Some Things Will Never Change

In the 19th century women were attaining more freedom. Women were starting to embark on various career fields, such as medicine, law, business, and entertainment. Women began to venture in opportunities outside of the home and beyond their typical household duties to take part in urban public life. [249] They joined reading clubs and could partake in leisure activities such as croquet. On the surface life for women was improving. But as new opportunities presented themselves for women so did new opportunities for gender inequalities, sexism, and attempts to keep women second class citizens. Freedom and equality was a constant uphill battle for women.

During the Gilded Age, employment opportunities exploded as the economy and job market of the north and west boomed. Even with the need for certain jobs, women held lower positions and lower pay than their male counterparts. Department stores became a huge employer for women, however “most managerial jobs, including floorwalker, were reserved for men.” [243] In 1870, the United States had only five female lawyers and many women such as Myra Bradwell were denied the bar.[242] As the medical physician profession became more prestigious men became more resistant to women attending medical school and harassed the few women that did attend. It’s quite ironic that women weren’t considered suitable for medical school considering their medical contribution during the Civil War Thousands of women in the North and South worked as paid and volunteer nurses [197].  During the Civil War women were also more effective medical providers than men. “A Confederate congressional investigation discovered that the mortality rate among soldiers cared for by females was only half that of those tended by men.” [198] Clara Barton’s contributions and efforts to solicit donations and supplies were so successful that she founded the American Red Cross. [200]

Perhaps, if more women were doctors there would have been less unnecessary surgeries to remove female reproductive organs to supposedly cure mental illness. “It’s possible that a connection existed between the increasing independence of many women and the surgical assault on them.” [252] If a surgeon can perform this procedure to cure “virgin nymphomania” [253], it becomes apparent this is an attempt to control women. The medical profession not only used surgeries to suppress women but also drugs. It was not acceptable for women to drink alcohol, but acceptable for them to take medication to ease their depression and loneliness while their husbands spent the evenings in clubs or saloons. “Young women cannot go to a ball without taking a dose of morphine to make them agreeable.”[254] If woman were unhappy it was through their own fault and not due to society and their mistreatment of women. “I do wish that every woman who feels dissatisfied with her lot would realize that she is sick and would take steps to make herself well” [254]

Women were welcomed into careers as switchboard operators since “men tended to talk back to the costumers.” [243]This eluded and fed into the idea that women are naturally submissive and men are naturally dominant. The job opportunities that presented themselves in business offices for women were for “a pretty blond” and opened to sexual harassment.[245] With the steps forward women took into the employment market came numerous steps backward for gender equality. Also, during the gilded age women were exposed to body image concerns and uncomfortable fashion getups much like the early 1800s. Women’s preoccupation with fashion and body image was another step backwards for women.

Pioneer women headed West took on more masculine duties along the trail such as driving oxen, pitching tents, and pulling wagons, but were still expected to do domestic duties such cooking, cleaning and birthing children while remaining proper Victorian women.[211] The the suffrage and abolition movements may have had some success in the North and East, but this meant little in the West where Chinese, Mexican, and Indian women were abused and sold as slaves. Even white women captured by Indians were sold as slaves or used for sex.

Women may have gained opportunities for different careers, but they were still expected to be responsible for household and domestic duties. Every advancement for women came with restrictions. The concept of women should be devoted to family and children remained which is why only single women were available to many job opportunities. Even with all the changes, women will need to continue to fight for equal treatment. Even today I make less than money than my husband who works in the same job and has less experience. And we have yet to see a female president. Yes, the more things change the more they remain the same!

1. Gail Collins, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 249.

2. Ibid, 243.

3. Ibid, 242.

4. Ibid, 197.

5. Ibid, 198.

6. Ibid, 200.

7. Ibid, 252.

8. Ibid, 253.

9. Ibid, 254.

10. Ibid, 254.

11. Ibid, 243.

12. Ibid, 245.

13. Ibid, 211.

Only Women Protect the Interest of Women

                                 

During the 1600s Puritan ideologies led to colonial women being viewed as morally inferior and insubordinate to men even considering women’s work was important and necessary to sustain the family, farm, household and community. During this time women were in charge of the household. Women had strong economic power and influence although the religious beliefs kept them submissive to men. In the early 1800’s as women’s respect as mothers began to grow their economic influence began to decrease. Perhaps women kept silent during this transition because they were happy to resume their roles as mothers. Although this time period seems like the low point in history in regards to women’s rights, many doors began to open. Women gained access to education in order to attract a suitable husband and properly educate their children. “Parents came to believe that their girls needed some education in order to be interesting mates for well-bread husbands.”[1] Women were also able to obtain careers as teachers and factory work. Some women were even able to venture in philanthropy speaking, medical careers, and writers. Women were having fewer children and some even choosing to remain unmarried as well as choosing husbands. As women began to take control of their own lives realization of gender inequalities became apparent.  Few colleges and universities allowed women to attend. Women were not allowed to speak publicly with men in the crowd.  Women experienced substantial wage inequalities; and marriage was basically a platform for women to surrender what little right they had to men. Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony determined the most effective pathway to impact and improve gender inequalities were to give women the right to vote. “She (Susan B. Anthony) saw solution in the vote, which, once extended to women, would force changes in marriage laws.”[2]

