The World Of Work For Women In The 1800's

In the early 1800’s, the life of women was that of many obligations and few choices. In this time period, a majority of the world, if not all of it was very much living a patriarchal society. “When modern historians and sociologists describe a ‘patriarchal society’ they mean that men hold the positions of power: head of the family unit, leaders of social groups, bosses in the workplace and heads of government.” (AboutEducation.com, 2015)

As a variety of marriages conclude of egalitarian wives, there have been studies that support the decline of women house work over the years. Within a 13 year study, Artis and Pavalko, were able to examine the differences and the causes of change. They observed how women’s total domestic responsibility dropped to an average of 10 percent, from the total of 57.75 percent (2003). After their research, it was found that the number of children within a household also add to the average of household labor a wife completes. It was estimated “that an increase of one child under age 5 increases women’s responsibility for housework by more than 5%” (Artis & Pavalko, 2003). When comparing a family with only one child, to a family that has three or four,

In the article “Gender Deviance and Household Work: The Role of Occupation” Schneider discussed the roles between the male and female genders within the household and work place. Schneider explains the conception of gender norms that are expected by society, as well as, gender deviance and neutralization. Schneider touches on some important ways in which our cultural conceptions of gender roles can be shaped by economic processes. Schneider also provides alternative measures that contribute to the household work performed and carried out by the man and woman. He believes that gender deviance may be created through the kind of work the man and woman do, not just their income. Schneider results that there is “pronounced gender inequality” in the amount of time men and women spend on housework (Schneider, 1045). The gender roles lead our society into misconstrued “duties/responsibilities”.

The pictures above portray the emergence of the women in the workforce during the 19th Century. The role of women at the workplace started out with simple factory jobs during the Industrial Revolution. With a serious drop in the birth rate and a subsequent rise of the industrial economy during this period more and more women were going out to work. With the numbers of clerical positions opening up in cities and emergence of factories women were becoming essential to the working class.

One example in which western society dismissed the importance of women is through her work. Many people do not believe that housework could be considered a real type of work. However, it can be just as challenging as work outside the home. Women are denied access to jobs outside of the household because jobs outside of the household are considered “men’s work.” Women are only allowed to do the domestic type of

The article I read, How Society Pays When Women’s Work is Unpaid, was written by Claire Cain Miller published in the New York Times, 2016. The article discusses how women spend more time at home doing chores and do not receive any pay for it since the work around the house is not really considered real work. Whereas men spend less time or no time doing house work and more time in a job and receiving pay for their work. The article also mentions how important the unpaid work women perform at home is for societies to function. it also talks about how Ms. Gates, Bill Gate’s wife, started a foundation to help reduce gaps in unpaid work, since in many countries, it is mainly women doing all the housework and if men do help around the house it’s

In the article How Society Pays When Women’s Work is Unpaid, by Claire Cain Miller of The New York Times, Miller focuses on the power and time imbalances between men and women in regards to essential work and unpaid labour and how the two sexes are viewed differently in society. Men are seen as the high powered ‘bread winners’ of the household; who go off to work while their wives stay at home and kill time by cleaning up after the house and children. The problem here is that unpaid labour done by women in the home, is work and labour and needs to be recognized as so; as this domesticated work is essential for everyday life to continue. “This unpaid work is essential for households and societies to function. But it is also valued less than

A lot of gender inequality originates from the family. Typically, the roles of parenting have been gendered. Specifically, men typically do public sphere work, known as the breadwinners. On the Contrast, mothers tend to do more of the private sphere work, known as the housewives. This gendered styled household really started to institutionalize in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In a lot of homes, the father went to work while the mother stayed home. At the time, people painted the picture that being a housewife was any women’s dream. But in reality, “Many full-time mothers were troubled by the isolation of their daily lives, the repetitiveness of household tasks, and the invisibility of their accomplishments,” (Stoller 280). This breadwinner and housewife model has begun to become less prominent. Today only about 12 percent of American households consist of husband who financially supports a wife and children, while the mother stays home (Wade 248). Even though more women are entering the workforce, the household labor is still feminized causing a plethora of inequalities. After a day at work, most women are plagued with the second shift, which is the housework done after work. Even though there are much more women in the workforce than the 1950’s, women still do way more of the privatized work. In fact, per week, women spend 15 more hours of private work than men; this significantly disadvantages women (classroom notes). Furthermore, there are institutional policies

In the United States, women hold jobs as well as hold the duty of being homemaker. “Men still enjoy considerable power and affluence...hold[ing] the highest paying and most prestigious jobs and are regarded as the primary providers and sustainers of the family” (Pitlane). Therefore, one can see similarities in the division of labor from thousands of years ago, but altered in a way that women are taking on more roles by having jobs.

Most women can pick and choose the role they want to play in any situation, but back in the day, women couldn’t decide for themselves because everything was already planned for them. Women were often stereotypes as happy wives and mothers. The only jobs that they had access to were as teachers, secretaries, and nurses. This cold society felt that a woman’s main goal was to get married, have children, and become an experienced housewife while

Coming from a period where women were highly sworn against joining the workforce and was to focus more on raising children and taking care of the home. For a long time women working inside of the home circulated society until the wars started happening, which caused women to have to step up and join the workforce to help keep their families operating with an income. However the idea that women should still work inside of the home is still a traditional for many women. With today’s society majority of the women in the world are employed and work somewhere whether it is full-time or part-time job.

Throughout the history of mankind, women have not been in the workforce until recently. A woman 's place has mainly been at the home, until only about sixty years ago. Women would take care of the children, cook, clean, care for the sick, and when needed, they would be extra labor around the farm. Women first started to work in large numbers during the industrial revolution, mainly in the textile industry. Since then, most women have gone into the workforce. Today a family cannot survive on the wages of the man alone. However, even though women are needed to work, they still do not make as much as men. There are still inequalities between men and women, and there is still a large wage gap.

In early America, a woman’s life consisted of only farm and family. “The women worked inside the house converting raw products into supplies, whereas men did the outside work such as planting and harvesting crops.”() All of a woman’s duties are what we refer to as “housewife” “which varied from region to region, but regardless of a “[couple of differences] the activities were much the [same all around].” () In spite of the majority of women performing their usual house responsibilities, “[some] would perform jobs by men [such as being] blacksmiths, silversmiths, and sail makers, tailors, painters, and wheelwrights and shopkeepers of every sort.”() Many women “practiced medicine also to become nurses, unlicensed physicians and midwives.” () However because women were seen inferior to males, “women [had to] work side by side with their spouses without being given any power or able to share in the political [view with the] men. Most women simply accepted the division of political labor and their role as women, being described as their husband’s better half.”() This mentality of women being the “home maker” was “maintained throughout the 1800’s for the majority of Americans who continued to live on farms,” () however this was not the case for the new up-and-coming middle class. “For the middle class home and family was seen as separate from the world of work and money. The middle class women continued to perform their traditional work but it was no longer considered real work,

There are debates in classrooms, workplaces, and in general conversations about what men can do that women cannot. In history classes, teachers often explain how feminist society was “back in the day.” Females were given the job of staying home and taking care of the children. They were to have meals prepared, ready for when the men got home from a long day’s work and do laundry. It was not until the mid-1800’s that women were given permission to work somewhere else besides their home. Textile mills began to open which employed over 7,000 unmarried women. During the years of World War I, they were hired as nurses to aid the wounded soldiers. At that time, the lives of many men were in their hands. From then on, females played a big role in hospitals. Once women were allowed to study and work, they were

This does not mean that we oppose woman’s work; rather, we stress the fact that the main work of a woman is to work in her house. Her product is her children. It is a valuable work indeed.