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Women In Colonial America

1390 Words6 Pages

For most of history, we have lived in a patriarchal society, where men have been the rulers and the leaders. Women in general have always been second in society, especially women of color. During the colonization area, women were going to the new homeland to start a new life for them and their families. The gender norms of the time were to be the husband was the bread winner and went out and the women stayed home and took care of the children. Throughout this colonization time, certain women were challenging their status quo and paving the way for more women to have more rights in society.

The women who were new to America were traveling by boat from England to come to the Jamestown colony, in hopes for a new life away from a dictatorship. Most of the new colonists lived on a farm. Back in England, farm work was …show more content…

The plantation owners (normally rich white men) relied on their wife, daughters and a person of color (normally a Native American/African American person) to do their work for them to work and manage while the owners were gone. One of the most remarkable women of this time was a woman named Margaret Brent. In America’s Women, Collins states: “Virtually all the colonial women wanted to marry but when they did, they were automatically stripped of their legal rights. Brent was an unmarried woman who “virtually ran the colony of Maryland during a crisis” (12). Brent and her sister were unmarried, so they could own all the land that they wanted. “Brent became an active businesswoman, who specialized in lending money to newly arrived settlers. When her debtors failed to meet their obligations, she was quick to go to court to demand payment. Between 1642-1650, she

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