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Women's Roles In The 19th Century

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Women’s Roles in the Nineteenth Century: Invisibility and Visibility

In nineteenth century, women in the United States were expected to fill the separate sphere of civilization. They were most likely living their lives mainly as caregivers and homemakers, whereas men were expected to live a public life and work in a factory and became a primary breadwinner in a household. Due to these traditional expectations for women in the nineteenth century, only a handful of women had the opportunities for higher education as men. Women had fought for equal rights and opportunities with men throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. It had been long journey and a painful struggle for the females. Some groups often seen educated women as rebellious …show more content…
The culture of the antebellum Northeast recognized the role of wives in the making of pleased and healthy families. Natural differences of personality, traits and ability between men and women were presumed to translate into different social roles and responsibilities. Some people claim women were expected to stay home to take care the children. ”The ideology of gender spheres was partly a response to ongoing chaos of a changing society-an intellectual and emotionally comforting way of setting limits to the uncertainties of early industrializations”(Boydston 130). Nonetheless, women’s domestic labor should not be separated from work labor that takes place in public like male spaces. Women’s housework should have never seen interpreted as basic and unnecessary work that is subordinate to the development of the economy and the social order. The sphere philosophy camouflaged the reality of females’ works such that females themselves understood their work as dissociated from productive industrialized labor. Distinct sphere ideology began as a metaphor and was then accepted as reality. However, the United States was experienced a substantial economic and social changes in the beginning of nineteenth century. In this rapidly altering society, the separation of work and home with emotional need to reserve a perfect family, directed to a belief that males and females subsisted in a distinct but harmonizing domains. Women’s role was to deliver a sanctuary for their spouses and children from the harshness of modern capitalism. Consequently, women have an important role and responsibility for the development of the economy and

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