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Essay on women led movements
Women's independence movements
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WOMEN IN WESTERN SOCIETY
Since the beginning of mankind women have been dominated by men. They were to obey and serve man. Their main role in society was to bear children, take care of the household and to be loyal and faithful to their husbands. They were to remain subjects to males. Many viewed women as slaves to man and that should be placed in a household where they belong because women could not perform the tasks of men.
During the renaissance family played a crucial role for women. Parents, often to strengthen business and to tighten family bonds arranged many marriages. The male figure was the head of the family. He had authority over everyone. He was in charge and managed of all legal and finical problems. The woman managed only the household. Due to the arranged marriages, women had no emotional feelings for their husbands, which led to temptations. Women were sometimes killed for having an affair, where as men were aloud to have a mistress. Most women family life was their only destiny.
Witchcraft affected the lives of many women during the 16th and 17th century. Lots of women were burned at the stake for being accused of being a witch. Most witchcraft trials women of the lower classes were most likely to be accused of witchcraft. But by the mid 17th century this witchcraft craze was starting to vanish.
The Enlightenment questioned the role of women. For centuries men have dominated what the role of women should be. Many male writers believed that that women were lower intellectually value to men. But there were some philosophies, which showed some positive feed back for women. They argued that women were capable of all that men are. It was the woman thinkers who added new perspectives to the women question by suggesting better improvements for woman. Those thinkers believed that woman should be better educated. They should be able to learn what men are learning. A English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was the fonder of modern European feminism. She began the women movement arguing the rights of women. She declared, that women should have equal rights with education and in economic and political life.
During the French Revolution woman began to show that they weren't afraid anymore. After the Declaration of Rights of Man and citizen on August 26, 1789. Women started questioning themselves , do this rights include women. These law br...
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...were women because men believed that women's natural role was to take care of children. There was still being paid lower salaries.
In 1830, a number of women in United States and Europe worked together in several movements. They wanted more improvement for women. They wanted to secure divorce and property laws. Some women were able to get access to higher education. First they took over teaching them the medical field. This movement soon entered the political world. They believed women should have the right to vote. Only in a few countries and states the women won.
Both Mussolini and Hitler believed that women should stay home and bear children. They both wanted women out of the work force. The women worked to hard to get where they are. No dictator would drive them out. They both failed.
After World War 2 things started to change. Women made up lots of the work force. They occupied the same traditional jobs. But salaries still didn't change; they were being paid less then men. Many women still faced inequality. They still had to raise a family. They were many women protests after the war. After all the battles and protests women finally got what they deserved a right to vote.
All in all, American suffragists sacrificed their time and risked their lives just to claim themselves the right that they should be given for long time ago. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920 which give American women a voice in politics by voting. Following the ratification was the time of World War II that gave women opportunity to get back to the work force. Men were being sent out to war, women were recruited actively in working forces. Despite the contribution of women to the war, they were still seen as secondary to men. Because of that, the hope for equality in gender in the United States grew even stronger after World War II.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood.
Women in this era had just begun to secure some freedom from their typical cultural expectations. They were expected to take care of the children, cook, clean, sew and be presentable to society. As jobs were made available to women, only a low percentage of these women started to work outside of the home. This means that many women had chosen to stay inside the home to remain in the role of “house keeper”. Even though the woman attained some freedom they were still considered inferior to men. Men still had the most authority in the household and
On August 18, 1920 the nineteenth amendment was fully ratified. It was now legal for women to vote on Election Day in the United States. When Election Day came around in 1920 women across the nation filled the voting booths. They finally had a chance to vote for what they thought was best. Not only did they get the right to vote but they also got many other social and economic rights. They were more highly thought of. Some people may still have not agreed with this but they couldn’t do anything about it now. Now that they had the right to vote women did not rush into anything they took their time of the right they had.
Mary Wollstonecraft was as revolutionary in her writings as Thomas Paine. They were both very effective writers and conveyed the messages of their ideas quite well even though both only had only the most basic education. Wollstonecraft was a woman writing about women's rights at a time when these rights were simply non-existent and this made her different from Paine because she was breaking new ground, thus making her unique. Throughout her lifetime, Wollstonecraft wrote about the misconception that women did not need an education, but were only meant to be submissive to man. Women were treated like a decoration that had no real function except to amuse and beguile. Wollstonecraft was the true leader in women's rights, advocating a partnership in relationships and marriage rather than a dictatorship. She was firm in her conviction that education would give women the ability to take a more active role in life itself.
To accomplish this, Orwell utilizes the theme of individuality versus tyranny, foreshadowing, and irony, in order to fully extract all possible motives behind Winston’s actions.Many countries, such as the United States, are founded on principles of individuality reigning over tyranny, more specifically, the freedom of choice. However, in the futuristic Oceania, run by “Big Brother”, such freedom and individuality is, for the most part, completely suspended. To act impulsively, or choose to oppose Big Brother, is a “thoughtcrime” of dire consequence. This is the basis behind the Inner Party’s control of Oceania. Winston however, from the commencement of the novel, showed that he was not willing to conform to such a tyrannical society. From his writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his diary as the novel opened, to his relationship with Julia, which was considered sexcrime in Oceania, Winston proved his thoughts were antiparallel to those of the Inner Party.
