Oppression Of Women In The 1800's

Today women in developed countries enjoy many freedoms from social stigmas and oppressions in the work force, although, they are still not completely equal to their male counterpart. There are still women being paid less than men doing the same job and there is the idea that prices for female products are raised slightly higher than it is for men for the same products; however, this does not compare to the kind of oppression women went through in the 1890s. Charlotte Perkins Gilman embodied the oppression of females in the 1890s in her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which depicts a mother and wife going through postpartum depression while struggling with her male physicians and husband over her treatment plan. Critic Frances Baskerville sums Gilman’s intention for her story stating, “Her [Gilman’s] fiction was intended as a vehicle for her feminist and socialist themes, a means of persuading a general audience” (Baskerville line 2). Although one of the issues of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is dealing with postpartum depression, one of the main themes of the short story is female oppression and what everyday life was like for women in her time.

Over the years people have been worried about their young children working in factories or many other dangerous circumstances. With in these years people have also been concerned with their equal rights. Women tend to be treated or paid unfairly when compared to their men colleagues. Before 1938 factories would hire children to do the same dangerous and high- risk jobs that fully grown men were doing. If there were fully grown adults getting injured on the job, one can only imagine what would happen to a kid. In 1923, women and some men tried to make everything equal for women. They worked towards something called equal rights. This movement was thought up by people who supported women's rights, to make things more equal. Women wanted fair

Women in the mid-1800s had nearly any rights they could not vote or hold office. If women were to get married their husband got all of the property he owned all her wages if she worked the husband could hit his wife long as it did not injure her. Women held many rallies and other events to try and get equal right. The Women's Rights Movement allowed women a chance to go to college and other schooling opportunities. Finally women got the same jobs as men they got paid the same they owned all of their property and wages.

Did women always have the same rights and roles as men? Were they always able to live a free life? Well not really, but the women were willing to fight for it.

The late 1800’s in America life for woman was not as easy or fulfilling as it is for woman in America today. Women were looked at differently than man, and were treated as such. There have been many women in our past that have helped shape who we are as women today. Many groups have contributed to women’s rights as well. Women were not allowed to do a lot of things we as women are allowed to do today. Women in the late 1800’s in America were treated indifferently because: they were refused the right to vote, they were treated differently than men, and in marriage they had separate spheres than the men.

Throughout history, it is seen that women were always treated like they were less than a male. While a great amount of women hid and did what they were told, some women fought for their rights and took a stand. For some women, this included getting a medical degree, or doing public speaking. During the 1800’s, there were multiple women that fought for women's rights by sticking up for themselves and not letting people down grade them for being female.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This sentence from the Deceleration of Independence is one of the most well known of American documents. However, consequently we have all become comfortably numb to this statement and don’t take into consideration the struggles, fights, and deaths from our history that made this statement true. Due to the unceasing fight of men and women of three different groups, America was altered for the better. The late 1800 to early 1900 was an essential time for three key groups women, African Americans, and Indians to fight for their constitutional rights.

For many years, women have not experienced the same freedoms as men. Being a woman, I am extremely grateful to those women who, many years ago, fought against social standards that were so constricting to women. Today, women can vote, own property instead of being property, live anywhere and have any career which she may choose.

In the time era of 1800s, women were inferior to males. They were not taken seriously and not allowed by society to do male jobs. Many women decided to change this through events like the Seneca Falls Convention. The growth of the women’s right movement included the progress of education, marriage laws, and professions for women. Through movements, women were given opportunities that they weren’t originally able to get.

Have you ever thought of how we women got our freedom where we don’t have to be so dependent of the males in their life? We all have heard about the role of women in the 1800s. Have you thought or heard of the details of it? Have you ever thought of how the role of women in the 1800s made the women feel by the way they were being treated? According to Susan M. Cruea, due to their emotional and physical frailty, a true woman needed to be protected by a male family member (3).

Woman suffrage, a major issue woman had to fight against. Our world has always had segregation no matter who was getting discriminated against. Well in the 1800s it was women who were getting victimized, because of their gender. Any woman could get criticized and ridiculed by a man just for being a woman. Woman didn't have as many rights or as much freedom as men did, men thought women were only good for domestic duties. Little did men know, women can do much more than cooking and cleaning. Elizabeth Cady Stanton stood along with other women and help put an end to gender discrimination of the 1800s.

By giving her children a sense of independance early which may enable them for success later on. While other children of the times may have a pseudo unhealthy reliance on a mother, much like Robert's brother Victor who still lives at home. Another more risky thing she did was make a statement that most women even now wouldn't agree with. Edna states: “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.”(Chopin 47) This statement holds quite a lot of weight in the way we can view edna. Some may call her selfish for a lack of an undying love for her children. But I view it as brutal honesty. The fact that edna is coming to this conclusion and fighting the ever pushing stream of society really shows how she is trying to fight. Giving up one's self is a very dangerous thing to do. For once you give too much you can lose who you are. But too little and people can lose sight of what you can be/who you are. As a mother edna realizes this and decides to make herself known in a different way than as a mother-woman.

For centuries man has created this patriarchal society in which women have been treated as the lesser entity, having no sense of self-being or worth. These feelings led women to feel repressed in their everyday life. It was in the late nineteenth century when literary writers started to expose this female repression. Guy de Maupassant and Kate Chopin clearly express definitive examples of female repression in their stories, The Necklace and The Story of an Hour.

In the early nineteen century, women were not explicitly part of literature. they were used male pseudonym to publish their works. However, later in the century, there was a shift in women’s implication in literature. women began to be publicly recognized as writers, and they were using their writings to advocate for women’s rights and to reject stereotypes that were commonly associated with them. For example, in the early nineteen century, books and novels were mostly describing “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” as attributes of a good woman (Fortin). Writings by women were describing women that where rejecting values of the patriarchal society; women that wanted freedom and independence. The writings of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman exemplify the features of the Feminist phase of female literary tradition. Published respectively in 1892 and 1895, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin are the quintessence of feminist literature. They both used characterization, setting, ad irony to protest a misogynistic society and to request women’s rights and autonomy.

Feminist Criticism is described as literary criticism to presents different perspectives on how literature discusses issues of gender, focusing on education, financial and social difference in a male dominated society. Critics revolve around power relation between the two genders. They also review how females are represented in different texts and literature and how such representation is sufficient. In addition, feminist critics in politics present literature that seeks to raise consciousness about the important role of women and highlight how language is misused to marginalize women. Influential figures of this form of criticism are George Eliot and Margaret Fuller. They are two who mainly came up with the idea of Feminist Criticism and the basic principles followed by others today. Some famous authors who wrote through the lens of Feminist Criticism are Ellen Moers, Alice Walker, and Tillie Olsen... These writer’s focus on inequality between women and men. Many stories have been written using this thought process as the catalysts for the work.