How Is The Crucible Still Relevant Today

Women in the 1950s are portrayed in a bad light, such as being the stay-at-home mom that doesn’t work and has to do the dishes and laundry and cook and not talk back to the husband, etc. In the Crucible, this idea is reinforced. Such as how women are treated differently both in the crucible and the 1900’s by their gender specific roles, the lack of respect compared to men, and social discrimination.

In The Crucible, it’s known that the setting takes place in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. And in 1692, women were not as equal to men, so they were not accepted into some professions, “women were not allowed in the professions (such as doctors ,lawyers and teachers) and female employment was often menial and low paid.” (Lambert). Instead women were given jobs such as washerwomen, embroiders, dyers, etc. (Lambert). This is also seen in the crucible when Proctor is explaining to judge danforth how he met Abigail, “In the proper place—where my beasts are bedded. Eight months now, sir, it is eight months. She used to serve me in my house, sir.”(Arthur Miller Act 3). But it’s also a common misconception that women were weak and submissive, but they still received jobs that were deemed not as important or less rewarding, and they also

didn’t have as many rights as men did.
It wasn’t until 1920 that women gained the right to vote. For centuries beforehand
women haven’t been given the same rights as men and have been disrespected, such can be shown in the crucible when John Proctor confronts Abigail in court about her lying and seeing witchcraft, “Whore!

How do you dare call heaven!...It is a whore…. Mark her, now she’ll suck a scream to stab me with…”(The Crucible, Act 3). Abigail had begun to say she felt a cold draft and when Hale touched her and confirmed she was cold, Proctor interrupted and called her a whore. But not only in the 1600’s but in today’s society women are mistreated, as Esther Hayden from the Huffington Post writes, “Women on twitter are belligerently chastised for appearance, weight and everything else that makes them into objects rather than intelligent human

beings”.
If you haven't heard of the wage gap here’s the scoop, it’s thought that women are paid only 80% of what men, but it’s still argued if that’s true or not, in present times that is. Women working full time did in fact earn less than men in the 1900’s. As shown by David Graziano, Xiao Liang, Cory Mohling, Andrew Reid, Ken Sulma, and Elizabeth Welch, women in 1979 only earned 63% of what men earned. Besides wage gap Witch hunts were also a form of social discrimination for women. Yes, some men were also hanged and killed in witch hunts, but according to Angela Michelle Schultz, more than 90% of the english witch hunts were done on women. This number is too high for it to be considered a coincidence.
Women have been mistreated and misunderstood in our past both socially and physically, be it with jobs or saying unkind words to their face. But as time passes women are being acknowledged as people now and not lesser objects. Women in the 1900’s and in the crucible were treated with a lack of respect, treated as lessers in the workforce, and have been undermined socially by men.