By the mid-1800s timing seemed right to push for equal rights for women. Equal rights and the emancipation of slavery were at the forefront government and politics. “To concentrate on the emancipation of slaves was to advance the equality of women, for both were oppressed.”[3] However the suffrage movement was overshadowed by Civil War and the debate of the Fifteenth Amendment as the rights of black males took precedence over women’s rights.

In her book, Sisters The Lives of America’s Suffragists, Jean H. Baker reflects on the personal lives of women suffragists Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Describing their experiences and passion humanizes these suffrage leaders helping readers to relate and gain a greater understanding of the movement.

Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had similar lives in regards to gender inequalities. Lucy Stone remembers her mother often repeating she wished Lucy and her younger sister had been boys since “a women’s lot is so hard.”[4]. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s father told her “Oh, my daughter I, I wish you were a boy.” [5] Stone realized her mother’s truth and developed passion for the suffrage from watching the suffering of her own mother abused by a drunken husband, grieve the loss of children, and birth of nine children. Stone attended college after she raised her own money for Oberlin College taking her nine years for the first year’s tuition. [6]Stanton’s mother had given birth to eleven children as a result suffered from early menopause and became “depressed, distracted, and withdrawn.” [7]Although Stanton attended Emma Willard School and was at the top of her class, she left after Charles Finney the evangelist minister came to preach. Both Stone and Stanton were married. After pursuing Lucy Stone for years, Stone married Henry Blackwell after risking his life to save 8 year old fugitive slave girl. [8].Elizabeth Cady married Henry Brewster Stanton, a well -known abolitionist and lecturer.[9]”Like Lucy Stone’s and Henry Blackwell’s, this couple’s mutual attraction flamed in serious discussions of public matters.” [10]

Susan B. Anthony had a different upbringing than her suffrage sisters. Her father was a Quaker and humanitarian who made his home into a mecca for fugitive slaves and abolitionists. [11] She was treated with fairness by her father and mother. Anthony’s mother stood by her father in public affairs all while raising her children and helping to board and feed her husband’s mill workers. Through her mother Anthony saw gender inequalities that existed. [12] Anthony realized her “life’s purpose” while teaching after fighting for equal pay for male and female teachers. [13] Anthony began organizing lectures with Stone, Stanton, and Nette Brown. Anthony was never to marry and felt betrayed when Lucy Stone and Netter Brown married. Lucy Stone develop differences of opinion with Anthony and Stanton and went on the form her own suffrage association. The separation was further exacerbated by Stone have birthing and raising a daughter after marring Henry Blackwell and word of Henry’s affair.

Lucy Stone stated “If it takes 40 years to get out of the wilderness we must be patient.”[14] Although the efforts were delayed and these women did not see the fruits of their labor, they were successful. Each woman fought until their last breath so women could be considered equal. Even though the movement was delayed while the equal rights for Black Americans took center stage, both were cause noble to the human rights movement.

[1] Gail Collins, America's Women 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. (New York;  Harper Collins Publishers), 106.

[2] Jean H. Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 67.                                                                        

[3] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. 69.

[4] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.14 .

[5] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.93 .

[6] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.15 .

[7] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.95 .

[8] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. 22.

[9] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. 99.

[10] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. 100.

[11] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists. 59.

[12] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.60.

[13] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.63.

[14] Baker. Sisters, The Lives of America’s Suffragists.44.

“Women wasn’t nothing but Cattle” [1]

In the 1800s, white women were expected to be chaste, virtuous, timid, and completely dependent on their husbands.[2]Although white women of this time period were considered free, they were enslaved to conform with the ideal of the ‘True Woman’ and restricted by the stereotypes  that existed against women.[3] Black women in the Antebellum South were considered to have similar qualities as white women such as weakness and submissiveness; yet were viewed to have a sexual libido equivalent to and sometimes greater than their male counterparts. “The uniqueness of the African-American females situations is that she stands at the crossroads of the most well developed ideologies in America, that regarding women and that regarding the Negro.” [4] During this time period the only true meaning of the word or label ‘woman’ would be submissive and subservient.

