Depending on the lower or upper level of the middle class, women were able to be work as school mistresses, or not work at all and only take care of the house. As upper class and middle class women had little advantages to their life, lower class women often had none. They were married to poor farmers, with no education and often had to work just as hard as their husbands, maybe even harder as they had a responsibility of taking care of the house and children. In some parts of the Western Europe, lower class women had to work in textile mills or various workhouses parted away from their families, working many, many hours. Double burden was also common at the beginning of 1900’s as women worked to earn money but also had the responsibility for unpaid, domestic labor.
Although before the Civil War, women rarely took a part in society, the war significantly changed women’s roles in many ways. Before the Civil War, women typically worked in and around their homes. The typical housewife would cook, clean and raise many children while the men worked. Many people typically did not promote women to branch out outside their homes, particularly stated by historian, Linda Miles Coppens that “Horace Man, president of Ohio’s new interracial and coeducational college publishes ‘A Few Thoughts on the Power and Duties of Women’ in New York. He warns women against vocations of preaching or politics, explaining that they can influence public opinion in their homes and communities.” They were strictly housewives and were destined to raise children.
Such as women can not perform manual work as well as men, on the other hand, a man’s entire chemistry is different allowing him to be less emotional than a woman. Jane Addams and her colleague Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House a place for down and out women. Jane treated these women as friends and ignoring their faults, became very close to these women. Being close to these women allowed Jane to understand their struggle but much of the information she gathered remained unpublished. She saw social differentiation as a block that society needed to get over, infuriately she herself was a victim.
They wanted equality for women in the workplace, in society generally and at home. “After discovering that they could work in high-paying factory jobs, the majority of women did not want to give these jobs up after World War II.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womenroles_in_the_WorldWarsUnitedStatesofAmerica
Their whole lives revolved around taking care of the house, kids and husband. For example when their husband came home from `a hard day of work' their wife would have cold drinks and finger food snacks waiting for them (Scott, p. 225). Women weren't able to go out into the work force because they were given such an unfair wage. Women weren't able to make their own choices in life they only had once path pay to choose from, to become a typical house wife. The role of women is constantly changing throughout history.
He stresses the importance of inalienable rights that cannot be taken away. This is important because as minorities, women were not being treated with their full rights given by the constitution, it is evident that tolerance and acceptance would be the cure. Imagine the life of a woman just before the 1960s. [2]Women were denied basic civil rights, “trapped” in their homes and discriminated in the workforce. When the 1960’s came along and men were enlisted into World War II, women had the chance to work the jobs of men and have a say in the government.
The industrial revolution had profound effects on American women, because as production shifted from homes to factories, it shifted away from women doing the producing. This led to the “cult of domesticity.” The cult of domesticity decreed that a woman’s place was in the home, so rather than making things the job of women was to enable their husbands to make things, by providing food and a clean living space, but also by providing love, friendship, and mutual obligation. Only very low paying work was available to them and in most states they couldn’t control their own wages it they were married. But, still poor women did find work in factories, as maids, or seamstresses. Some middle class women found work as teachers, which was disreputable
Women carry out the triple burden in the household; the domestic labour, emotional labour, and paid labour. As shown in the item most of this work is ‘unpaid and hardly recognised work at all’. Oakley argues the only way women will gain independence and freedom in society is for the role of the housewife to be removed aswell as the present structure of the family. Wilmott and Young believed the family is symmetrical and that both husband and wife have joint conjugal roles making the family a functional institution and their research showed that men do help women with housework. Radical feminists such as Dobash and Dobash also disagree with Willmott and Young’s theory that the family is symmetrical.
We know this as Agnes is reliving the tension she has built up. We can see there is an absence of male as the sisters throughout the play stick together as a unit “We both do” gives us the impression of stability of the mundy sisters however from the quote ‘Paint the house’. Sweep the chimney. Cut the grass. Save the turf’ this shows us how the Mundy sisters are trying to envelope the fact that they are not stable as in that society it was patriarchal and needed a man to run the household as Jack is unwell they are unable to rely on him so he is more of burden on them .
The movement helped bring about major changes in the lives for women as a whole, and also in everyday life of others in the United States. Before the women begin to act out about the treatment they received for society, their expected roles was to sit home, bear children, clean the house, clean the clothes and cook. Tired, stressed and frustrated women had many demands that the societal expectations of them change, from being servile house-bound creatures expected to save themselves for one man in marriage, after and during this movement women were able to get professional and blue-collar jobs that were available only for men. Women were treated as though they were second class citizens and not as an equal to man. It put the demands for women’s equality, religion, sports, marriage and child bearing on a higher scale.