The Change of Women's Roles in Their Family in the United States - Term Paper Example

Part I – Annotated Bibliography ment of Topic, Arguments and Analysis of Sources: The role that women perform in the American family has changed dramatically in the last 100 years, influencing an equally pervasive makeover in society. This is the main topic of this paper, which will attempt to sketch some of the major changes that led to the social, political and economic emancipation of the American women. I for one do not believe that the inter-relations and implications of these changes, which I shall try to describe herein, are fully understood as yet. While we fix our attention upon the changes that have taken place in the character and culture of women and the opportunities that suddenly opened for them, we shall likewise belabor the point that with or without the women’s rights movement, women would still be enjoying the freedom and parity with men that they do today. This is the main argument we would like to present here: that the political pressures brought on by the women’s rights movement, from the abolitionists and suffragettes in the 1830s to the feminists of later years, only added noise and color to the equal rights campaign. The movement only served to call attention to the need for such changes. But the impetus for the actual changes sprang from wars, depression and industrialization, economic prosperity, the advances of science and technology, changes in eating habits, the advent of birth control pills, etc. All these factors combined to redefine the role of the modern women. If the women’s movement made any influence at all, it was only in quickening the steps in that direction. At the same time, we would like to argue that not all women are eager to be on equal footing with men and to mouth feminist slogans to achieve that cause. They find greater fulfillment in staying at home and taking care of their husbands and children than in competing with men in the workplace. To buttress these arguments, we have lined up an array of sources consisting of academic scholars, social and political scientists, historians, law and military experts, even a cooking guru. At least two of my secondary sources have been published in book form while the rest were academic journals, research or lecture papers. The primary sources come in the form of two novels. I have singled them out as references for this paper because they take up the same argument that I have postulated on the heavier influences exerted by the social environment on the changing roles of women, and on the differences of attitudes of women themselves toward women’s issues. The common thread that runs through these reference materials is their acknowledgment that women have indeed come a long way. Gone forever were the days when all that society expected of a woman was for her to sit at home, help her mother around the house and wait for the “right man.” I am confident that the primary sources I have chosen will be helpful in making my arguments stick, as I am of my choices of secondary references. 2. Annotation of Secondary Sources: The reading materials picked out as secondary sources for this essay all support my argument that the coming of age of women has been less the result of their militancy than a natural process of adapting to new circumstances and requirements. On the catalytic effects of war, for example, the title “How Wars Changed the Role of Women in the United States” of the piece by Joyce Bryant speaks for itself. The influence of science and technology, on the other hand, may be gleaned from the journal “Technological Modernization and the Role of Women” by professor Reid Derr of East Georgia College. At least three of the references also serve to support my view that the large number of American women who cling to their traditional roles as homemakers does not necessarily mean that there are neighborhoods in the US still adamantly opposed to women’s rights. The full list of my secondary sources is as follows: 1. Cynthia Harrison. “The Changing Role of Women in American Society.” US Society &Values; June 1997. 2. Reid Derr. “Technological Modernization and the Social Role of Women.” East Georgia College. rderr@pinetree.ega.peachnet.edu 3. Douglas Bowers (2000). “Cooking Trends Echo Changing Roles of Women.” FoodReview, Vol. 23, Issue 1; Jan-Apr 2000. 4. Joyce Bryant (2005). “How War Changed the Role of Women in the United States.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 2005. 5. Frederick Lewis Allen (1965). “The Big Change: 1900-1950.” Bantam Books, 1965. 6. Rush Limbaugh (1993). “The Way Things Ought to Be.” Pocket Star Books, Oct 1993. 7. Mara Dunleavy. “How Changing Sex Roles Have Affected the Family Unit in the US.” Yale-New Haven Institute. 8. JoEllen Lin. “The Changing Role of Women in American Legal History.” Seegers Lectures. 9. Electronic Journals of the USIA. “The Changing Roles of Women in the US.” US Society & Values, Vol. 2, No. 2; June 1997. 10. Ruth Rasnic (2006). “The 20th Century: The Century That Made an Impact.” Jewish Women International; Vol. 1 Issue 2, April 23, 2006. 