Recommended: Important role a midwife plays in a society
Women had to be housewives and raise children. In the late 1700’s women started to work and leave the house. 10.) Was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals. Superiority of republican self-government helped in the creation of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
In the 1800’s, men were the only ones that became doctors. That is until 1849 when Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from medical school (Lewis, Jone Johnson). Being the first woman to receive a medical diploma, Elizabeth Blackwell opened up the door for women everywhere to become doctors (“Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)”). Women in the 1800’s were usually midwives, but Elizabeth Blackwell changed that for women everywhere. Elizabeth Blackwell was born February 3, 1821 in Bristol, England ("Elizabeth Blackwell").
During the nineteenth century, women were forced to marry young, have children, and take care of the household while their husbands worked and supported the family financially. The women represented the values of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. This concept, known as the ideology of true womanhood, was transformed the moment the Birth Control Pill became invented. Women began focusing on their strengths and skills that were not necessarily within the household anymore. Many wanted to get occupations and start a career of their own without having to worry about getting pregnant.
Around the late 18th to early 19th century, colonial American New England life was centered on living independently and being finally free from the British Empire after the Revolutionary War. Establishing control of a newly founded government with set functions and a first president, there were progressive changes that America had to act upon post-war. However, behind the political aspects that are greatly highlighted in American history, the roles of women in society, particularly midwives shouldn’t be cast aside. Although women were largely marginalized in early New England life because of their gender, nevertheless Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale is instructive because it demonstrates the privilege of men’s authority in society
Women became housewives during the baby boom. It happened from many men coming out from WW2 and having babies with their wives(Class Notes-Domestic and Economic Changes Notes). If the husband and wife have babies and can't support them, then they would have a more significant impact on losing the babies because of insufficient food resources for the kids and baby. The result of this was that this was unequal for the women's side. When the baby boom began, there were many divorces with the partners.
In the 1900s men were seen as the breadwinners of the household. It was the job of the father to provide food, clothes and shelter to
Lives of Women in the Early 1800s. " Lives of Women in the Early 1800s. N.p., 2002.) Women have always been expected to find a husband, get marry and have children and nothing less was expected of them. Women during decades ago and even today in 2017, many women live by the norm that if you don’t get marry you’re a dishonor/disgrace to the family.
In the early 1800s, women were expected to be housewives. They had to get married and have children. Once there was the industrial revolution, women started working in the Lowell Mills. They were able to earn a salary. However, the working conditions were challenging.
It was a change because back in their hacienda women were housemaids or would stay home and take care of house work. Although some women still struggled with being in the lower class and being in the city. They were stuck with doing forced labor with bad working conditions. The only way they would receive some kind of respect was midwifery. Centuries later women began to gain courage and stand up for what they believe in.
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.
Women in this time were expected to be the ones to take care of their children so even if there was an opportunity to get a job the wife normally couldn’t since most wives were stay-at-home wives. The husbands are normally seen as the man of the house and this was especially true in the late 1800s. They were known to be the ones who were in control of everything and the women had to listen to them because that was expected of them. So when their husbands didn’t allow them to obtain a job the wives had no choice but to listen to them. The husband preferred for their wives to take care of their child since there was nobody else that could take care of them and that was a norm for women.
Women in the upper class were not expected to work, because it was not proper behavior for them, and thus they did not need to be taught subjects in school about that. Very few women had jobs and if they did it was because they were not married, which was not popular in society at that time. These women went against the expectation to get married young, run a home and care for their families. The focus on gentility during this time is large proponent of why there were few advertisements for female academies and why only a select set of courses were taught at the female academies. Had women had the equal opportunity to learn all of the same subjects as men during this time, they could have made a contribution to society and held jobs in their
They also had the option of being an overworked nurse in a filthy hospital, or being a “searcher”, a person that tries to find the cause of disease in the deceased (Gale). Since these two jobs were out of the question for many, most women decided to get married. The things that a housewife would have to do depended on her husband’s occupation, but most importantly depended on keeping him happy and satisfied (Gale). For example, a shopkeeper’s wife would have to keep account of all the books and keep a stable household, while a farmer’s wife would have to run to the market to sell cheese, eggs, etc (Gale). Women in the higher classes had more free time, which was spent on things like singing, dancing, and writing letters to one another (Gale).
Midwives handled most matters of gynecology. Although male doctors had more theoretical knowledge about female genitalia, midwives had more practical knowledge, so most male physicians left gynecology to them. Midwives are most notably known for assisting women in birth. They handled everything from prenatal care to “baby-catching”, or the actual birthing process, to cutting the umbilical cord. Some midwives were even known to perform cesarean sections by the Late Middle Ages.
In the 19th century, women were considered mothers and wives. Women have struggled since the early ages trying to advance in knowledge. “For many people today the word Victorian continues to carry a connotation of prudery and sexual repression; it was an age that un questionably preceded the onset of "the permissive society. ”(Walter) Tracy Chevalier has examples of how women struggled in her book Remarkable Creatures.
