Womanhood In The Late 19th Century

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The New Woman
Since 1890, women’s live and appearance had changed profoundly. The conception of womanhood was redefined by for example, participating in politics, expanded presence in the workplace, and series of acts in the personal arena. As the term was firstly introduced in the late 19th century, the figure of a modernized woman whose goal was to peruse equality and personal autonomy was recognised as the “New Woman”.

The New Woman and Politics
Achieving political rights
To get rid of the traditional notion that women should exclusively stayed at home, women started to enter political arena in the late 19th century. By forming associations and organisations such as National Women’s Party (NWP) and The National Women Suffrage Association …show more content…

From 1890 to 1930, the percentage of women older than 16 who worked increased from 20.6% to 25.3%. However, up to 1920, the variety of women’s occupation was still pretty limited, as 86% of women’s jobs were clustered in 10 occupations, which usually made less money and had lower social status than men.
The number of wives participating in the workplace had increased dramatically. At the beginning of the 20th century, only 15% of working women were married. Only 30 years later, in 1930, the percentage increased to 29%. However, very few wives were doing professional or semi-professional works, and the vast majority of them worked in fields like manufacturing, retail trade, and domestic and personal service. Among African-American wives who had a job, there was a significant amount of them were only forced into the workplace because of …show more content…

Although due to social reform in the 20th century, the working hours had declined to 48 hours per week and the wage had increased, women workers still just earn about half of men’s salary, the condition of immigrant women were still tedious. The good news is, due to the higher level of education and increased demands from the society, the daughters of the European immigrants gained more opportunities to win white-collar

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