3. Annotation of Primary Sources: As noted earlier, my primary sources comprise two novels. Both novels are classified as fiction and treat women’s rights and sexuality in different lights. By discussing this variance of attitudes on the subject, we hope to be enlightened on women’s influence and power over men. The novel The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq tells the story of Michel and Bruno who have the same mother but different fathers. They are abandoned when small and deprived of maternal contact during infancy. For this reason, they are supposed to grow up both sexually dysfunctional: Bruno is oversexed, while Michel is completely asexual. Is such maternal care really important in the normal development of a child? This particular question is relevant to our paper because it could help us visualize the possible social effects on children of a family whose mother has to work outside the house along with the father. The novel Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis is the story of foundry worker Hugh Wolfe, his father old Wolfe and distant cousin Deborah, a cotton picker. The three, all Welsh emigrants, live as family in a house rented to half a dozen other families in the town of iron mills trapped in poverty and hopelessness. Hugh is kind to Deborah, who is taunted as hunchback by other mill workers because of her slight hunch, but Hugh is kind to her. For this reason, Deborah faithfully serves Hugh as a real mother or sister would, which feeling turns to love towards the end. Deborah knows Hugh has talent and lacks only the money to make something out of his life. One day, she steals the wallet of a rich visitor to the foundry and gives all the money to Hugh for him to pursue his dream. My interest in this novel lies in the portrayal of a woman who would sacrifice her own happiness and future for the sake of the man she loves. Part II – The Changing Role of Women In the American Family Introduction Women had always been traditionally relegated to an inferior position in all cultures, societies and religions. At home, the man was lord and master for women to love, honor and obey. When they come of age, the women are given away in marriage, sold like cattle.1 The ideal American woman at the onset of the 20th Century was “a sheltered lady, swathed in silk and muslin and in innocence and purity – and the ideal man protected the person and reputation of such tender creatures as were entrusted to his care.”2 In short, the women’s life in early American was centered around the family and farm. It was socially acceptable if women worked for a living as schoolteacher, nurse or music teacher. A woman then could even become a writer, artist or singer if she had the talent. Otherwise, the women who worked outside the house caused their fathers needless embarrassment for being unable to support their own daughters. The role of a woman in the family was to sit at home, help her mother with the housework and wait for the “right man.”3 In effect, the role expected of women was to have and care for children and, if necessary, help their husbands in farm or garden labor. They were allowed no career alternatives, only how to be good wives and mothers.4 Under the law, women were practically non-existent before the American Civil War. Without any legal rights, women were considered worse than slaves in those days. The common law doctrine called “femme couvert” dictated at the time that when a woman married, her legal existence merged with her husband. Thus, the women could not own property, even wages or personal effects. They could not enter into contracts without the husbands’ consent, obtain a divorce or have a right of custody over her children. Neither could they sue or be sued. The law also forbade her from inheriting anything from her husband upon his death. The worst part was American law recognized the husbands’ privilege to beat up on their wives when the latter needed to be “subdued.” Everything seemed to conspire to put women in their place, which was the home. In the 1830s, for example, not one college or university would admit women. A little later, a number of educational institutions were put up that catered to women, but these were no more than finishing schools teaching feminine arts.5 At around this period, the first women activists in the US made their presence felt when Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony put together the first women’s rights convention, which came up with the historic Declaration of Sentiments. The organized demand for women’s equality was on its way, as more and more women across the US picked up the fight. Influences of Wars But the increasing women’s militancy brought no significant changes in the roles of women until World War I and the subsequent Great Depression put a spin on the women’s movement. “How wars changed women’s role in the family started in World War I.”6 The war began in 1914, and the US joined the fray in 1917. Since the government needed more warm bodies to support its war effort, women were recruited into the army for the very first time. These were made up of some 13,000 Yeomanettes who did clerical work for the Navy, 300 Marinettes as clerks in the Marine Corps. Over 230 women also served as telephone operators for the US Army Signal Corps in France. There were also some 6,000 women sent abroad as nurses, ambulance drivers and Red Cross workers, and 3,500 served as YMCAs in France, England and Russia. As the