Women in America Essay

     Throughout United States history oppression of people has always been prominent, whether through African American’s and segregation or Asian American’s during the Vietnam War. What is often ignored is our history of the oppression of women. No matter what time in history, there is always a case to be found of the discrimination over gender. Many people know of how African American’s came into freedom and the long perilous road it took, but few know the struggles, changes and hardships that women have perceived to get where they are today. As the civil war halted and industrialization and urbanization came into play, the role of women changed dramatically and their status

Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. Since early times women have been uniquely viewed as a creative source of human life. Historically, however, they have been considered not only intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil. Colonial women faced the harsh realities of childbirth, housework, and serving their husbands because it was tradition. The ways of the ‘old country’ culture was forced upon a new one, disallowing any room for new ideals. Although constrained by society Colonial women have had their part in shaping America.

While social change has brought on more changes than what women are a custom too, at one point in history women actually felt a form of importance in fulfilling their roles not only in the home; but outside as well. “These demographic shifts account for many new or altered roles, such as increased number of duel-earner families, later and fewer marriages, fewer children, increased life expectancy, and the massive migration shifting employees across a nation and across the globe” (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 275).

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,

Women and men are nestled into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. Women play the roles of mothers, housekeepers, and servants to their husbands and children, and men act as providers, protectors, and heads of the household. These gender roles stem from the many culture myths that exist pertaining to America, including those of the model family, education, liberty, and of gender. The majority of these myths are misconceptions, but linger because we, as Americans, do not analyze or question them. The misconception of gender suggests that biological truths no longer dictate our gender roles as men and women; they derive from cultural myths. We, as a nation, need

The very first supply of laborers consisted of forty seven gentleman, twelve laborers, and other useless occupations (Document C). Notice how there were nearly four times as much gentlemen than there are laborers. In this case, the Jamestown people shipped more men who did not work with their hands, and less who actually contribute to the work. Regardless of there not being many laborers, the number of females had always been zero (Document E). Though it may not have contributed much to the deaths of the colonist. Women, back in the days had always been known to cook and clean. In other words, without the women, most of the men were prone to laziness and doing less of the work. With this in mind, the settlers in Jamestown had not been working as hard as they should’ve been. Especially since they shipped the kind of occupations that seemed more like hobbies (Document C). This information is relevant, because a carpenter, sailor, barber, bricklayer, and tobacco maker don’t benefit the needs of survival, but rather the wants of a colonist’s everyday life. In the long run, the colonist of Jamestown had most likely learned their lessons of shipping more people who contributed, than those who did not contribute to the

Gender inequality has engulfed the United States and placed copious varying roles onto the male and female sexes. According to Leila Aboulela, Minaret, “All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.” Discrimination places women into different roles and takes away numerous privileges. However in America today after more than a century of struggles by dedicated activists who fought to alter these ideals and gain further rights, the perception of women in society and their contributions to society have been greatly transformed.

First, I will discuss the role of the women in the Colonial Period. The tasks of the women included cooking, heating, lighting, housework, emptying chamber pots, making clothes, doing laundry, tending to the sick, childcare, and taking care of the livestock (“History of the First 13 Colonies and Life in the Colonial Period” 2). Women living in the country was expected to do their productive work inside the home, in most cases, it benefited the family and not the outside world. Women living in cities would be engaged in similar tasks, however, they have more opportunities, for example, hiring themselves into the community, which would serve as nurses or seamstresses. Some women prior to the 18th century served as midwives, which attended the births of children ("Female Roles" 4). While most women worked inside the home or alongside the male, some were

American history is primarily concerned with the evaluation of imperative events affiliated with the primordial American society (Kellogg & William 439). It sheds light of the past on the present hence, establishing a significant correlation between the precedent, present, and future. Slavery, the revolutionary war, the colonial period, and the U.S independence are some of the predominant events that characterize the American history.

Even as far back as the United States independence, women did not possess any civil rights. According to Janda, this view is also known as protectionism, the notion that women mush be sheltered from life's harsh realities. Protectionism carried on throughout the general populations view for many decades until the 1920's when the women's movement started. Women finally received the right to vote in the Nineteenth Amendment. The traditional views of protectionism, however, remained in people's minds until the 1970's (Janda et al, 2000: 538-539).

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

In her essay, “Housewives and Homework: The Lacemakers of Narsapur,” Chandra Talpade Mohanty focused on how men sold products that women produced and profited from women’s work. The essay basically pointed out how work can be defined according to sexual identity. It made me wonder if American women are still perceived by men in society as being housewives even though some of us are doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. Is the work that women do seen as what Mohanty pointed out in her essay as “leisure time activities”? I think that to some extent men believe that women’s sole purpose on Earth is to be their wives/partners and to be good mothers to their children. Even though we “leisurely,” as Mohanty so

Annette Bair and Marilyn Friedman have opposing views on whether women have distinct moral perspectives. Like Friedman, I believe that women have no different moral perspectives than men. Some people, like Bair, think that women base their moral perspectives on merely trust and love and men base theirs on justice. Friedman points out that care and justice coincide . People use justice to decide what is appropriate in caring relationships and care is brought into account when determining what is just. Since these two moral perspectives correspond, gender does not distinguish different moral perspectives.

Working in a factory which is similar to living in a third world country is difficult. Horrible, intolerable conditions haunt workers at home and in the working environment. Women lead tough lives because they are dictated orders, by men, in and out of the house. Many women have families to support, so making little salaries is a strain on the family. The main issue with conditions in the work force is that management does not have a clear understanding of what the women and the children working are going through. Working conditions in third world countries are similar to some working conditions in America.

Women role in a society had always been a changing since prehistoric times so it could not be defined accurately. However there always has been a stereotype male figure in the society which nearly has not altered since the very first . Besides the women role also differed between religions and civilisations, for instance in early native American Tribes women were something deified , this however shifted and women no longer thought to be superior ,and quiet opposite they were considered to be inferior.