Housework was a very important task and women were supposed to take great joy in it. Upper and middle class girls were taught from a young age the skills they would need in order to keep a happy, healthy, peaceful home. While the outside world and working force were definitively male, the home was considered to be a feminine place. The outside world was evil and full of sin and wrongdoing, but the home was a moral haven (MacKethan). Husbands went to work in the corrupt world of industry, so they were meant to come home, decompress, and once again become attuned with their compassionate side.
With only having the job as a “happy homemaker” woman in the 1950’s felt dissatisfaction and needed fulfillment in their life other than staying home, and taking care of their families. Consequently, in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller women were portrayed almost the same way. They both were treated poorly and held a position of that inferior to men. Because, women in the Crucible held no real power or independence they were forced to follow the negative stereotypes of the 1950’s. Women in the 1950’s were expected to stay home, and were more or less left out of everything that were to be of importance.
The Corrupting Power of Women The portrayal of women in Of Mice and Men is limited and unflattering. We learn early on that Lennie and George are on the run from the previous ranch where they worked, due to encountering trouble there with a woman. Misunderstanding Lennie’s love of soft things, a woman accused him of rape for touching her dress. George berates Lennie for his behavior, but is convinced that women are always the cause of such trouble. Their enticing sexuality, he believes, tempts men to behave in ways they would otherwise not.
The unequal distribution of domestic responsibilities has held women back for generations; it still today continues to hinder women’s progression in the work-place. It seems like everyone thinks mum will stay at home and do the dishes, her little boy will grow up to become a big, strong man but not her daughter, of course, she is far too busy washing her own children’s dishes. But it is not just women who suffer sexism, men do also. For example: Shelia’s Wheels sell cheaper car insurance to women only, and they say it's because statistics show women to be safer drivers. Would it would be fair for a bank to offer men better rates on loans if stats showed that men were better at paying back loans than women were, utterly ludicrous.
In the time of Gilead, the women were taken from their homes where they were brainwashed by speeches from their “Aunts” who argued that “such a social order ultimately offers the women more respect and safety then the old, pre-Gilead society offered them” (Sparknotes). In their new age, they’re simply used to run errands and bear children in the homes of Commanders that have trouble conceiving with their wives. They are fed small bits of information on what is going on in the Republic and are expected to be content with just that. Offred spends a great amount time thinking of her old life with her husband, Luke, and their young daughter. Then, one night her Commander asks to see her privately where they play Scrabble (which is illegal because in Gilead, women are not allowed to read) and she is allowed to look at old magazines; to conclude these secret encounters, the Commander asks Offred to kiss him.
Gender roles aren’t as clear cut as they used to be. Women are as actively involved in the work force as their male counterparts, and often enough, the wives are the breadwinners while the husbands dutifully stays home and watches out for the family. Or in the case of the Cobb family, the husband and wife divorced, but still co-parented their son, with help, and input from their friends and neighbors. While the idea of the nuclear family to some is antiquated, there are many that would like to see it revived in entertainment, believing that life imitates art instead of the other way around. While the reality is that these families are here to stay, on television, and in the entertainment media, because looking into the streets, these are increasingly the types of families making up
This quote is important because it shows that people were a little disapproving of David’s left-handedness because it was odd or unusual. So people would be disapproving of a deviation. Women are often treated like they are less then the men and its there fault the blasphemies are created. Women don’t get to do much other then work in the home, they are not permitted to go out in to the fields and they have to stay home and do housework. When Aunt Harriet was talking to David’s mom about her deviated child said “this is the third time, they’ll take my baby
They now share equal responsibilities in homecare and rasing the family. Slowly the gender roles that were previously set are melting away. Since the dawn of the feminist movement women have been able to accomplish what many thought impossible. But in our modern era woman now face other challenges, such as negative sexual attention. When a man is referred to as a ‘slut” it doesn’t associate to the actual definition used by society.
Beauty is a gender role pushed extremely hard toward women. To be the right size, and shape and have the “perfect hair” is a pressure most men don’t feel. I blame this completely on gender roles. Most men don’t care about the shade of red lipstick a women is wearing, or notice when she flips her hair a different way, yet it’s what makes a women feel beautiful? In the story a gift of the magi, one whole paragraph is dedicated to the main character- Della’s- worry about if her husband will still find her attractive, even though she cut off and sold her hair to buy him a Christmas gift.
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).