Ann Marie Plane, “Creating a Blended Household: Christian Indian Women and English Domestic Life in Colonial Massachusetts”

The article “The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective” by Angela Davis addresses on the liberation of women from their socially regarded functions in society. She explores the idea of capitalist critique and feminism, and she argues that housework is annoying as much as it is disempowering women in the society and women need to be released and discharged from these duties (Angela, 2011). Angela's unique perspective on women's roles as housewives and history of house works gives us a clear perspective on the plight of women in society. The article shares a different perspective to the traditional view of women as housewives in the community. Instead of judging women on their femininity and history of their work

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

Society has told us for the last hundreds of years that the woman’s job around the house as shown in Figure 1 is to cook, clean, and take care of the family. One man, Tom Junod, who

1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and

Chapter two continues the ideas of chapter one by exploring how Quaker belief and discipline; understanding of love, marriage, and family; and the organization of social life on Nantucket accommodated the rhythms and stresses of the fishery (14). The chapter begins by describing the simple Quaker life style and Society of Friends, founded in 1709, which was a group of Quakers in Nantucket. The Quakers developed “The Discipline”, a collection of rules to guide meetings and govern Quaker conduct, and held regular meetings, separated by gender, which raised funding, kept log of births and marriages, and administered passes to travel (60). “Rather than in the separate space of the women’s meeting, most Nantucket women found recognition of their importance within marriage, family, and community life” (65). “Seaman’s regular absences placed greater family responsibilities on wives’ and mothers’ shoulders” (71). Quaker women turned to family and the Quaker society for support in times of separation. “Little evidence has survived that illuminates how Nantucket sea-wives themselves felt about their conjugal roles, family responsibilities, and community relationships” (76). Whaling and Quakerism, although had conflict, caused a shift in the Nantucket atmosphere and women’s roles.

As hardworking women living of the prairie, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can relate to Mrs. Wright’s situation. They know personally that long days of doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning can become very tiresome (Hedges 91). They realize that living on the prairie can force a woman to be confined to her own house for weeks at a time, and because Mrs. Wright never had children, the grueling loneliness that she suffered must have been excruciating. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters both experience the constant patronization and sexual discrimination that most women in the early twentieth century lived with. They empathize with the difficulties of Mrs. Wright’s life and almost immediately a bond is formed with a woman they do not even know.

Today, women are believed to be equal to men however this was not always the case. During colonial times, women did not have the same roles as women do today; men and women had fixed roles in society. Roles between men and women do not exchange due to strict gender roles. Additionally, married women were not exactly considered as companions instead, as the husband’s property. Although gender roles were a significant issue among women in early America, another issue was the background of these women. Factors such as race, religion, geography/region, and social class were substantial to the extent of control a woman had over her own life. These factors significantly shaped the lives of these women. For instance, white women had differences

The resilience of women and the hardship of men were prominent during this time. However, women were still deeply grounded in their home life (Bolin, 74). Particularly women from middle-income families were left with job of being able to balance work and home life (Bolin, 74). Being a caregiver and taking care of the domestic needs of the home was very important. During this time tradition values were deeply routed in the home. Women made sure not let their home life consume them because their may focus was being a good wife and mother. This is a trend that has made its way even in today’s society. “Even now lack of adequate day-care (necessitating private baby-sitting service), low paying jobs for women, and the growth of technologies that open the door to and “electronic cottage industry”, indicate that women’s home production is a mutable but perhaps permanent response to women’s economic and social inequality under capitalism” (Hollingsworth, & Tyyska). The oppression in the past is shown to have made and imprint on society even to this day. Even though

After the World War II ended, the War Manpower Commission hoped the women would return to their “social place” again, but they were wrong (Wolf 63). Still, in 1950s female magazines redefined the housewife status, where the woman would strive for perfection in being a terrific wife, mother and still handle the household flawlessly (Wolf 64). Betty Friedan asked: “Why it is never stated that the really curtail function, the really important role

Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

Broadly speaking, the term ‘housework’ is used to describe the management of the home, which ‘involves a range of activities, the purpose of which is to maintain household members’ (Hatt 1997: 39). Hatt discusses how the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism created a tidal wave of mass social change; causing production to shift from within the household to the factory. The home is now the site of the ‘reproduction’ of labour, a role which has become strongly gendered; shaped by social policies and ideologies that maintain gender roles(Malos, 1980, Cooke, 2009). There have been a lot of significant changes occurring in the area of housework since

The house has at times been a symbol of women’s roles, between 1944 and 1982 the relationship women had with the house changed. This relationship change is indicative to the changing times and the role women played in the house, in the family, and in society. The influences that I believe initiated these changes fall into three themes: 1. The marriage relationship and outside paid work, 2. Education and its impact on femininity, and 3. Technology and its impact on domesticity. The three themes address issues that women navigated as society changed as their roles in the home and outside of the home changed. I will briefly address each theme and then delve into the relationship between marriage and work outside of the home.

1.The household circle in France and that of India display numerous similarities. However, it may be that such is the case in most countries where families are kept together. In India, distant relatives like grandparents and cousins either settle collectively or maintain a near distance if living separately. Indians are not as likely as Americans to relocate away from their families and, when it is economically possible, prefer to stay in the same geographic area. Though it seems that the French differentiate from that of my own culture due to that fact that they maintain relations with those of the enlarged household till the third or fourth generation. Also, on page 60 Au Contraire mentions that the extended kinsfolk gather together for a Sunday lunch. This is generally not seen in India as members of the lengthened household may reside adjacent to each other, but do not meet as often as the French. Nonetheless, as an Indian American, my society maintains most of the aspects of the Indian community and a little of the typical American culture.

It is the traditional view of many that the woman should have a bigger responsibility when it comes to housework labor. In the traditional family, the woman is the one who stays at home and is mainly responsible for housework and raising the children if applicable. As for the man, he does as little to nothing. The percentage of women doing house work on an average day is 49 percent and it is 19 percent for men. (Sifferlin) In “Justice, Gender, and the Family” Susan Moller Okin demonstrates the inequality between

Over the years women have shown to be a successful gender. In the past women had limited power and were submissive to the ideology of a housewife. Those who chose to work were considered a bad influence for those women who were submissive. Since then the female gender has adopted a more independent and diplomatic overview of the working life. Today women make up half of the workforce. Women today have acquired skills and capabilities of not just being a homemaker but being at par with their male counterparts. This is the new generation of women, who wants to pursue their dream career.More conflict arises with the working mother. One has to fulfill the demand at work followed by various demands at home. In today’s scenario the husband and wife both work towards creating a balance with their work life as well as at home with their children. Her schedule is so tight she is as busy as an industrialist she wakes up in the morning prepare breakfast