They were also anticipated to marry into a good family with money, most likely arranged ahead of time by the parents. Upper class women were forbidden from work and were strictly protected by their spouse. Middle class women in the same region during the same period were frequently housewives with no probable education. They were often the wives of mill operators and merchants. 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.
Lilly was worried about this because Snow Flower was from a higher class than her. The concept of a lao tong is two women who give each other themselves in friendship. Snow Flower and Lilly write back and forth on a silk fan in Nushu, a secret language that only women knew about. As the story progresses Lily marries a scholar's nephew who belonged to one of the richest families in China while Snow Flower marries a butcher, which was seen as low class. They stay in touch throughout the years by the fans and meetings but their relationship falters when Lily misunderstands a message from Snow Flower.
To make her point clear she uses a lot of pathos and a lot of examples from experiences with herself and her two daughters, Louisa and Sofia. At the beginning when she tells the stories about her daughters trying to fight back you think ’what a terrible mother’, but she uses this feeling to support the view the readers have on the Chinese mothers as being mean to their kids so that afterwards she can tell how it turned out good and therefor the way she raises her kids is the best. Amy Chua has a high ethos because she is a professor at Yale which is a very respected job, and as a parent it makes her more reliable because she tells the reader that her parents treated her the same way that she treats her daughters, and as we can see she has been very successful. Also she uses loghos: ”In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70 % of the Western mothers said either that ”stressing academic success is not good for children” or that ”parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun”. By contrast,
Ailin is a very strong representation of a heroine, she saw the need to break Chinese tradition that was carried on for many centuries, she did this for the for the moral and physical good, she supported and understood the revolution because it would bring change and she never gave up when things got tough. When Ailin broke tradition for the moral and physical good by not giving into society’s rules and regulations, she was then unable to preform the functions of an upper class Chinese woman. These women had small, delicate bound feet by having bones broken and fractured they were unable to do work and manual labor, because of this they stayed at home and rarely went out. Since Ailin forbid herself from getting this done she was free, to walk, run and play with the boys. In doing so she became more independent and stronger on her own.
In the fifteen years of America after World War Ⅱ, to be a “perfect wives” and “five children’s mother” was a women’s dream (Friedan). Women did the housework and looked after their husband. This was a daily routine. However, at that time, the women’s liberation movement began. According to the Journal Beyond the Feminine Mystique, it listed two popular magazines that show the emergence of women beginning to believe in themselves and participating in the society (Meyerowitz).
She grew up in a wealthy family in an era when young women were to grow up to be proper homemakers, respectable society members, and civilized, obedient wives to their husbands. During this time women in the “nursing profession”, or rather those who looked after the ill and destitute in hospitals, were considered low class and “little less than prostitutes” (Bloy, 2010). Nightingale’s interests in nursing began to manifest when she was 16 after she “experienced a ‘calling’ from God to serve humankind”, and although she had similar impressions in the following years and identified her desire to be a nurse at age 24, she was not able to break away from her family’s disapproval to train in nursing until age 31 (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005, p. 22). A couple of years after Nightingale completed a period of training to be a sick nursing in Germany, the Crimean War broke out and Nightingale, along with 38 other nurses, traveled to Scutari to offer their services in the military hospitals (Fitzpatrick & Whall, 2005). It was here where
I believe that this had a great impacted the society, mostly women. This was because women back in the 1800’s were only considered to be house wives, looking after the children, cooking for the family and cleaning their houses. Many women didn’t have the opportunity to do everything or even have everything that Marie did. Many of them couldn’t even go to school because they had to stay home to help their mothers with the house. After she made that comet discovery she gave hope to all women and showed them that they can do whatever they want even if only men have done it before.
Chua listed all the things she doesn’t allow her children to do, and she believes that it is correlated to how successful her children will be. There are many differences between the ways that Chinese mothers and Western mothers raise their kids according to Chua. Chua points out many differences between Chinese mothers and Western mothers; one of those differences is that Chinese mothers spend ten times longer working with their kids’ academic activities in contrast to Western mothers who prefer to spend more time working with their kids on sport activities than academics. In contrast, Western mothers believe that academic success should not be something that their children stress about. According to Chua there are three differences that cause the Chinese mothers to be “superior.” First, Chinese parents don’t care as much about their kid’s self-esteem as Western mothers do.
The girls from both city-states stayed at home because they didn't have a school to learn at. They were usually taught by either their mom or by slaves if they were rich enough to afford slaves. The girls in Athens learned how to weave, cook, spin, and take care of the home, while the Spartan women focused on physical training. The Athenian women focused on technical skills rather than their overall body. This was because the Spartans believed that the girls needed to be strong and healthy so when they grew older they could give birth to strong sons for the community.
The people of China have been most influenced by Confucian ideas, and during the Han Dynasty Confucianism became part of the official education. Since Confucianism was being taught widespread it influenced the minds of the Chinese people enormously. Something the Confucian ideals taught was that women must hold a position that has less power than men, lowering the status of women. The only way a women could gain any type of respect was by birthing a son. It was taught that women should not have any type of rule and no one should care about a women’s ideas.