war raged on, more men had to be conscripted into the army for dispatch to the front. This depleted the labor force to such a degree that industries had to hire women to stay in operation. In 1918, 3 million women were employed for the first time in their lives as workers in food, textile and war industries. As many women also worked as streetcar conductors, radio operators, steel mill and logging camp hands. From a historical perspective, the war allowed women “to get out of the house” and “out of hand.” But as soon as the war was over, the discrimination against women workers resumed. To men, working with women on an equal footing was acceptable during emergency situations like war but in normal times, the men folk still could not handle the new idea of women as wage workers. In the opportunity provided by the war to women, they “learned many new skills such that their roles begun to change.”7 From the evidence, the war experience also gave them the conviction that they can be as competitive, aggressive and mobile as men and that no one should deny them these rights. As the war left American women more emboldened to break out of their traditional roles, the Great Depression came along. When unemployment hit 25 per cent, women already at work had to step aside to give their jobs to the men. But in most cases, the wives and mothers were forced to work because the husbands and fathers lost their jobs. There were also lots of jobs that women had to fill because the men did not want them. As the Depression deepened, the rumblings of the Second World War begun to be heard to portend more changes in the role of women. As the men left their jobs to join the army, women filled their slots such that when the US army fought World War II in mostly foreign battlefronts, an unprecedented 38 per cent of American women at home were part of the workforce. In the war itself, the women showed they were as worthy as men in combat assignments. Again by sheer necessity, 25 lady pilots were allowed to suit up as core members of the WAAF, the first all-women pilot team in the US Air Force. When the initial batch proved capable, graduating from single-engine planes to 4-engine bombers, more women pilots were taken in such that by 1943, there were 303 women pilots doing duties for the Ferrying Division. As a consequence, a flying school was set up with an eye on training more lady pilots.8 The Economic Factor But as what happened during World War I, the authorities lost interest in women pilots as soon as the war approached its end. In 1944, the Congressional Committee on Civil Service decided that the program was unnecessary and unjustifiably expensive and scrapped the WASP program altogether. 9 Also after the war, women were back running into sexual discrimination in the workplace. As the men returned from the war and reclaimed the higher paying jobs, many women left the labor force and returned to raising their families. By then the US had not only recovered from the war but was going through a period of economic boom. Industry was expanding and needed as many hands as it could get. The women were only too glad to work at jobs traditionally offered to them, such as office work and teaching, as well as those that could not be filled by men who sought better paying jobs. Because there are so many jobs going around in post-war America, companies even discarded their old preference for single women. By 1960, almost one-third of American wives were working for wages. Still, they still routinely met with discrimination on the job. In response, the government created the Commission on the Status of Women in 1961 to create a plan that would help women fulfill their dual public and private roles. A counterpart body had been put up in almost all the 50 states to push such a measure on the local levels. In 1963, Congress passed a legislation barring differentials in wage rates in the private industry, the first such employment discrimination law. That same year, Betty Friedan published her “The Feminine Mystique” which became the handbook of the women’s movement on fighting discrimination and unfair treatment of women. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act also came into being to prohibit all forms of sex discrimination in employment. All these changes in women’s role did not happen overnight, starting as they did over 70 years ago when women clamored for their right to vote. Women won the right of suffrage in 1920 through the 19th Amendment but it took almost a century for women to obtain the broader social, economic and political rights that they now enjoy. Most of these changes were “dictated by economic not political pressures,” and the largest impact on women’s roles was brought by the “transition from an agricultural to a corporate, commercial and industrial economy.”10 Since 1960, the opportunities for women increased tremendously in the workplace, marketplace and other American institutions. By the 1990s, American women were leading lives very different from those they did in the 1950s and earlier, and it has become common for many families to have two wage earners. This enabled them “to pay for their children’s education, afford a house, and maintain a comfortable lifestyle.”11 The Impetus The Electronic Journals of the USIA maintains that it was