Evolution Of Gender Roles

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

Women were expected to do so much but at the same time so little. They had no power to do what they desire because men had all the power to control them. Society had an expectation of how women were supposed to act. For instance, Mary’s father cared for his sons education he wanted them to know how to read, write, and to do sums, as for his daughters he only cared that they knew how to read and sew. That is the basic that women were allowed to learn it was not important for them to know more since all they were going to work for is taking care of children. Here is an example, “…Gender roles within those families the reinforcement of gender ideals such as “helpmeet” and “notable housewife” by religious and civil authorities, and the simple

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

A woman had a busy domestic life. A woman played the role of wife, mother, teacher and manager. She had to please her husband, bear and raise children, educate her children, and manage all daily household activities. In the home, the woman was the jack of all trades. Part of the role of the female was to take raw goods, and turn them into useful items, such as food, candles, and clothing. Women had to clean, butcher and prepare all game brought home to the family. A woman was a household factory. Many items in the home were created by women. All clothing was made by spinning, weaving and stitching. All cloth was washed by hand without the aid of any machines. Candles were made at home by weaving a wick and pouring hot wax into a mold. A woman had to be educated enough to teach her sons and daughters the skills of life. Women spent the majority of their time performing daily tasks, but still were able to have leisure activities such as painting, embroidery, and charity work. Women had very few legal rights. In the majority of colonies, women had no legal control over their lives. It was the consensus among society that

Before the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, women were meant to remain in the household and do all the work there. They were supposed to take raise the children, maintain the house, support the husband, and be overall dependent on men. Women did not often work outside of their homes nor did they have any real independence to say or do whatever they pleased. For the most part, women were very dependent on men for most things in their lives. Women were meant to be meek,

I would like to know why were women treated lesser than men? How did women adjust so quickly and “silently”. I want to find out if women ever were

Today in society it can be agreed that women have indeed gained many rights that were not accessible to them 100 years before. Although, despite the mentality that men and women are treated equally there are still very many discrepancies between the treatment of genders. Many of which can be attributed to the expectations placed on the genders, gender roles between both genders, and women in the workplace. These issues have caused a great rift to form between the genders, a rift that has caused one gender to claim dominance over the other and this can develop a sense of inferiority by the submissive gender.

Throughout history, gender roles have been changing and the plans are not followed anymore than it has been. Most married couples can develope a share of understanding about who does what in the relationship. Sometimes it can be unspoken recognitions of the division of labor and the responsibilities. A plan for marriage is equally shared between chores and plenty of other duties. We live in a world where no one is perfect. There are different people where they have different beliefs. In 1848 women had no rights until the 1920s. Women and men have always had the same rolls through the years. Men always made the decisions and worked while the women would stay home and do house duties. The men always had to respect the women and their children unless they disobeyed their rules. Although there are divisions of labor between the human affairs, there can be changing in social expectations, which can be reflected in different gender roles at many different times.

All throughout history, women have been thought of to be “weaker” and “not as capable” as men have always been thought to be. Due to this, gender roles were

Whether it is the past or the present, there have always been gender roles in society. In most homes, it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of the house. This includes cleaning, meal preparations, raising and taking care of the children as well as the husband. Compared to the men who take care of the more physical activities, such as yard work. It was known throughout many years that it was a woman’s responsibility to stay in the house while the man would go out and look for work to provide money for his family. Although the intensity of gender roles has changed, it still exists.

In the early nineteenth century, women were expected to be, “‘angels in the house,’ loving, self-sacrificing, and chaste wives, mothers and daughters or they are… ultimately doomed” (King et al. 23). Women of this time were supposed to be domestic creatures and not tap so far into their intellectual abilities (King et al.). The role of women in the nineteenth century is described:

This idea of domesticity carried on and limited the women's experiences in life, for example men had a public life where they ventured off daily to compete and perform tens jobs away from the home while the woman I don't just want to go to nurture the children, tend to the home and make sure everything was taken care of. In fact in that time of the 19th century writers, preachers and reformers were advocates that the woman's place was to "be in the home." With all this being said, a large amount of women of color and working-class women also performed wage earning labor so they did have jobs outside of the home. However many of these women were unmarried who worked outside of their home for for wages, in module for the The statistic was fewer than 20% of all women worked outside of the home and those who did only 2% of them were married. When both World War I into happened many men left, to fight for the country which left lots of vacant jobs that need to be filled which is where women stepped up to the plate and became breadwinners and still manage to tend to the household all the men were off at war. After then wars is kind of

<br>The role of a woman was inferior to that of a man, especially in marriages. The main duties of a woman were centered around the home. They were expected to fulfill their domestic duties, such as caring

What is male? What is female? The answers to these questions everyone may depend on the types of gender roles they were exposed to as a child. Gender roles can be defined as the behaviours and attitudes expected of male and female members of a society by that society.