Regency Era And The Victorian Period

Bonnie Smith –Yackel in “My Mother Never Worked” is remembering her mother with the feelings of disdelief of how society views a stay at home wife. While some differences between “My Mother Never Worked” and “I Want a Wife” are evident, the similarities are noticeable. Most of Society has the belief that because a woman is just a housewife, she does not work. The federal government saids “a woman who is a homemaker, who has never been a wage earner, is eligble for Social Security benefits only through the earnings of her deceased husband (Smith-Yackel 118). Bonnie Smith-Yackel I believe is shocked, and upset as she has realized, how hard her mother really did work.

Women’s opportunities were severely limited, and her narrative was prescribed to her. Gloria Steinem was born the granddaughter of a committee member of the National Woman Suffrage Association, so activism and women’s rights had been tackled in her family far before she was born. Steinem’s parents split up early on in her life, resulting in her mother’s financial instability. Steinem later accredited her mother’s inability to keep a job to the hostile attitudes towards women in the workspace. In addition to this, her mother’s experiences with mental illness also exposed Steinem to social injustices that were pivotal in sparking her involvement in the feminist movements.

If Lyddie did work at the factory she would have no place and could possibly be living on the street. In a particular situation Learns that if she signs the petition she could get dismissed. “ Should you sign the petition Betsy they’ll dismiss you” (page 91 ). Lyddie could get fired if she signs the petition which means she would have to leave the corporation and as said before Lyddie would have nowhere to go. Not only would Lyddie have no shelter, but now she has the responsibility of caring for her little sister who unexpectedly came to stay with her.

“Mill girls had been replaced in the mid-to late 1800s by Italian, Irish, and Portuguese immigrants who would work for lower wages” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). Although the textile mills thought they had found a better way to work without spending as much money on workers they were wrong. Most mill girls were already very experienced and good at their jobs, while immigrants needed to be taught all of their jobs and there was a strong language barrier which made everything more difficult. “One out of every three spinners, many under the age of twenty five, would die before completing ten years in the factory” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). With many of the mill girls not being able to survive in such harsh conditions and as they got fewer and fewer, it showed how important all of them were in the business.

Gender is changing indeed, but should the values of Wellesley College change as well? A college of many that went through tough times to even be able to give education solely to women. Education was not only limited to certain people because of their financial situations, but women were especially denied the right to education because of the stereotype to stay at home and take care of their family. It was not until the twentieth century that women started attempting to have equal rights to education. Before the American Civil War few colleges admitted women and even then, the same curriculum was not offered.

Curley’s wife is more outgoing than most women, and she is rewarded with names

This was one of the reasons that drove Moody to succeed in her academic achievement and go against her mother wishes and get involved in civil rights movements. For moody, her mother was a reminder of what her future would be if she didn’t thrive for change in her community. After becoming an active member of the NAACP, Toosweet used to get threats from local sheriff that moody must not return to

In contrast with the previous decade, when women have just begun to stand up for their rights, the following period was not much of a favorable. As the 1930’s began with the depression, millions of American citizens, among them women were homeless and hungry. Some of them, avoided the stark deprivation, however still struggled to get by - “We didn’t go hungry, but we lived lean.” – as people often said during those hard times. Women received a clear message from the media – as getting a job was enormously hard, and so was its keeping, they were supposed to stay at home, not in the workplace. Female individuals, who had a job, were viewed as stealing it from men.

In addition, all women were denied the right to vote. “The cult of true womanhood ideology extended middle-class ideals far beyond the middle class and affected marriage, female education, and employment choices, as well as strategies for obtaining women’s rights…”(WOMEN). American women of the late 1800’s struggled with no rights in the government, considered inferior, and married women had no separate identity from her husband. One reason American women were treated poorly is because of their rights in the American government.

In the early 1800’s, Women were denied some of the essential rights that men had. For instance, women could not own land or have the right to vote. In fact, women could even be fired from the job they currently had if they were pregnant. But just imagine this, if a woman wanted to establish a credit card, she needs her husband to authenticate that for her. And to top it off, women were even denied to go to college because of their gender, even if they have spectacular grades (Katie).

As I said earlier, signing the petition might get you fired so if Lyddie signs the petition, she’ll get fired so she wouldn’t be able to get money for her family. When Lyddie receives a letter from her mother, she gets or determined than ever to get money to support her family. “She must earn all the money she could to pay what they owed, so she could gather her family together…” (88) This shows that Lyddie is determined to raise money to support her family. But if she signs the petition, she could get fired. Then, she wouldn’t be able to support her family.

With the United States not offering paid maternity leave for new mothers it has made it very difficult for people to work with this issue, and most are struggling. Some topics you should know about the maternity leave in the United States is only four states have announced publicly they have paid maternity leave, women are struggling with the policies, policies contribute to a gap in gender pay, FMLA doesn’t help everyone, jobs with technology have the best benefits, having paid maternity leave would be good for business, companies are working on these policies and so is

“women should be discouraged from working for wages, as the resultant labor market competition could lower wages for male heads of household; and women needed to abstain from workplaces to uphold their duties as “mothers of the race,” and to provide for other unpaid services in the home.” Novak, Mikayla. " Gender Hierarchy during the Progressive Era: Thoughts and Practices. " Libertarianism. N.p., 11 Feb. 2015.

Women working for the Texas state government suffer wage inequality because all women are held to the expectation that they will leave work to have a baby. Women can make the decision on whether they will or will not have kids, but because their colleagues do plan on having kids or are pregnant they all are held at a certain pay. When hiring women there is this doubt that they will stay the entire time and that it will be a permanent job so the employer does not feel a need to give them an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women still get paid less than men. There have been countless arguments that wage inequality has been fixed and that everyone

No longer could she enter into a convent, and she was forced to live with her father and later her sister and brother-in-law. After Claude’s death, Marie did not gain any of the benefits of being a widow. In her brother in-law’s shop, she was subject to his rules and his work. Her business-like mind allowed her to keep books and inventory, which placed her ahead of most women. Even so, she was thrust into a position that she did not want to be in, thus placing her in a more marginalized state.