political action that produced all the legislations changing women’s roles. But a preponderance of scholars and sociological historians are convinced that wars and economic necessities provided the immediate impetus. Reid Derr of East Georgia College posits another theory: “The social, economic and political liberties experienced by women in the 20th and 21st centuries rest squarely on the development of modern technologies and the marketing of products that have freed women from the ancestral burdens of womanhood.” In other words, all the said changes were brought on by scientific and economic phenomena rather than political although it can be said that “political pressures hastened some of the advances.”12 The influence of automobiles, for example, cannot be gainsaid. Before Henry Ford started the concept of mass production with his T-Ford model in 1925, movement and travel for people were limited, forcing women to stay at home. When the car became affordable, mobility improved and women were able to move out. Another technology that helped women break out of their traditional roles is the birth control pill. From the start, these products have been controversial but women soon saw that the pill could be useful in widening their choices. The use of the birth control pills allowed women more freedom and leisure to engage in pursuits outside the home.13 Technology and prosperity indeed created the climate that eventually brought an end to society’s perception of women as simple homemakers.14 The new houses feature modern kitchens and practical designs that make housework more efficient and less time consuming. Food is easier to prepare and the time spend on meal preparation and cleaning up has dropped to only 20 hours a week as of the 1950s. With housework less arduous and no longer a fulltime job, an increasing number of women turn to outside work to enrich their lives and enhance their family incomes. By 1980, over half of American over 16 were working. The process has been helped along in no small measure by such fads as eating out and home delivery service of restaurants. At the start of the fad, only travelers and office workers used to eat out but it has become popular with families as well. Both eating out and sending for home delivered food reduce the women’s housekeeping chores freeing their time for other productive activities.15 Integrity of the Family This has been blamed for the “destruction of the family.” In fact, the American family has not been destroyed but lives on in various forms as the institution adapts to the ever-changing times.16 The family structures changed partly because of changes in women’s roles, which in turn changed as a consequence of the changing economy. But the family is as strong as ever. One of the reasons women are not climbing the corporate ladder as fast as men is through no fault of theirs or society – it is because of children. “Career women work like men and act just like men to show there are no fundamental differences in our natures. Then reality slaps many in the face. On their way up, they come face to face with their biological clocks in their mid-30s, and want to have children. Many decide to give up their jobs to stay at home and raise their children properly.”16 If all the changes we have witnessed in women have been as deleterious to the family as suspected, majority of the American population today would have been sexually dysfunctional. This is the central message of the immensely popular book The Elementary Particles by Michel Houllebecq, which sets forth the theory that people who grow up without maternal contact during their infancy end up with “uncontrollable, destructive urges.” For this reason, the characters in the novel were described as an unhappy and neurotic bunch. In disgust at this sad state of affairs, the main character in the story, the asexual molecular biologist Michel, cloned himself in the hope that reengineering would rid humanity of suffering brought on by lust, jealousy, feelings of sexual inadequacy and sexual reproduction. The maternal instinct in women will remain strong such that the caring and nurturing hands of a mother will always be there for the American family. No matter if the family is not related by blood. This is the premise of another novel, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis. The main characters are Welsh emigrants Deborah, her cousin Hugh Wolfe and old man Wolfe. For want of an immediate family, Deborah has adopted the two men as family, which both men need badly too. Old Wolfe is too far gone to work in the foundry while Hugh is too preoccupied with himself that a woman should see to his daily needs. One day, a rich man visits the foundry and sees a figure that Hugh sculpted in his spare time. The man is impressed and says that Hugh could amount to something if he gets the time and means to study. When the visitor is gone, Hugh learns that Deborah stole the man’s wallet and offers the money to him with which to use for getting away from the iron mills and spending for his education. However, the theft was discovered and Deborah watches in great sadness while Hugh suffers in jail. Hugh stirs the mother’s instinct in Deborah who in turn shows that she is willing to give up her own happiness for the sake of her man. If women today