Rise of the Independent Woman

Throughout time women have struggled to acquire the same rights that any man has. There is proof throughout history that documents this struggle. On the week of June 10, 1937 The Saturday Evening Post published an article titled "A Truce With Men." It documents the closing of the gender rights gap around the 1920's and 1930's. The article states, "The woman of today has finally made peace with her men." From this statement one can define a few things. The first is that there is some sort of battle going on between the two sexes and this battle has been resolved. Furthermore, is infers that some sort of treaty or negotiation must have been made to keep the barrier equalized. The struggle that occurs between the sexes in society is portrayed in John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums. By taking a closer look at both Steinbeck's story and the article published during the time period, one can see how these two texts interact.

Before The Great Depression, the men of the house worked and the women cooked and cleaned. For a long time this was accepted in society as the way things were. Societal roles were directly related to gender and the barriers were set in stone. This probably was linked to the fact that before the turn of the century times were even more primitive and living was much harder than is was twenty years later. Therefore the stronger of the sexes took on the more physically challenging role and the women did her part. This doesn't necessarily mean that either of the two had a more difficult role, it's just saying that there were limits for each sex and they were not to be crossed.

Beyond the individual's perspective, society also looked at women as separate from men. It wasn't until The Women's Suffrage Act of 1920 that women were given the right to vote. With this on their side it was only a matter of time until the women of society were to break out. Nine years later on one very dark Tuesday, the stock market crashed and then came The Great Depression. When it hit the modern day workingman was now worth no more than any housewife. Because money wasn't worth enough to have a job, these professions that only could be held by men were no longer a factor in the limitations between the gender gap.