Politics Of Sexuality And Materialism

After World War II, the nation was blooming. Everything was growing, people were going to college, and wealth grew. The idea of the perfect American life was developed, this included a husband that worked and a wife that stayed home and took care of the house and children. To look at how women are affected by this perfect life I am analyzing “Governor Adlai Stevenson Tells College Women about Their Place in Life, 1955” and “Good Housekeeping: Every Executive Needs a Perfect Wife, 1956”.

To amplify this argument, one must remember that society once regarded colonial women as necessary to the economy’s functioning, just as her husband was in the field or in a mercantile occupation. Throughout the colonial period, the American economy, centered in the household, in which women performed a central role and her economic function was valued. Still, overriding these changes, women were always subordinate to men, emphasizing a “feminine mystique” which defined the female role in sentimental terms and supported the theory of “separate spheres.” The premise here is that before the American Revolution, women’s work was valued. Thus, women of the nineteenth century suffered a “status loss” in comparison to colonial women. The middle class deemphasized women’s economic role, insisting that the “genteel female,” should be ornamental, guided by her emotions, oriented toward family and religion. In an ideal world, the women who responded to these attitudes dared not to flee from their households, yet by a curious paradox,

In the 19th century, the Market Revolution was created, resulting significance in American history by redefining the roles for genders, especially for women. During this time, factories began to appear changing the nature of work for men and women. Although, women were employed cheaper because at the time in Colonial America, men were considered superior to women, even in terms of morality. Some women worked effectively by applying their strength of factories, while other women adapted to a private lifestyle avoiding conflicts in the market economy. However, the privileges were determined based on a family’s class status, which were middle and upper classmen that gave a higher advantage than those who were poor. Those who were married had no

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

During the middle of the nineteenth century, a so-called "cult of domesticity" arose in the United States and Great Britain predicated upon a number of assumptions regarding the proper role of women in society, and it served to protect male hegemony during a period of historical upheaval. According to Godey's Lady's Book, one of the most successful magazines of the period, "the perfection of womanhood... is the wife and mother, the center of the family, that magnet that draws man to the domestic altar, that makes him a civilized being... the wife is truly the light of the home." A woman's appropriate role was that of a wife and mother, and they were expected to follow certain cardinal virtues that contributed to the perpetuation of this role, which formed the basis of the cult's ideological work. The cult of domesticity was an ideological construct which served to support the dominant authorities of the time, and only by examining the cult of domesticity (and the "angel of the house" which served as its focus) as points of intersection between religious, political, and economic power can one begin to understand how the role of women in the nineteenth century was regulated in response to historical developments that threatened male hegemony, namely, nationalist anxiety following the American Revolution and the ascendance of capitalism as the overarching political and economic structure.

Gender roles, societal expectations and gainful employment for women in America were quite limited prior to the early 1800s. By 1850 we can see that doors were opening little by little due to subtle changes in attitudes and the needs of our emerging industrialized nation. Many upper middle class women were concerned with more than domesticity. They were felt that a woman was more than a wife and mother only concerned with her home and family. Between 1850 and 1950 the three most important changes for women were political voice due to the women’s suffrage movement, expanded access to education, and rich, educated women leading the way to social reforms.

In a time when the United States was hurling into a decade full of change with regards to society and economy, many American citizens changed the idea of themselves, the manner in which they purchased their goods and where they lived. The 1920’s also saw a large spike in populations in urban areas as increasing numbers of people made the journey from rural farms to urban cities. The American economy also changed significantly, developing into a mass consumer economy, with the development of the assembly line and mass production. With this new economy and city life, American citizens also began to change significantly in many ways. Women turned their modest, Victorian image of themselves into a modern, more liberal image of themselves.

During the early 1800's women were stuck in the Cult of Domesticity. Women had been issued roles as the moral keepers for societies as well as the nonworking house-wives for families. Also, women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially. However, women’s efforts during the 1800’s were effective in challenging traditional intellectual, social, economical, and political attitudes about a women’s place in society.

American women’s expectations in the 19th century began to rapidly change because of the evolution of industrialism. Women and their children were becoming the main workers for piece work. The cult of the “True Womanhood” brought the idea of piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness was a part of who they were and their lifestyles as middle-class women. It provided ongoing training with advice through the “Godey’s Magazine.” The working class women could not hold themselves to these standards for several reasons. Industrialization and the rise of the middle class impacted expectations of American women by enabling them to contribute to a capitalist society. However, capitalism created distinct class divisions that prevented working class women from achieving the ideals of feminity. Working class women did not have the same privileges as the middle class because they would have to spend the majority of their daily lives working.

“Traditionally, women [of the nineteenth century, and often today] were defined physically and intellectually as the ‘weaker’ set, in all ways subordinate to male authority” (Marsh) . In the average household, the father and husband were above the women in the

In the mid to late nineteenth century, America was full of potential. Settlers were cultivating the west, blacks that were once captive were no longer enslaved, and a woman’s role in society was undergoing a transformation. The reality of this all was, blacks were not considered equal status with whites, American Indians were being pushed out west and women were still considered second-class citizens.

Social and economic changes around 1820 to 1860 stimulated the “Commercial Period,” which produced two “distinct spheres of influence: the business world of men and the private domestic world of women” (Grace 10). Instead of the home being “a means of production,” industry’s influence was being felt for the first time, and with its arrival, men became connected to the public realm more clearly, and conversely, women to the private realm (10).

Coming into the nineteenth century, women were looked at as feminist. “Feminism,” as we know the term today, was nonexistent in nineteenth-century America (Cruea 187). Feminist describes as someone embracing the beliefs that all people are entitled to freedom and liberty within reason. Gender, sexual orientations, skin color, ethnicity, religion, culture or lifestyle should not be considered as a form of discrimination. Women roles, in the nineteenth century, were to take care of the cooking, cleaning, caring for the children and making sure the husbands were comfortable after long days of work. As years pass, women begin to find work, attain a voter rights and even began owning properties, which begin to separate them from the men of

During the nineteenth century, women played various different roles in society from millworkers to housewife’s, but that was mainly influenced by social status, (class) marital status, and what region of the country they lived in, not so much the decision of the woman herself. The idea of what a woman ought to be doing differed from different ends of the spectrum, for instance in document number one, in chapter ten in Constructing The American past titled “Religious Women” by A.J. Graves is states that “home is her appropriate spere of action;” it then goes on to say that if she leaves her sphere of action to indulge in other activities that, “she is deserting the station which God and nature have assigned to her”.

During the past century there have been significant changes in the modern values and norms of our society. While both men and women have had difficulties revolving around these changes, the Nineteenth Century really impacted “a sharp differentiation between the gender roles” (Radek, 2001, para. 1). Males and females are thought to have separate societal duties based on gender differences. The male’s duties began to be in the public sphere and the woman’s duties are confined to the privacy of the home. During this changing century, female status began to dramatically emerge through the fight for female education and women’s rights. Although men have had some significant challenges, they have not been more affected by the modern cult of individualism and self-actualization than women have.