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Women's role before the industrial revolution
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Society places men and women unequally at different levels. Men and women are separately designated and diversely rewarded because of their gender. Despite the increase in the amount of women in the workforce, women who work in a male dominated industry are being restricted from exhibiting their full potential in pay and advancement opportunities.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century women had barely any rights and were strictly homemakers destined to nurture children. During the Industrial Revolution women soon began working in factories and were given an extremely low salary for tedious work. Even though it was a small amount, having the ability to earn salary gave women more independence. Women were delighted to fulfill these positions for the reason of getting the opportunity to escape the house. Having money gave women more of an opportunity to have an influence and make something out of themselves more than just a housewife. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, prior to the Industrial Revolution, women were restrained and could not speak out for themselves. A woman’s role was to stay at home, care for the children, and just take care of the household. The Industrial Revolution provided women with the opportunity to work somewhere besides the home and become more independent. It also permitted women to develop a feeling of individuality and independence which changed the place of women from a restrained stay at home housewife to an evolved female (Women’s Rights).
In the nineteenth century numerous women became involved in the society of America. Women wanted to be treated equally as men. Women realized that they deserved their rights and that if grouped together, they had power. Women believed that they were be...
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...e has changed severely, especially for women. Women’s roles were traditionally limited to nursing and teaching while today women are tackling roles in places society never expected women to, like the boardroom. Women were once viewed as too sensitive to succeed in business and now they have proven that they possess what it takes in order to not just succeed but surpass the roles that were only thought to be best occupied by men (Women in the Workplace).
Women have come a long way from being only housewives never able to work outside of the house to becoming very influential CEOs and heads of large corporations. Women have made a major impact on today’s society due to their aspiration on becoming more than the traditional housewife. Today, women are flooding the workplace in large numbers and taking a sledgehammer to the stereotype that women only belong in the home.
The 19th Century is an age that is known for the Industrial Revolution. What some people don’t realize is the effect that this revolution had on gender roles in not only the middle and upper classes (Radek.) It started off at its worst, men were considered powerful, active, and brave; where as women were in no comparison said to be weak, passive, and timid (Radek.) Now we know this not to be true, however, back in the day people only went by what would allow ...
Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day. Women wanted to be given an equal chance, just as the men had been given.
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
They were mostly in charge of raising children and keeping the house clean and properly functioning. They were mostly financially dependent on their husbands because it was it was considered odd for them to earn money themselves. When factories and new machines begin to revolutionize the American economy, women's roles were changed entirely. The Marketing Revolution creates opportunities for women to earn their own wages and buy things, like clothes and food, which they may not have been able to buy previously themselves without the permission of their husbands to use their money. Women were trying to change the views of gender roles that was implied in society. Most of these women had left their families and worked to achieve a future for themselves while only a small portion of them decided to stay with family back
A huge part of the economical grow of the United States was the wealth being produced by the factories in New England. Women up until the factories started booming were seen as the child-bearer and were not allowed to have any kind of career. They were valued for factories because of their ability to do intricate work requiring dexterity and nimble fingers. "The Industrial Revolution has on the whole proved beneficial to women. It has resulted in greater leisure for women in the home and has relieved them from the drudgery and monotony that characterized much of the hand labour previously performed in connection with industrial work under the domestic system. For the woman workers outside the home it has resulted in better conditions, a greater variety of openings and an improved status" (Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, pg.4) The women could now make their own money and they didn’t have to live completely off their husbands. This allowed women to start thinking more freely and become a little bit more independent.
Throughout the world, discrimination in all forms has continued to be a constant struggle; whether it’s racial, gender based, religion, beliefs, appearance or anything that makes one person different from another, it’s an everyday occurrence. A major place that discrimination is occurring at is in the workplace. One of the largest problems discrimination issues is believed to be gender. Women, who have the same amount of experience as men are not getting paid at the same rate as men, these women also are equally trained and educated. According to the article Gender Pay, it was discovered in 2007 that a woman makes 81 cents for every dollar a man earns.(“Gender Pay”) . This shouldn’t be happening in today’s society for the fact the society lived in today is suppose to be more accepting. Men are viewed as being more popular, valuable and having higher powers than women. The Reason Discrimination is involved in the equal pay equal work is because of the significance it has to how some businesses pay their employees.