Aside from being submissive and subservient the label of women does not accurately describe black enslaved female experiences. As children slave girls were never separated from boys and gender roles were never taught. Slave boys were expected to complete domestic duties, just as girls were expected to work in the field doing manual labor. [5] Enslaved women were stripped of their maternal instinct to become mothers even after childbearing. Enslaved women were often separated from their children as they sold by slave traders for profit. In some cases, slave women even killed their babies to prevent them from living a life of suffering. [6]

According to Deborah Gray White, the Antebellum South viewed enslaved black women in two separate ways, either the Jezebel or the Mammy. [7]The Jezebel image was influenced from misinterpretations of the African culture and concluded black women were promiscuous, lewd, and lascivious. The perception of the black woman as a Jezebel character stemmed from slave traders mistaking polygamy for lust, tribal dances for orgies, and nudity for indecency.[8] “In every way Jezebel was the counterimage of the mid-nineteenth-century ideal of the Victorian Lady.”[9] Women Southerners were very conservative in dress, never exposing their legs or arms unless for the purpose of arousing her husband. In contrast, enslaved women were barely clothed further equating black women with promiscuity.[10] Offspring of slave women were considered prolific and this encouraged slave owners to make sexual overtures, and the increase slave population was always attributed to black women’s promiscuity. [11] “By contrast, Southern white women were kept free and pure from the taint of immorality because black women acted as a buffer against their degradation.”[12] White mistresses came to envy the sexual freedom of enslaved women and the time their husbands spent in slave quarters. “If her husband stopped loving her, she had to suffer in silence.”[13]Ultimately, both women were enslaved to white men and men had their sexual deviant and the virtuous housewife.

When the South was forced to defend the purpose of slavery the character of the Mammy erupted. The mammy characterization was opposite from the Jezebel characterization and was similar to the ideal “true woman”.  “She was a woman completely dedicated to the white family, especially to the children of that family. She was the house servant who was given complete charge of domestic management. She served also as friend and advisor. She was, in short, surrogate mistress and mother.”[15] But just as the Jezebel image was inaccurate description of the enslaved black women, so was the image of the Mammy.

1. Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? (New York; W.W. Norton and Company Ltd.), 31.
2. Gail Collins, America's Women 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. (New York;  Harper Collins Publishers), 87.
3. Collins, America's Women, 88
4. Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman?, 27
5. Ibid, 92.
6.  Ibid, 88
7. Ibid, 28-61.
8. Ibid, 29.
9. Ibid, 29.
10. Ibid, 31.
11.  Ibid, 33.
12. Ibid, 39.
13. Collins, America's Women, 88
14. Deborah Gray White White, Ar'n't I a Woman?, 48

The Changing roles of Women from the Revolution to the early Republic

The Changing roles of Women from the Revolution to the early Republic:“It’s hard to imagine how women made the leap into professions for which they had no role models, no invitation, and very little encouragement”

In the 1600’s women were in charge of the household, while caring her children colonial women engaged in “candle making, soap making, butter and cheese making, spinning, weaving, dyeing… shoemaking.” [1] Since fabric was in short supply cloth production was regarded as “crucial to their survival” by colonists. [2] While it seems that women during this time period were viewed as valuable their value relied largely on their amount of labor and goods they produced. Their status was hard work to maintain. In the eighteenth century, as women’s workload lessened in terms of spinning and producing items for barter, so did the respect of women as equal household providers. Although the economic power of women decreased their respect as mothers began to grow.  In the past, women were considered to be “less intelligent, less self-controlled and even a little silly” [3] and therefore not suitable to raise sons.

In the South as the Revolutionary war approached almost all household duties were performed by slaves.  “Southern white womanhood was supposed to be submissive, as well as frail and chaste.” [4]At this time it seems women had the most insignificant role. Young women were taught to prepare for marriage by parading around looking pretty and entertaining men. Young women were also encouraged to hide all intelligence for fear it repel men and they would be doomed to be alone. Fashion became impractical with tights corsets, and high heel made of wood. [5] “The late –eighteenth-century feminine ideal was fragile, fair, not particularly bright and certainly not interested in public affairs.” [6] The worth of women had changed from their household economic contribution to the way they looked.