This section on women's history will show the events that led to the suffrage movement and what the outcome was after the movement, plus how those events are involved in today's society. The women of the post suffrage era would not have the ability to the wide variety of professions were it not for their successes in the political arena for that time. In the early 1900’s when women were barred from most professions and limited in the amount of money they could earn, a group of suffragists led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton started to develop the women into an influential and powerful leaders of this country. The original women who started the suffrage movement had nothing to build on form former women groups. Therefore these women were the pioneers of the women's movement. The next era of women took the prior teaching of Anthony and Stanton and took it one step further with forming groups of women who not only talked about women's rights but also what they could do for country as well. They final step in the suffrage movement was the making of allies with powerful men who could help them take what they have learned from the earlier groups and combine that with the new concepts to form a powerful gender.
There are countless activities involving women, but the most talked-about topics are women's rights, their suffrage, and the roles they played. In the 19th century, women began to take action to change their rights and way of life. Women in most states were incapable of controlling their wages, legally operating their property, or signing legal documents such as wills. Although demoted towards their own private domain and quite powerless, some women took advantage and became involved in parts of reform such as temperance and abolition. Therefore, this ultimately opened the way for women to come together in an organized movement to battle for their rights in such ways as equal education, labor, legal reform, and occupations.
Fears are an overwhelming aspect of our life from birth until old age. Whether we fear an object such as something lying underneath the bed, a certain figure such as Michael Myers, or an intangible idea such as the future or even death, fear always exists. In several cases, fear leads to a suppression of one’s self and the wonderful ideas that one’s minds may contain. For example, the cure to cancer could very well be trapped inside the mind of someone who has been constantly oppressed and taught to believe that they are not smart enough to get far in life. In “Professions for Women,” author Virginia Woolf persuades her audience, intellectual women, to overcome her insecurities in order to improve her life. To soundly achieve this purpose, Woolf utilizes rhetorical questions, an extended metaphor, and allusion.
But how did this all start to happen? It didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t a one-person battle. Women wanted the same rights as men already had. But they didn’t just stop there, women played a major role in the rise of the child labor laws, stood up for minorities, and they wanted prostitution to end. Most people who opposed woman suffrage believed that women were less intelligent and less able to make political decisions than men were. Opponents argued th...
In 1848, the American women's rights movement started, during this movement, even though the leaders of the women’s rights advocated for the Reconstruction amendments , such as Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, these amendment did not promote women’s suffrage. In 1869, the writers of the nineteenth amendment, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony worked in the National Woman Suffrage Association while Lucy Stone led the American Woman Suffrage Association’s state-by-state battle for the vote. After that, the two groups united to form the National American Women Suffrage Association. This association aimed to secure voting rights for all American women (American memory, 2010). During World War I, women contributed significantly to the nation's war effort. As a result, many politicians began to realize that women could be an important source of votes, and then the United States Congress supported the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Finally, in 1920, women won the vote throughout the nation (Jone Johnson Lewis, 2008). In simple English, the Nineteenth Amendment states that Constitution cannot deny or abridge the citizens’ voting rights, regardless of the sex.
The role of women in society has always been an issue throughout the ages and throughout Western Europe, and more or less all over the world. Before the age of the Enlightenment, or the Dark Ages, women were always seen as secondary to men in all aspects. Most reasons were religious, while others were just the way life was then. By the late 18th century, at the time of the French Revolution and the continuance of the Enlightenment era, the role of women in society began changing drastically as the lights of the world were now open with this brand new enlightened era. Women began holding jobs, yet still did not receive the same privileges as men.
The novel 1984, written by George Orwell, portrays views on sex and gender in an authoritative government. Oceanic government aims to maintain their power by asserting their dominance over society. This is done through outlawing sex, with the exception of reproduction of more Party members. Two characters, Winston and Julia, have sex for pleasure and also as a form of rebellion against Big Brother. The government takes them both as punishment for their sex crimes. During imprisonment, the relationship between Winston and O’Brien develops. Along with sex, gender is relevant throughout the novel. The party’s attempt at making gender a non-issue is valiant but it makes gender roles more evident in other aspects of the book. While depicting the future in 1984, George Orwell carefully analyzes sex and gender in Oceanic society through government manipulation, character rebellion, and natural human instinct.
Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women began to vocalize their opinions and desires for the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage movement paved the way to the nineteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution that allowed women that right. The Women’s Suffrage movement started a movement for equal rights for women that has continued to propel equal opportunities for women throughout the country. The Women’s Liberation Movement has sparked better opportunities, demanded respect and pioneered the path for women entering in the workforce that was started by the right to vote and given momentum in the late 1950s.
...ere given all the power in the household. The women had no part in the government. They learned how to spin, weave, sew, cook and to perform household jobs. For their whole lives they were controlled by their father and by their husband once they got married.