Nineteenth vs. Twenty-First Century Women How were women treated in the 19th Century? How are women treated now? There are many ways to tell the difference in how women were treated yesterday in comparison to today. In the 1800’s the women were treated differently than they are today. Treating poor women (like Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter) inferior or taking advantage of them is how men got what they favor for in those times. Another issue that is hurting women in this century is gender equality while men have been the more dominant gender women become less dominant, and it creates an inequality that is still a problem today. In the Scarlet Letter, the character Hester Prynne was arrested, she could not help but walk out of the prison with shame while people were reacting and heaping insult on her. Their reaction is to the crime she committed, adultery. Her secrecy was revealed to the whole Puritan village that her crime was evil and that having a child would make her two times guiltier and made her child the essence of her sin. This is why Hester wore a …show more content…
Most opinions of Americans in the 1960s proclaim that they “did not yet believe that gender equality was possible or desirable.” (Coontz 1). Yet every woman today wants to believe that working together, by standing together with, a balanced diversity can help our country set an example to the world of how effective gender equality can be, such as in family issues. It’s easy for women to say that family decisions “should be made by the man of the house” (Coontz 1) but sometimes that’s not always the case. Mostly women are making family decisions in the house; men are accomplishing at work and are the breadwinners of the household. Besides from staying at home, women want to be able to work alongside men, get paid the same as men, and have the same rights as men. These examples show how gender equality can be
For decade women have been discriminated by society, all around the world. In many countries women are still treated as the inferior sex. “daily life for women in the early 1800s in Europe(Britain), was that of many obligations and few choices. Some even compare the conditions of women in time as a form of slavery.” (Smith, Kelley. "
Women throughout history have always been oppressed. They were thought of as objects to create families and keep the husband happy. This began to change when women started to argue for more rights in the 1800’s. It still took many years for women to receive equal rights though. In 1920 women in America were finally granted suffrage, meaning the right to vote.
The context of the changing roles of women between the periods of 1890-1920 and 1960-1980 are voting rights and equal pay in the workplace. Women's roles have changed a lot over the many years women have gone from being housewives to working in the factories. The roles of women changed from 1890-1920 to 1960-1980 and one of the big changes from 1890 to 1980 is women's voting rights because women couldn't vote in 1890 but they could in 1980. Another one is women in the workforce because in 1890 women were expected to provide for their homes and not work but by 1980 most women worked.
The role of females in society has often been limited to being a traditional housewife tasked primarily with the upbringing of children. In the United States, however, women have steadily rose to prominence ever since the ratification of the Woman’s Suffrage Amendment, which prohibited citizens from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex, in August of 1920. In less than one hundred years, females have slowly closed the gap between their male counterparts in the workplace, and have garnered more attention on a political and social level. The result has given more freedom to women, who are no longer chained down to traditional social expectations like housecleaning, cooking, childcare, shopping, and running errands. Furthermore, with
My first introduction of Hester Prynne, from what the author described, showed that she wore the Scarlet Letter on her chest with pride and she showed no sense of remorse on her face. “In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors.” (pg.46) My response would be “how could she commit an act so unholy as a mother, and display pride?” The comparison and contrast that Hawthorne makes between Hester and her baby is that her baby is a sin-born infant but never committed an act of adultery.
Today, most would think that all humans have equal rights. Unfortunately, though, women are still not treated as equal as men. Women do not get paid as much as men do, they are expected to stay home and take care of the children, and they do not have as many job opportunities as men do. All of this is in spite of the fact that women have been fighting for their rights in this country since the 1800s. Two of the most widely known speeches are “Ain’t I a Woman” and “Speech at Seneca Falls Convention.”
When Hester finally takes off the scarlet letter “A” and her cape in the wilderness, it not only represents the beauty she held despite the emotional punishment she underwent, but it also represents her removing the Puritan and patriarch society holding her back. Hester’s feminist conscious is intricately portrayed throughout the
The period of time from 1890 to 1925 was a revolutionary time for women in America. From the beginning of the United States the role of women was always ambiguous. Women were seen as necessary for the survival of the colonies but not equal to men in any way. However, over time the role of women has evolved. The era of 1890 to 1925 included the Gilded Age, Progressive Movement, and the first World War and these events changed the role of women in American forever.
In the novels, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, discipline played an important role. Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter committed adultery and was sentenced to wear the letter “A” on her bosom at all times and to stand on a scaffold every Sunday at twelve. In The Crucible, discipline was known to be more extreme. Innocents began to lose lives as they were either hanged or pressed by stone. In both novels, the discipline was supported by the townspeople.
The traditional views of women in America consisted of the women's role of being somewhat subservient to the men. Those opinions deteriorated quickly in the era from 1890-1925. Both economic and political developments of the United States in the era from 1890-1925 contributed to a substantial change in the assumptions about the nature of women and a significant improvement in the overall position of women in America. Economic developments of the era from 1890-1925 played a role in the rising position of women in our nation. Our nation was in the process of incredible growth on the coattails of the post-Civil War "Industrial Revolution.
The stereotypes applied to nineteenth century women were not just stereotypes, they were realities. Women were expected to stay home and do all the cooking and cleaning for their family. They were entirely dependent on their male counterparts for all their tasks outside the domestic sphere. They were generally considered unintellectual and uneducated. Women were generally suppressed in early society.
The townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”
In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
Hester Prynne is the very embodiment of feminism because of her refusal to adhere to the societal norms, her independence in thought, and how the view of the society around her changes through the novel. One of the main reasons why Hester Prynne is an important and progressive feminist character in The Scarlet Letter is her refusal to follow societal norms or to be put down by her peers. A primary example of her refusal to be put down by her peers is when Hester brandishes her
Raisin in the Sun: Gender Roles Defied Following the event of World War Two, America during the 1950s was an era of economic prosperity. Male soldiers had just returned home from war to see America “at the summit of the world”(Churchill). Many Americans were confident that the future held nothing other than peace and prosperity, so they decided to start families. However, the 1950s was also a time of radical changes. Because most of the men in the family had departed to fight in the war, women were left at home to do the housework.