Barbara Welter's View Of American Culture

In this essay I will discuss and analyze the social forces that influenced American women writers of the period of 1865 to 1912. I will describe the specific roles female authors played in this period and explain how the perspectives of female authors differed from their male contemporaries.

The article, The Cult of Womanhood: 1820 - 1860 written by Barbara Welter discusses the philosophy towards women in America during the mid 19th century. A set of demands and expectations based upon four principles: piety, purity, submission and domesticity were placed on women as well as certain behavioral expectations left 19th century women feeling guilty. It also left women feeling this way during the industrialization period as well as having a huge presence of incompatibility with society. Welter shares her viewpoint that the Cult of Womanhood was an attempt to preserve pre modern values in the industrial age. Men held a dominant place in society and continued to prevent new opportunities for women to explore. Narrow minded

The next requirement for being a “true woman” was submissiveness. According to society men were superior to women by “God’s appointment.” If they acted otherwise they “tampered with the order of the Universe” (Welter 105). A “true woman” would not question this idea because she already understands her place. Grace Greenwood explained to the women of the Nineteenth Century, “True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependant; a perpetual childhood.” Even in the case of an abusive husband, women were sometimes told to stay quiet

Over the course of many years, women have struggled to expand their roles and rights in society, hoping to one day achieve complete equality with their male counterparts. Two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady, both recognized the patriarchal society in which women had to endure. They despised the way it heaped inequality and servitude upon women, and decided to assert their opinion on the issue in order to change the perceptions and imposed limitations on women. In Stanton’s speech, “Declaration of Sentiments”, and in Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, both women attempt to convince their audiences that females deserve complete equality with men by stating the submissive situations and obligations women find themselves immersed in. This is done to get their female audiences to reevaluate how they have been treated and give them a second chance at attaining equality. Both women employ various rhetorical techniques in their arguments to strengthen, as well as compel other women to oppose the ‘domesticated’ image of women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady expressed their views in pursuance of forging a path to a revamped lifestyle for women.

Thesis: A “true women” in the 19th Century was one who was domestic, religious, and chaste. These were virtues established by men but enforced and taught by other women. Women were also told that they were inferior to men and they should accept it and be grateful that someone just loved them.

In the 19th century, “Godey’s magazine” described the ideal of true womanhood behavior is piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. “A young lady may excel in speaking French and Italian; may repeat a few passages from the volume of extracts; play like a professor, and sing like a siren; Though the arts; which merely embellish life, must claim admiration, when a man of sense comes to marry, it is a companion whom he wants, and not an artist. It is not merely a creature who can paint and play, and sing, and draw, and dress, and

Today's world of women would have only been a dream for women in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Magazines, newspapers and literature works played a key role in knowledge today about the lives of women throughout history. In Barbara Welters “The Cult of True Womanhood,” she discusses the role of women in the mid-nineteenth century. The four virtues of women, piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity were emphasized. Women were expected to get married at a young age, care for their husband, children, and home while remaining obedient to her spouse. Essentially women were property of their husband whom of which objectified them. Emily Dickinson's Poem “My Life had stood a Loaded Gun” can be analyzed in many ways, one of which

As I analyzed three different issues of the Ladies’ Home Journal that were published in 1960, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of how women were perceived during the year in which my mother was born into. Since the magazine was mainly targeted towards housewives, it included features on marriage, beauty, fashion, food, and interior decoration. The messages perpetuated by the advertisers, news writers, and fictions writers would often contradict each other and sometimes agree. The publications would try to influence women’s marriage life, the way they looked, what they should eat, and how they should care for their families. Marriage and beauty were two of the most important things in a woman’s life according to the magazine.

Women during the 19th century were held up to four virtues of a true woman: “Piety, Purity, Submission and Domesticity.” Piety was valued because religion did not disrupt the roles of women, and the church is an intuition that instills gender ideologies. The purity of a woman is her greatest assets and shows commitment to their future husbands. Women were to be submissive to their husbands as men to God and lastly, a proper place for a woman was her home. The home is the center of the family where children and men alike, are taken care of, along with any other household duty. Other characteristics that describe women were soft, weak and passive. However not all women were subjected to the same standards across the U.S. The upper and middle classes have been submitted to these virtues more so than the lower or working class. Nor was women in the South, whose “slave mastery and patriarchal

American Quarterly 18.2 (1966): 151. Web. Description: In her article, Barbara Welter explores the nineteenth century ideal of the cult of true womanhood and its insidious link to domesticity, explaining the role of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.

As time passed, people began to diverge away from the outrageous beliefs from the Puritan era but sexism was still present. The popular belief during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was that the role of a true woman was to properly serve her husband and children. Take, for example, Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin’s well-known novel The Awakening. Edna Pontellier was heavily scrutinized by those around her for not serving her husband and children as if they were gods. Don’t be mistaken, Mrs. Pontellier cared for them, but she also aspired to fulfill her own desires. Mrs. Pontellier specifically said, “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn't give myself” (Chopin 64).

During the mid-nineteenth century there were strict ideologies and guidelines held for women that they were supposed to follow. These expectations were especially strict for the women in the upper and middle classes. Women of the time period were expected to be elegant, beautiful, innocent, and domestic. The standard model for an ideal woman was exemplified in the idea of the True Woman. A True Women was “a pillar of moral strength and virtue” while also being “delicate and weak” (Cruea 189) A True Women was pure and wholesome, displaying all of the desirable traits and utmost femininity.

In this book, Higgs main thesis and point of writing is to show contemporary woman that they have more similarities and differences with biblical woman than imagined; both on a simple and or complex level. While writing this book, Liz had four different readers in mind. First, there are the once Bad Girls who have chosen to surrender their old lives for new lives in Christ. Second, there are the occasional Bad Girls who were raised up around church who feel like they have sinned too much. Third, there are the Good Girls who aspire to gain knowledge and compassion for the unsaved women around them. Finally, there are the Good Women who know that there is more to life; they just aren't sure where to search. Higgs labels her readers so that she can really "tug on their hearts," she wants each and every reader to realize that God loves everyone no matter their situation, and that everyone has a shot at the undeserved glory of God.

From the Puritan writers of the 17th century to the post-Civil War period of American Realism and Naturalism, American culture and writing has evolved dramatically. The shift of style and semantics in the literary works of Anne Bradstreet to Bret Harte directly follows the transformation of the empowerment of women. The continuously changing and developing roles of women are evident in historical events that left an everlasting impression on the developing literature of American history. Although women may have started from a lesser role when compared to men, women have continually achieved equality and acceptance in American literature as time has changed from the 17th century to the post-civil war period.

As a Professor of Comparative Literature and Program of Critical Theory, Judith Butler received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale in 1984 and has received nine honorary degrees since then. Her work has an air of postmodern thought, focusing not on whether cultural practices are correct or not but goes in depth on the use language and its effect on how “gender” limits or even hinders women and those that don’t identify as either. In the 1990’s when Butler wrote this book during a time of great change in the portrayal of the female role. Women started having more empowered roles, no longer simply