In Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, Margaret Creighton and Lisa Norling, in addition to their co- authors, studies the correlation between gender and seafaring. This collection of ten essays explores the basic theme of gender in seafaring in the Anglo- American age of sail, challenging the notion that the maritime realm was innately a masculine place. It also addresses the idea that women and institutions located shoreside were not at all related to the seafaring society. These essays offer an introduction to maritime history and the different social roles at sea and in sea side communities.
The title itself implies the typical notion that the work at sea were for the masculine, while the women were as “stiff and objectified as the wooden figureheads that faced the sea" (p.vii). Some of the authors assert that gender is an essential part of seafaring but reveals the active roles the women played in the maritime industry. Others emphasize the relationship of masculinity and seafarers, and how it has strengthened within the past two hundred years as argued by Lisa Norling. She claims that men who worked at sea continued to be functionally codependent with the women whose job supported their family while they were gone. Haskell Springer exposes the irony that captain’s wives who decided to follow a non-traditional role of living at sea, lived more within the “separate spheres “ideology than the wives who stayed in land. Marcus
Throughout history, our society has created gender norms that are followed consistently by members of communities. Though they differ from place to place, we recognize trends that seem almost prescribed to certain genders. Specifically, in the 1600s, men and women had explicit roles that were designated by people of stature. These expectations were followed loyally and people who failed to follow suit were shunned or sometimes even suffered seriously punishment including crude public beatings that were mot only pain inflicting but also status damaging (Rocke, Gender and Sexual Culture, 159). Looking deeper into the novel The Return of Martin Guerre, we identify from the start the expectations that are in place and how they play a role in the story. In comparison of Characters, taking into consideration the standard that had been set for men of this era, we notice that Pansette (Arnaud du Tilh) is an almost faultless example of what is expected for men and in contrast, Martin Guerre fails to meet these standards.
In Nantucket, the whaler’s island, every man had to be a whaler. Even if it wasn’t his dream job, just because it was the only way to survive in the island without being dropped out of the community. Philbrick introduces us to this starting point by quoting the words of Thomas Nickerson, the one who had been taught to “idolize the form of a ship” (Philbrick, 1).
While social change has brought on more changes than what women are a custom too, at one point in history women actually felt a form of importance in fulfilling their roles not only in the home; but outside as well. “These demographic shifts account for many new or altered roles, such as increased number of duel-earner families, later and fewer marriages, fewer children, increased life expectancy, and the massive migration shifting employees across a nation and across the globe” (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 275).
The travelers from England that headed for the Chesapeake Bay were predominantly men, which led to an unbalanced society and lack of wives to promote a family-based culture. The passenger list for one boat had a sex ratio of sixty-four men to eleven women. Not only was there a radical imbalance, only four of the men were above forty, while only eight total were above thirty (Doc. C). That left fifty-six young males headed to a new land with only their self-government of a House
Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.
Alistair Macleod is a famous Canadian author that wrote stories about small towns in the east coast. His stories have been praised for the emotional impact they have on the readers. Macleod’s stories focus heavily on gender politics, geographical settings, and following in the examples of superiors among other things. “The Boat” is a short story that focuses primarily on gender roles and how it affects both the men and the women in the story. The two main male characters in “The Boat,” the father and the son, are both characters that are forced into their roles as men that work in order to fend for their families. This specific story resonated with me because I have rarely seen a narrative where male characters are controlled by their female
Captain Ahab Had a Wife, by Lisa Norling, is a collection of ideas and information regarding women in the whaling industry in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Norling writes how women were affected by the whaling industry, they depended on society for stability, and often conformed to society 's rules. The book is written to portray women during this time as resilient and capable of living in a man driven world. By recovering the stories of real maritime women, it enables to push beyond the stereotypical characteristics and restore important dimensions of the social history of seafaring (Norling 2). Captain Ahab Had a Wife examines the gender dynamics in New England which dramatically illustrates the necessity, pervasiveness, and thus
In 1587 Eleanor Dare started a history of first New England’s female settlers. In XVI-XVII century it was characterized more with dismal end then with a story of prosperous life and happy ending. Coming to New World mostly in search for a good partner, as “tobacco brides” or being simply deported as undesirable citizens, women died from starvation, malaria or Indian attacks. Some women sailed across the ocean as indentured servants and suffered from the cruelty of their masters. There were, of course, stories of success such as with the Brent sisters. Unmarried, they ran Maryland colony during crises. Margaret Brent became to be known as the nation’s first lawyer and the first colonial woman who demanded the right to vote.
Women were traditionally seen as the weaker sex – second-class citizens with a lower social status than men. A woman’s place was in the home. Men did the “heavier” labor, like plowing and hunting.
Throughout history, Australian has always been perceived as a land of men. This is due to the colonization of Australian during the eighteen and nineteen century, where men are seen inferior to women. They also are domesticated within the house duties that the society has influence because of their gender. Although, Henry Lawson “the drover wife” and The Chosen Vessel” by Barbara Baynton challenges the Australian society through Australian literature by placing women in harsh environments. The drover wife is short stories about women who face the new obsolesce while living within the harsh environments. The Chosen Vessel has a similar aspect of the drover wife but the lead female experience the harness of the environment, which lead to her death. Both women display their own straights and heroics while facing their fears, through their selfless action. They are both portrayed of women of the bush but their fate had stored different outcome for both women. This essay will examine both the drover wife and the chosen vessel both contain a simple plot, but it expands on many issues of gender expectation and domesticated within the household role of the expectation of women. It will also examine the religious aspect of the historical narrative that has been seen within both bush stories.
Herman Melville’s novels, with good reason, can be called masculine. Moby-Dick may, also with good reason, be called a man’s book and that Melville’s seafaring episode suggests a patriarchal, anti-feminine approach that adheres to the nineteenth century separation of genders. Value for masculinity in the nineteenth century America may have come from certain expected roles males were expected to fit in; I argue that its value comes from examining it not alone, but in relation to and in concomitance with femininity. As Richard H. Brodhead put it, Moby-Dick is “so outrageously masculine that we scarcely allow ourselves to do justice to the full scope of masculinism” (Brodhead 9). I concur with Brodhead in that remark, and that Melville’s
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how the narrative itself is thought of as unsuitable for women. The narration takes place on a small sailing boat, waiting for the ebb of the Thames to bring it out to
Clark, Anna. The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working
The speaker of “The Seafarer” believes that soon the warrior way of life will no longer be
Melville's novel, Moby Dick, has only men. Melville's men's club sails a sea whose gender changes often and whose personality is resolutely enigmatic. The feminine in Melville¹s novel hides her face in a veil of stars and behind a cloud of words.