African American Women In The 1930's

Women struggled to be treated as equals when trying to qualify for federal programs. Social security benefits were structured around the idea of a male breadwinner and a dependant housewife. (Ware). Much of society believed that women could not possibly be the head of the household and therefore it was much more difficult for women to get the help they needed in the depression. Even though many people believe that the need for feminism died out it was still needed in the 1930s to help the women with jobs.

He would misuse and abuse her. During this time, people believed that women were only good at cooking, cleaning, or nurturing their children and couldn’t do much else. Because people thought this way, women were uneducated unless they were in the upper class. Wealthy women would sometimes have private tutors that would teach them.

No founding father and revolutionist who affirmed and believed in a just and free America would affirm human bondage. At the time and in 1776, only a few men proclaimed slavery as a necessary evil, however, most men, even in the remotest of the United States believed in the freedom of men. According to Thomas Jefferson in his love for Justice and the love of country script, he stood on the viewpoint that that equality was a moral obligation that ought to be preserved and observed by all mankind

Their relationships were controlled, and they had to have a chaperone with them at all times during the date. Women were also unable to vote and there were very few paid jobs, as they were expected to be housewives and those who did have a job were extremely low paid ones like cleaning ladies, dress makers and secretaries. However, during the First World War, women were taken into war industries which

High class women had the resources and means to possess quality corsets. Middle class women wore corsets as well, but the quality was severely lacking, in regards to the higher class corsets. And finally lower class women did not wear them on a daily basis, if at all. Generally working class women, although at the time many women were not considered to be working, did not wear a corset as it severely inhibited physical performance. To wear a corset, at the time, was a defining part of their social status.

Gender Roles Today women are paid seventy-five cents to the dollar of what men make because it is perceived that women have a lower ranking than men. Women are expected to settle down, get married, have kids, and stay a housewife and/or stay at home mom for the rest of their lives. A woman is expected to stay at home to cook, clean, and make sure everyone else’s needs are met before her own. But, what a woman is not expected to do is go out, have a career of her own, and take care of herself. Females are definitely more restricted by conventional gender roles.

While the other girls grumbled that their piece rates had dropped so that it had hardly been worth slaving…” ( Paterson, p. 86) The implication is, Lyddie is not paid by the hour, but also from how much fabric she makes. Other factory girls are not even increasing their pay, in fact their pay is only lowering. In addition to the other girls not even going to budge working because of their low pay, Lyddie has a chance to get the money she needs to reunite with her family. Therefore, if Lyddie were to sign the petition, her pay will only decrease. Lyddie is already making a good amount of money, signing the petition will only slow her down, and even worse, Lyddie could be dismissed leaving her with debt.

Many women who were considered feminists in this era were also supporters of Jim Crow laws and believed that African Americans were part of society’s problems. Feminism throughout this time period was also exclusive to women of the middle-class because workingwomen and poor women did not have the luxury of technology and worked out of necessity rather than for autonomy. Another issue with this part of the movement was that once a woman had children, she was no longer considered worthy of the rights she had while she was unmarried and childless (Nolan, 370). The birth of the feminist movement in the progressive era paved the way for tackling complex women’s issues into the 1930s. Securing basic rights such as the right to work, vote, and participate in the public sphere were the essential goals of this generation.

Women were seen as hardworking and helpful people to have working on and off the battlefield. Women during this time were seen as below men and have the thoughts of women "Many people thought a girl lacked a boy 's intelligence; to much study would make her unladylike" (Reef 16). People thought a women could not be anymore intelligent or smart and work as hard as a man, nowadays this is way different and people see things in a new light. When Nightingale was learning and gathering as much information on topics like these as a little girl to prove society wrong. Nightingale forever showed the world that no one 's gender should make one entitled to more or less education than another (“Florence Nightingale The Legendary Nurse”).

Furthermore, this gap has been increasing and is larger than it was 20 years ago. According to this data, it is evident that the women was treated unfairly in getting paid. This gap is caused by the women’s lack of courage about asking the boss to raise the salary and the women was seemed to be less able to afford much work than the men. Then, they would be offered easier work which provided less salary. To extend, all those conclusions were based on the bias, natural sex differences and the logical fallacies.