Introduction
Virtually all aspects of people’s lives are governed by gender. The society has long-held perceptions about the appropriate responsibilities, particular weaknesses, and strengths of different genders. The beliefs dictate everyday life, responses, and patterns of activities such as crime and sports. Historians delegate particular focus to the functions of the women who were once considered lowly in the ancient days, but with time have grown to develop themselves and their households. Gender roles have encountered numerous changes within each passing century and decades as human beings continue to evolve into superior and civilized creatures. This essay will look at the sex variations that have taken place in the Pacific Northwest region comprising of the United States and nations in North America. The aim is to cover all the historical events and concepts that resulted in the changes in women and men’s responsibilities in the 19th and 20th century.
Body
Throughout history, the females have been constant victims of the ideals of the community. Traditionally, they were defined both intellectually and physically as a weaker gender that was always subordinate to the men. The society had particular standards and rules that the women had to follow. Opportunities were scarce for them due to their lack of significance in the community. However, in today’s era, women interests and activities are gradually recognized in all fields. They have demanded their rights and the chances to be acknowledged as fundamental members of the society. The question is thus how the gender roles changed to the extent that more females have acquired freedom and significance.
Women suffrage commenced in the late 19th century and early 20th period led by prominent middle-class females in the Pacific Northwest region. At the beginning of the campaigns, the women demanded political and legal rights. In the middle of the 20th century focus shifted from the initial suffrage movement to economic and social equality in the private and public sphere. More women activism groups emerged to spread the word that females felt oppressed by the traditional patriarchal structures. Most developing concepts concerning gender inequalities have their foundations in the hierarchical sex order and differences.
For centuries societies and people had used body adornments and clothes as a mode of non-verbal communication to show rank, occupation, class, gender, wealth, locality, and sexual availability. The events that occurred in the 20th century such as the world wars, the rise of feminine freedoms and the growth of civilization have made the images and perceptions of women to change in the most profound ways. The 19th and 20th century saw the end of the marking of the natural lines in female’s bodies and eradicated the deformation of their trunks by wearing corsets. The practices portrayed women as a true representation of men’s opposites.
An existentialist ideology will declare that for the Pacific Northwest the timeframe from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century was an era of evolution in the region that determined the beliefs of individuals and the way they governed themselves. Hence, it is easy to see how people in the 21st century take the freedoms that they have for granted. The world began to develop the concept of humanism in the 14th century that brought about the need for creativity and intellect. Therefore, with time the society started to see what was acceptable or unacceptable with regards to humanism. The themes that went against the concept were gender oppression and the discrimination of the minorities.
Social division prevailed in the Pacific Northwest due to the lack of equal social, political, and economic rights amongst people. Women were amongst those who were most affected by the split social surrounding. The urbanized females thus established the Cult of Womanhood in the 20th century that stipulated a series of suggestions and rules that would assist women in attaining their full freedom. The females joined up to form movements and rejected their traditional sex roles with the rise of feminism. They began to change the social spheres in their community.
In the Pacific Northwest region, men and women filled different positions in the society. The males enjoyed the public life where they would work and talk to like-minded men. The females, on the other hand, were homebound to cleaning, child rearing, and cooking. The free time that they had was not to be spent socializing but looking for duties related to family maintenance. The traditional expectations limited the opportunities that women had in comparison to the males. One area that made the females lag behind in development was education. Their learning was viewed as a pervasive attempt to disrupt the social order. The women were also shut out in leadership completely.
The females could not vote. They were bound to their spouses under common law such that they were not considered as independent persons at all. While it is valid that female monarchs have been around for centuries, they mostly arose due to death or birth accidents. The 19th and 20th century saw the dissipation of women’s gender roles as they started to decline the traditional responsibilities. The change is particularly associated with the rise of the Industrial revolution in the Pacific Northwest that required everyone in the household including children to take part in business activities. The event opened the eyes of many females to see their oppression and inspired them to join the workforce.
The first prominent feminist meeting took place in Seneca Falls in 1848 and was dubbed the Women’s Rights Convention. The meeting was attended by over 300 men and women who discussed the current conditions of the females in the United States for three days. The participants drafted their sentiments in a declaration that they utilized in their movements. Vassar created a college where women who could afford to pay from the upper-class groups could receive the education. With the onset of the 19th century, females started to participate more in public life to show the society that they were intellect partners of the males. They started to press to be allowed to pursue professional careers such as lawyers and doctors.
For the largest part, men were not comfortable with women gaining political, social, and economic rights because they feared they would lose control over the females. They also did not believe that women had the capability to understand the complex situations in the environment that required logical reasoning. Others saw equality as a vice that would erode the traditional mechanism that helped the society to identify itself as men and women were always considered opposites. The ideology was that the females were more moral and religious that the males. Hence, introducing them into male activities and life would corrode their ethical standards.
Another contested issue in gender relations was reproductive health. The community believed that it was immoral for women to have a hand in controlling what could only be governed by God, that is, baby making. Men wanted the females to continue bearing children so that they would not join them in the workplace but stay at home to care for the babies. The issue of sex equality was taken a notch further when women began to do what the males did. For instance, they started smoking, drinking, and cutting their hair short. The females also changed their dressing styles as a sign of the new freedom.
Gender responsibilities continued to shift during the world battles when men were shipped off to fight while women were left to work in the factories, shipyards, and airplane industries. The wartime duties allowed the females to shift from their traditional roles of cooking and cleaning to mechanized work in the factories. The work gave them a chance to prove that they could handle similar roles as the men. For most of the women, once the battles ended, their jobs went down with them. But they left a long-lasting implication and yearning to seek permanent entry into the workforce.
Conclusion
The early years of the 20th century also called the Progressive period saw the emergence of the marked transformation of female stereotypes. However, taking up professional roles was not easy for women with children and families since after a long day’s work they were expected to go back home and care for their households. The females experienced a conflict of interests where some sought to stick to their careers and stay unmarried without children while others decided to multitask the duties of taking care of the family and going to work. With time, women began to demand assistance in household work from the men breaking the traditional barriers even further. The changes in gender roles indicate that women are essential pillars in the community. Without them, there would have been no continuous habitation in the Pacific Northwest region. Gender relations outline the culture of the region and the interactions between men and women. A thorough analysis of sex roles portrays the years of hard work, determination, and suffering poured in by females to create equality in the society.
Bibliography
Child, Brenda J. "Gender, Sexuality, and Family History." The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History (2016): 397.
Grimke, Sarah. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, New York, 1837.
Hanisch, Carol. The Personal Is Political. Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation, 1969.
Prescott, Cynthia Culver. "Representing the Ideal American Family." Pacific Historical Review 85, no. 1 (2016): 110-142.
Stearns, Peter N. Gender in world history. Routledge, 2015.
Willard, Emma. An Address to the Public; Particularly to the Members of the Legislature of New-York, Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education, New York, 1819.
