Abigail Adams was one of the first women to question male superiority and the importance of laws for women which ultimately led to establishment of Women’s Rights. For women in America life in the early 18th century was associated with domestic activities. They were required to take care of household and raise the children while men were expected to support family with food and other common needs in order to survive. Even women who belonged to the upper class and had maids to help around the house were still expected to stay at home and be by the side of their husbands when necessary. Marriages were usually based on economic partnership and cultural believes.
A widespread attitude was that women’s roles and men’s roles did not overlap. This idea of “separate spheres” held that women should concern themselves with home, children, and religion, while men took care of business and politics. A little before the 1920s women were strictly home ridden. They were to focus on the house. For instance they had to maintain dinner, cleaning, and maintaining of the children.
The only things women were “good for” was taking care of their children and husband. Women has many obligations and very few choices, it was a women’s obligation to take care of her family as well as, clean, cook, sew, knit, and basically do anything and everything her husband asked or demanded. Women were more salves than actual wives. They were owned by men, whether it was her father, brothers, cousins, and/or husbands, they were viewed more as property than actual humans. Girls had to learn this life style at a very early age, if their mothers were busy gathering food; the daughter was to maintain the household.
Women were supposed to follow the husbands command. We weren’t allowed to vote except in New Jersey. Women’s role was clear that they should focus on marriage and children. When Eliza’s father left her in charge of the plantation her neighbors were shocked (8). They were shocked that she was taking over this role because the women’s job was to simply take care their husbands and children.
As factory jobs were established in much of Central and South America, women were able to leave the house to work in order to earn more money to support their families. Even then as women were providing for their families, they were often seen as neglectful of their duties, and looked down upon. Latinos generally support the idea of machismo, where they value over-masculine
However, this period where so many great changes had been made in the church, in literature, and in all other artistic areas, women took a big step backward in their fight for equality. Women were thought of as property, owned first by their fathers, and then their husbands. This is only true, however, for the upper-class. Commoners during this time were not affected by the new social reforms. Lower class women still could own properties and shared many responsibilities with their husbands.
During this time, women had to take up many responsibilities, in replace of the men who were fighting in war. For example, women had to earn money for the family, which left them no choice but to get a job. With men being gone and nobody to control their lives, women took advantage of their new-found freedom. Fashion became a large influence on women in the 1920’s. This allowed women to become independent and free from the society.
Because being a teacher was to be with children and teach them what was right and wrong, just like mothers. In this period, men didn’t think for one second to be a maid, nurse or teacher, because they were meant for women to do and they were too manly for those jobs. Before the war employers didn’t hire women because they believed they were jobs assigned for men (nps.gov). Most women gave up work when they married, though some women kept working after marriage because they couldn't afford to give up their jobs. Working after marriage was generally something done mainly by poor women.
The home and workplace before the industrial revolution had been virtually the same; however, both had begun to separate. Male and female spheres had separated along with the separation of home and workplace as well. While the men were gaining their income from their jobs in the public sphere, women, still viewed as the primary care takers for the children, were primarily put into the private or “domestic” sphere. To explain why the separation of men and women in the work force was necessary, the ideology of separate spheres was created; it had defined innate characteristics of women. Women were deemed incapable to work and function in public because these traits were thought to make women less capable to do work that the men did.
Not until after the civil war were they able to control their wages instead of their husbands. Thousands of poor women worked as domestic servants, factory workers and seamstresses. While still maintain their household duties. It was a badge of honor for middle class women to stay home and out of the market place. Nice middleclass neighborhoods began to develop where doctors, lawyers, factory owners and merchants