Women were confronted by many social obligation in the late nineteenth century. Women were living lives that reflected their social rank. They were expected to be economically dependent and legally inferior. No matter what class women were in, men were seen as the ones who go to work and make the money. That way, the women would have to be dependent since they were not able to go to work and make a good salary. No matter what class a woman was in, she could own property in her own name. When a woman became married she " lost control of any property she owned, inherited, or earned" ( Kagan et al. 569). A woman's legal identity was given to her husband.
Many middle class and elite women followed the same thinking pattern of most men in the nineteenth century that women should focus on preserving their morality, improving society, and being domestic subservient wives (lecture). This ideal of true womanhood directly conflicted with working class women’s definition of womanhood and the changing work patterns in the United States. Because middle class and elite woman did not view working women as “true women,” these women often ostracized working class women, which caused tension and increased class divisions (lecture). Additionally, this class rift between women most likely contributed to the slow progress of the women’s rights movement that began in the later half of the nineteenth century. As men were reluctant to accept the shifting definitions of womanhood, many middle class and elite women were also hesitant to accept these changes and began to relate to lower class women in a more hostile
During the period of antebellum Georgia, the Industrial Revolution began to take place. Meaning, wealth, labor, and top notch crops became important. In result of this, the need for slaves and their distinct skills increased. Understanding that the plantation owners had one goal only, which is to produce efficient crops that will encourage increased profit; one would say gender was set aside during labor that interfered with crop production. Crop production and quality were a main priority, and owners did not care what it took to reach their goal amount, or to have the best crop in the south. It is argued that femininity and gender roles did not exist during this period of labor. Labor was not based on gender,
During the 19th century middle to upper class women were faced with dichotomous roles. On one hand they were expected to be idle, fragile, not engaged in intellectual activities outside of the home. On the opposite hand these same women were expected to withstand the vagaries that were common during the 19th century such as the death of their husband or a reversal of their financial situation(i). This contradiction of roles bore heavily on women who often lacked power or control over their own lives(ii).
Women's roles in society greatly changed after the growth of industry. Women who once were mere housewives and caring mothers now became an active part of the working class. They no longer stayed at home during the day taking care of their husband and children seeing to it that they acted properly and had high moral values instead. Wealthy women were privileged few who were able to stay at home and devote themselves totally to their families.
In “For Women, Progress Slows as Power Nears,” Clea Simon highlights some differences for men and women in the workplace and attempts to explain why these differences still exist. Simon addresses the discrepancies in salaries and higher level education, noting that more women are graduating than men and an equal amount enter post-graduate schools. However, women earn less than men and do not reach the highest level in their career field. After relaying the numerical statistics, Simon states, “Access is better, pay can be good, but when it comes to running things at the highest levels, it's generally still a man's world.” The rest of the article offers suggestions to combat this gender bias. Simon notes that inflexibility contributes to the
It is, therefore, natural for most companies to think that women cannot be as capable as men in terms of assuming strenuous or challenging positions because women, by default, become less participatory and more vulnerable when they start to have family and children. Apparently, this situation has led to various gender discriminations in the labor market. In conclusion, although the roles of men and women have radically changed over the turn of the century, it is still inevitable to have various gender-related occupational differences because the social and biological roles of women and men do not really change. Society still perceives women as the home makers and men as the earners, and this perception alone defines the differing roles of men and women in the labor market.
However, women have made optimistical progress towards equality and their role in the society has been changed dramatically since the last century. Many women stepped out of their home and start to work at factories and offices. The number of working women with children has more than doubled in the past 50 years. While working conditions for women may have improved, there is a lack of appreciation for the notion that work for most women doesn't end at the door of a factory or office. Despite an increase of women's participation in the labour force, women's share of housework has hardly changed in 50 years.
In the past, many people believed that women’s exclusive responsibilities were to serve their husband, to be great mothers and to be the perfect wives. Those people considered women to be more appropriate for homemaking rather than to be involved in business or politics. This meant that women were not allowed to have a job, to own property or to enjoy the same major rights as men. The world is changing and so is the role of women in society. In today’s society, women have rights that they never had before and higher opportunities to succeed.