leave home to abandon their wifely responsibilities, the reason could only be failed marriages. The new dispensation has liberated women from the traps of a bad marriage. In the past, they had to suffer through the worst marriages when this institution was held sacred. Until the onset of the 1900s, you could meet couples who had not spoken to each other for years because of a deep mutual enmity. Nonetheless, they “continued to share the same house, eat at the same table, bring up a family of children, and even share the same bed in the stubborn conviction that they were treading the only path to virtue.”17 Landmark Laws and Events On the changing roles of women, Wyoming boasts of a “first” when it became the first US territory to grant political equality. This was followed by Illinois, which passed the first law on equal employment opportunities in 1837. Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the first woman ever to serve in the US Congress. She was followed by Reps. Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey and Shirley Chisolm of New York. In 1974, Ella Graso of Connecticut became the first woman elected governor of any state, followed by Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray. The distinction as first woman judge of the Supreme Court is held by Sandra O’Vonner. Presidents Wilson and Harding during their times named women to the courts and federal commissions.18 The landmark laws that promoted women’s welfare include the law eliminating discrimination between men and women in federal service. In 1963, Congress enacted the Equal Pay Law, after which women begun to troop out of the house and into financially feasible careers. In the 1970s, the exodus of female students into law schools began and in 1972, American women started to run for public office in record number.19 The Equal Rights Amendments (ERA) would have served as icing in the cake but it hit some snags because of different interpretations of its provisions. If passed, women can be drafted into the armed forces and a larger exodus of women from their homemakers’ role will follow. Nevertheless, the women have come a long way and achieved so much. 1 Ruth Rasnic (2006). “The 20th Century – The Century that Made an Impact.” 2 Frederick Lewis Allen. “The Big Change: 1900-1950.” Bantam Books, 1965. 3 Ibid 4 Maria Dunleavy. “How Changing Sex Roles Affected the Family in the United States.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 5 JoEllen Lin. “The Changing Role of Women in American Legal History.” Seegers Lectures 6 Joyce Bryant (2005). “How War Changed the Role of Women in the US.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 7 Ibid 8 Cynthia Harrison (1997). “The Changing Role of Women in American Society.” US Society & Values, June 1997. 9 Ibid 10 Ibid 11 Electronic Journals of the USIA (1997). “The Changing Roles of Women in the US.” US Society & Values; Vol. 2, No. 2, June 1997. 12 Reid Derr. “Technological Modernization and the Social Role of Women.” East Georgia College. 13 Ibid 14 Douglas Bowers (2000). “Cooking Trends Echo Changing Roles of Women.” Foodview, Vol. 23, Issue 1. 15 Ibid 16 Maria Dunleavy 17 Rush Limbaugh (1993). “The Way Things Ought to Be.” Pocket Star Books, Oct 1993 18 Frederick Lewis Allen 19 Maria Dunleavy Part III – Reflective Response This thesis sets out to chronicle the events that led to the social, political and economic emancipation of women. The early role of women was to stay at home, help their mothers around the house, and wait for the right man to take them away in marriage. In their own homes, the women are expected to perpetuate the same cycle: raise their children and serve their husbands as their lords and masters. They did not have legal personalities, society frowned when they took up jobs outside their homes and on rare occasions that they found work, they could not earn as much as men. The paper posed the main argument that all the changes in women’s role in the American family and society as a whole came more as a consequence of naturally occurring events than the pressures exerted by women activists demanding their God-given rights. I think I have amply substantiated this contention by presenting the arguments expounded by my secondary sources on the same line of thought. I also argued that the role of women in the American family, which is to bring up and care for children, has remained basically unchanged. Some may go out and compete with men in the corporate or political arena, but they willingly give all this up when they want to have children, which is the essence of a woman. In most cases, women pursue a career outside their homes upon prior agreement with their husbands and on condition that she manages to balance career and home. The idea is for women to work without neglecting her traditional housewifely duties. In my view, I had this particular argument covered too with my choices of primary and secondary sources. If there are any weaknesses in my thesis, it could be the lack of a blow-by-blow account on the activities of the women’s movement which political action, some scholars argue, produced the legislations that altered women’s lot. But then again, the concentration of this paper is the influence of wars, economy, technology and lifestyle on women’s role. Read More