Status of Women in Colonial Society

First Generations: Women in Colonial America by Carol Berkin, explains to us how different seventeenth century women’s lives were from what we know today. The seventeenth century women didn’t have many civil liberties. Carol Berkin gives us a view of life experience that these Colonial women and Native American women went through. This helps us perceive why many Colonial women may have chosen to stay with their Native American captors. Seventeenth century colonial women had little civil rights, especially after being married.

Over decades women has always suffered from discrimination and the lax of rights. In the past puritans men were the only one who had benefits; however women play most of the roles. Massachusetts Bay Colony was a place where the masculine sex ruled, female opinion wasn't given importance at all. The Puritans were really strict people and they believed that women weren't capable of contributing any information to the town and church meetings.

Indentured servants were used in early colonial times as a means of passage to the new world. The cash crops of the early settlers were exhaustingly labor intensive. In fact, U.S. History (2015) indicated that “the growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America” (p. 1). The technology did not exist at the time for machinery that clears the ground and works the land as it does today. The work had to be done by hand; from clearing and prepping the fields to harvesting the crops, it was all manual labor for which the new land did not have ample supply of.

In the middle colonies, a large part of the labor force consisted of indentured servants--men and women, but more often men, who would travel to the colonies to work under a contract for approximately four to seven years. However, according to “Indentured Servants in The U.S.”, “an indentured servant’s contract could be extended as punishment for breaking a law” such as running away or becoming pregnant, in a woman’s case. Throughout the time that they worked, the indentured servants were under the complete rule of their masters, but they were provided transportation/passage, food, clothing, and shelter. Indentured servants were a useful source of labor, but the problem was that it was only temporary, and after their contract ended, they had the option of continuing to work

“Some women fear the fire, some women simply become it.” - R.H. Sin. During Colonial America, women weren’t as valued as in current day. In Colonial times, women worked around the house, didn’t have legals rights, some were wealthy and others were slaves and others lived in the city.

As the years progressed from the 1700s into the 1800s, women started to see that they were not treated as equal as men even though they could do anything men could. During the late 1800s was when women first started to fight for more rights and equality. They started forming more and more women groups, and even went on labor strikes to protest the diversity. Although it seemed that as hard as they tried to gain this equality, the harder it was for them to obtain it. They were treated horribly and unequally to men. While African American men received the power to vote in 1870, women still did not have a chance at that right. Even though many people disagree that women were treated fairly, the studies show that they were discriminated against. The treatment of women in the late 1800s was discriminatory because they

Women were an essential part of the formation of creating the early United States of America. We can tell because of all of their contributions in Jamestown and Plymouth. In 1608 is when women first started coming to the New World to assist with anything that the men may need help with. Over the years, women would be a huge support during the Colonial Period and American Revolutions, even afterwards towards the eighteen century. If it was not for women coming to the New World, the men would not have lasted long in this New World and the United States would not be what it has become today or even was created. Yes, men were the first settlers to the New World, although women created an atmosphere that assisted men from the beginning to present

Life in the colonies was different for a female indentured servant and for a native-born female. The law forbade indentured servants to marry until they finished out their contract, which was generally about four to five years of service. Unless she found a man to uplift her contract, she would have to bear a rough beginning (Hawke 63-64). The exposure to malaria left women vulnerable to more deadly diseases, the physical work was harder in the colonies than in England due to the fact that in addition to all of the common household chores, there were also fields to tend, so many did not make it to their freedom. If they did make it to the end of their services however, they received: food, clothing, and tools to give them a start in life. The plan was for women to go into the world looking for a husband, but many married their employers, those who did not, married quickly since men outnumbered women seven to one. (64).

The structure of Colonial America was a fearful system of judgmental men and women who had to label an individual before they acknowledged their rights or lack thereof. A man is based on physical aspects and were dominant in colonial times, while women were meant to be submissive with no rights along with the slaves and Native Americans. Colonial males controlled the household and could not be questioned whereas married colonial females’ held no rights or words as her husband now spoke for her. This was one of the many sole ideals of the European countries that crossed the waters with the initial pioneers. The labor system were also based on gender as women were seen to remain indoors and adhere to the needs of her husband and family while the fields and physical labor were meant for the men.

These settlers would sign a contract and become indentured servants. They traded seven years of work for a trip to America and other life essentials. Instead of receiving better treatment, these poor people were treated very badly. “Beatings and whippings were common. Servant women were raped.

Women have always had the short end of the stick, whether it was with voting, home life, or working. They were never shown the respect that they deserved or earned. They worked hard and were never repaid for their work. In the early colonial period, women were treated differently based off their wealth and religion, and after men started making laws, they gained nothing. Women went from having an unspecified class status in the early colonial period to second class status by the early republic era because men wrote the laws.

During the American colonial period, the presence of patriarchy was undeniable in both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Chesapeake colony, but little is known about the important roles that women filled. Although there were many shared roles among women in both colonies, their level of importance in the success of their colonies differed. The Massachusetts Bay Colony women were more essential to the success of their colony than the women of the Chesapeake colony, especially with regards to its economy, education, and religion.

No matter what a woman did or thought, she was still seen as the lesser of the sexes.

Women were always seen as being inferior or “weak” to men; that they couldn’t do the same things men did because they lacked the physical strength to do so. Because women were physically inferior, it became easy to oppress them due to this difference in power.

Throughout much of history, women have been viewed as inferior to men. In the 1800s and early 1900s, women were not allowed to hold the same jobs or