Women's Battles in "The Midwife Addresses the Newly Delivered Woman"

In exploring this poem the tone of the opening line – “Abortions will not let you forget” – can be viewed as regretful and as offering a kind of warning. As we move through the poem the tone of line four, might be called literally imaginative, as she say; “The singers and workers that never handled the air”. While in lines 5-6 the tone seems at first brutally honest and realistic and then affectionate and realistic. As she continues to lines 7-10, as well as in many lines of this poem, the mother expresses herself as a person who is fully familiar with all the small, subtle realities of parenting. She even expresses her attitudes toward her abortions even more complex.

Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich provides a glimpse of America post Revolutionary war through her critically acclaimed book, A Midwife’s Tale, which is the interpretation of Martha Ballard’s seemingly humble diary—a record of her life as a midwife, mother, wife, and caregiver from 1785 through 1812. The book features Ballard’s account of her average day’s activities, which, in turn, serves to represent the tasks of women in her society; however, Ulrich cross-references the diary with documents such as court transcripts, land records, maps, and other diaries in order to piece together a more detailed account than one gathered solely from Ballard’s words. While popular belief envisions women in this timeframe as being constrained to the home and a litter of children, it is Ballard’s diary that reveals that women played a major role in other aspects of society, including the market economy, medicine and childbirth, versus just being mothers and homemakers.

As the first one’s to awake in the morning at about 3 or 4A.M., a woman’s duties were to start the fire, and then proceed to make tortillas for breakfast. The women would continue to clean for the remainder of the day, until their husband came home from a long, hard day at work on the farmland. She would have a hot bath ready for him, and then the family would have a big evening meal. The husbands then were able to enjoy some pleasure time as the women served them. At a later time, the women would then sit sown and weave or spin

Many people need confidence for a better life. In the historical fiction novel, The Midwife’s Apprentice, the author Karen Cushman, shows that the hardships people experience in life change them and gives them confidence in what they do. In the middle ages, where life was devastating and uneasy, people made hard decisions to support their life and were often treated poorly. Alyce, the main character, who lives during the middle ages first lives in a dung heap and then transitions to stable job positions. But as the story progresses she discovers she must change herself and develop confidence to live a better life.

Aztec women were close to being equals as well. Although Aztec women could not fight, they could own property, get divorced, and remarry. Owning property was a very rare trait for women of this era.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, it became one of his greatest legacies. In the first line he wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" (U.S. Constitution, paragraph 2). Jefferson wrote these words to give inspiration to future generations in the hopes that they would be able to change what he either would or could not. The word “men” in the Declaration in the early 1700 and 1800’s meant exactly that, but even then it only was true for some men, not all. Women, children, and other segments of the population such as slaves and Native Americans were clearly not included. Jefferson himself was a slave owner and held the belief that women were

Women, in general, were expected to be able to run their homes, taking care of their spouses and children in whatever form was needed at the

Aztec community was experience and knew how to maximise the production by following crop rotations on highlands where less irrigation treatments are available, also exchanging in inter-cities to have different availability of vegetation (Peters-Golden 2002a: 21).In the form of occupation the status of women was limited on some extents, as the entire section of croft practiced by women of all classes only. Women of the lower rank used to produce simple goods for household where Nobel women were engaged in producing ceremonial capes, by using finest cotton, rabbit fur and feathers(Peters-Golden 2002a: 22). This division of labor amongst women represent status-run going the empire with less equalities. "A boy was declared a soldier"(Peters-Golden 2002a: 29) and the only way a women n get honor in warfare is only if a women dies while giving birth a boy. The high involvement of men in warfare resulted in handling of agriculture and small level horticulture by women, as they used to cultivate cotton and decorative herbs which were used in making clothes.

The roles of women are useful to historians because they provide an insight into the life experiences, cultures, thoughts, and every day life of a historical period. Similarly this essay will examine the roles of women, which provide insight into the Aztec civilization’s many strengths. The Aztec child bearer/warrior, priestess and sexual being will be analyzed to display that gender relations were complementary that produced equality. The midwife and weaver reveal that the Aztec’s specialization proved successful through fields like medicine and the market. Finally the Aztec daughter and mother will be examined to show that the Aztec’s had a strong socialization system established through education and the family. For these reasons

Harwood wrote the poem with relatively simple composition techniques but it provides a rather big impact which helps to give an insight into the life of a mother or nurturer which bares the burdens of children.

Call the Midwife fills that need we have to see how poor people live and also serve them. These midwifes spend their time serving members of the community no matter the problems that arise and we don’t often recognize that effort. These women as we talked about in class also often don’t have people supporting them and they are taken advantage of, so seeing them be cared for in such a supportive way is amazing. The emotional bond that the show thrives on is vital because people don’t always make connections with facts and tables but hearing stories of a young girl in a workhouse or having to give up their child because they were unwed and forced into prostitution, makes it real. I started watching the show a couple years ago and while it may not be the perfect solution to learning about this time and place compared to history texts and the like because it is a TV drama after all. But seeing the people interacting or even learning about how a woman’s body works during pregnancy and childbirth is so important. So many things they do in the show or in Jennifer Worth’s books have never occurred to be before I started watching and reading because poverty and pregnancy isn’t really talked about. We haven’t escaped that woman’s world being separate from the rest of the work and seeing how these people and especially women lived is important.

Women could, however, own their own businesses and make their own money. They played a big role in the society’s economics. Along with this, they were able to be priestess and many goddesses were also women.

Women during this time had three specific roles. The first was as peace weavers, which means they were put into a forced marriage in order to create peace between tribes. Another role they had were as cupbearers, which meant that they had to pass mead or beer around to the men when they are celebrating. Lastly, women assumed the role of motivators as they support and encourage their men

The fear most mothers face, in not only today’s society, but in generations before is whether or not they will be a good mother to their child. Though this worry has not changed over the years, there is one fear that pregnant woman in the seventeenth.century hoped would never be their fate, death. In the 1600’s, because our knowledge of medicine was not as advanced, it was complicated when it came to childbirth. If not taken care of correctly, there could have been a problem that could have lead to the death of the mother. Because soon to be mothers did not know whether they would make it through the birth, they were worried about what would happen after their death. They were concerned for their family and how they will be remembered. There was a poet who knew how these women felt because she was one of those women who feared death. Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “Before the

Throughout time, gender roles have always been evident as they have developed at such an early time in human history and continues to remain. Children have been raised under the idea that men and women are different. For example, in the Roman era, males were raised to be tough warriors and females were solely recognized for their only role in society - to raise a family and look after the home (Cartwright, Mark 1). Little girls were essentially taught that they had a limited role in society and that their only purpose is to find a man and reciprocate his actions. Anything else such as political relations, women were not allowed to participate in. Found in paragraph 12 of the article The Role of Women in the Roman World it states, “Roman males did not think women their equal but neither did they hate them. The story echoes the important role women played in linking families in Roman society - their family of birth and then of marriage.” (Cartwright, Mark 1) This is actually a standard that has remained throughout history. Exploring further back into the past of civilization, gender roles can even be found in Aztec culture. In paragraph 3 of Gender Roles in Aztec Culture – Social Constructs it explains, “Gender complementarity was a prominent aspect of Aztec culture – considering women and men to be different but equally important to the whole of society.” (Glynnis 1) This reveals that even as early as the time when tribes like the Aztecs reigned, gender still determined a person’s place in society. Elaborated in paragraph 4 of the same article, “Women