Woman's Building - Assignment Example

Woman’s Building Your Full Woman’s Building Looking back at the past, it is evident that principles of today’s American society differ a lot from those ones that people had even a century ago, and today’s freedoms and opportunities are coming from the past. It is always easier to judge about historical moments over some sufficient time, because the circumstances can be seen and it is possible to choose correctly what label to attach, with positive or negative meaning. Therefore, it should be said that the meaning of woman’s participation in the World’s Columbian Exposition was critical, what is also stated by Chadwick (1990): “By the time … World’s Fair opened in Chicago in 1893, American women had evolved a new sense of identity and purpose.

… [R]epresentatives of all groups came together to organize a woman’s building intended to prove that women’s achievements were equal to those of men” (p. 247)But it would not be right to insist that it was the final event in American culture that changed the course of the history. “[Women] remained caught between the demands of careers and motherhood, struggling continually against the limitations placed on them by the social category of femininity, against the trivializing of their work in relation to that of men, and against the mythologizing of its ‘otherness” (Chadwick, 1990, p. 248). Though, it was a true victory because “despite the unevenness of its displays and the critics’ argument that mediocrity was the only possible result when “femininity was the first requisite and merit a secondary consideration,” the Woman’s Building overwhelmed visitors by the sheer magnitude and ambition of its displays” (Chadwick, 1990, p. 250).Summing everything up, the whole idea of Woman’s Building was not accepted completely but the set of people’s minds was changed due to that.

Further steps led to the present where women have the right to express themselves, to compete with men and to be free in all meanings of this word.ReferencesChadwick, W. (1990). Women, Art, and Society. New York: Thames and Hudson.