The view of women quickly changed as resistance to the British began to grow. Women contributed by boycotting goods after British implementation of the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, and taxing of tea. While men were fighting women reclaimed their household duties and cared for their family’s farms and businesses. A few inspiring and patriotic women broke the mold and took an aggressive stance. For example: Deborah Sampson Gannett disguised herself as a man and fought for over two years beside patriots, Molly Pritcher  loaded a canyon in place of her husband in the battle of Monmouth, and in the Battle of Fort Washington Margaret Corbin was wounded from taking the place of her dead husband. [7]Although I was joyed by the fact Congress awarded Margaret with her husband’s pension and she was buried at West Point cemetery, I am disturbed that other heroic women were not awarded the same honor, simply because they were not standing in the place of a man.

    By the nineteenth century women became focused on attaining the American Dream and wanted to obtain a better life for their children. “…they hoped to see them rise higher in the world than their parents did.” [8] Girls were educated and taught to read and write. Women fueled an industry of books and magazines. Women were also able to obtain careers as teachers and factory work. However, gender inequalities were significant in terms of wages. Although women did not have the right to vote, their lives were becoming easier. Women were having fewer children and some even choosing to remain unmarried. “Magazines urged women not to marry for money or social position, and they depicted maiden ladies positively.” [9] Women were beginning to take control of their own lives. Some women were even able to venture in philanthropy speaking, medical careers, and writers.

“It’s hard to imagine how women made the leap into professions for which they had no role models, no invitation, and very little encouragement” [10]

Although there were no drastic changes forward during this time period and quite a few setbacks, women’s roles were evolving and changing for the better.

1. Gail Collins, America's Women: 400 Years of Doll, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 49.

 2. Ibid, 50.

 3. Ibid, 69.

 4. Ibid, 71.

 5. Ibid, 73.

 6. Ibid, 78.

 7. Ibid, 81.

 8. Ibid, 85.

 9. Ibid, 138

10. Ibid, 102

“Women were damned if they did and damned if they didn't…”

“Women were damned if they did and damned if they didn't…”

In seventeenth century Puritan society women were presented with more opportunities and responsibilities than European women due to “heavily imbalanced sex ratio” that led to “greater independence through marriage and widowhood.”[1] Although women had more power and influence domestically and in the community, women were still expected to be passive and submissive.  “Women assumed that their despicable and rebellious souls would damn them.” [2] While women’s passive and obedient qualities were receptive to Christ, adversely they would be receptive to the devil. “The representation of the soul in terms of worldly notions of gender and the understanding of women in terms of characteristics of the feminine soul, led by circular reasoning to the conclusion that women were more likely to submit to Satan.”[3] According to Puritan’s the female body was considered weaker than her male counterpart. The combination of a submissive soul and weak vessel led to the belief that women are more vulnerable to the devil’s temptations.

             

Women in Puritan society were damned for two major reasons, accusations and confession. “Because the court, the accuser, the witnesses, and even the accused themselves all believed that women were more likely to be witches than men, women had much more difficulty establishing their innocence.” [4] Considering the belief the women are weaker than men and more inclined to give into the devil’s temptation, one can see why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men. But why would an innocent woman of God confess to being a witch and conspiring with the devil?

The Puritans believed that salvation and damnation were foreordained by God and not determined by individual actions. Perhaps women believed they were sinners damned to hell and accepted accusations against them. “Women were more likely to interpret their own sins, no matter how ordinary, as tacit covenants with Satan, spiritual renunciation of God, evidence of their vile natures.”[5] For example, Alice Dorchester stated prior to her hanging she deserved her fate due to past sins, although innocent of being a witch.  Also, once a woman was accused it was difficult for her to distinguish prior sins from the current accusations. If a woman declared and maintained her innocence, she would be convicted and hung. If a woman confessed, her life was spared and she could repent. “Ironically, those who would not confess to witchcraft and allow themselves to be forgiven, yet who did not admit to sin, as any good Puritan should, were executed.” [6] Lastly, since Puritans valued receptivity, passiveness, and submissiveness among women and believed it was necessary for salvation, a good Puritan woman would confess and beg for forgiveness. “In confessing, these women succumbed to the unbearable pressures of their own community’s expectations of proper female behavior.” [7] Women were damned if they confessed and damned they protested their innocence.

In Chapter 5 Reis explains that in the mid-eighteenth-century after the Salem witch trials, Puritans begin to take more responsibility for their sins. Satan is seen as temptation toward evil rather than physical entity possessing human souls. Although the devil is perceived as less of a threat, gender inequalities continue in regards to sin. “Men tend to blame their sins for corrupting their souls; women more often blamed their corrupt souls for producing sinful behavior. [8] Women are still seen as naturally vile and ultimately guilty.

1   Elizabeth Reis, preface to Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), xii

2 Ibid., 174.

3 Ibid., 94.

4 Ibid., 162.

5 Ibid.,  124

6 Ibid., 137

7 Ibid., 136

8 Ibid., 165