand on their own. They myth that women are only meant to be housewives has been changed. However, this change did not happen overnight, it took years to happen. The patriarchal society ruled in every household in earlier times and I believe had a major effect on the wives of the families. “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and Trifles all show how women felt obligated to stay with their husbands despite the fact they were unhappy with them
Throughout history, the roles of men and women in the home suggested that the husband would provide for his family, usually in a professional field, and be the head of his household, while the submissive wife remained at home. This wife’s only jobs included childcare, housekeeping, and placing dinner on the table in front of her family. The roles women and men played in earlier generations exemplify the way society limited men and women by placing them into gender specific molds; biology has never claimed that men were the sole survivors of American families, and that women were the only ones capable of making a pot roast. This depiction of the typical family has evolved. For example, in her observation of American families, author Judy Root Aulette noted that more families practice Egalitarian ideologies and are in favor of gender equality. “Women are more likely to participate in the workforce, while men are more likely to share in housework and childcare (apa…).” Today’s American families have broken the Ward and June Cleaver mold, and continue to become stronger and more sufficient. Single parent families currently become increasingly popular in America, with single men and women taking on the roles of both mother and father. This bend in the gender rules would have, previously, been unheard of, but in the evolution of gender in the family, it’s now socially acceptable, and very common.
I think these changes have occurred because women’s’ role in the society have changed over the years. Until recently, women were the weaker sexes compared to the dominating males. Women were passive and were just happy being portrayed as such. However, over the years, more and more women fought for their rights and nowadays want equality with men. More women have taken up occupations, which before were considered to be men’s jobs.