Gender Roles In The Crucible

Feminism Over Decades Women have a role to fulfill in society. From the 1600s to now there have been gender roles in place for men and women. These roles were supposed to be followed, especially by women, to be accepted in society. Women with less rights were seen as traditional and people felt bad for the independent women, but it became more acceptable over time.

Women in the 1600s had less rights than men. In The Crucible women were needed to be housewives and mothers. Elizabeth Proctor was a great example of that stereotype, because she stayed home taking care of her children all the time. On the other hand Abigail was frowned upon for her behavior, but her age saved her. Since she was an orphaned kid, she got away with acting like she was independent. Abigail said, “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” In this quote Abigail was

In A Rose for Emily, Emily was an independent woman, after her father died. The townspeople and mayor felt bad for her, so she was exempt from paying her taxes. She did not go by many of the traditional standards that women were supposed to live by. For example she had not gotten married or been close to marriage until later in her life. People thought this was weird, so once she finally found a man, that many people didn’t approve of, they allowed it. Homer did not marry her and tried leaving her, but she did not want him to leave her so she made sure he didn’t. The story said, “She will persuade him yet.” Not many women around this time would have forced a man to stay with them. Emily defied the traditional standards of women back then and the whole town felt bad that she was so independent and had to do stuff for herself.