Traditional Gender Roles In The 19th Century

1028 Words5 Pages

Although the elements of female development can be viewed in this chosen literature, it is crucial to first examine the foundations of the old traditional female gender roles before it changed in the early nineteenth century. In other words it is important to first view how the traditional gender roles for males and females were created. How did they form? And what influenced this formation? It is only by viewing the old ideal of gender roles that one can clearly define and examine the new and developing gender roles. There are many aspects of the creation of these traditional gender roles. However the most powerful and influential aspects include a person’s sex, society, family, education and marital status. The first and strongest component of the creation of traditional gender roles was the representation of society before and during the nineteenth …show more content…

In other words now that people have been catalogued into particular groups based on their financial background, people can now be further separated and defined by their gender. The creation of gender roles and femininity and female gender roles in particular was due to the power of capitalism. For capitalism to excel and be managed effectively in society it was required to treat the working class citizens different to that of the middle and higher class citizens. Therefore the working class became to be known as the inferior, dependent, stupid, animalistic and unsophisticated citizens in society. The working class are uncontrollable and their strong animal nature draws them towards crime rebellion and prostitution. All these and more descriptions were solely justified by just the simple nature of these people. This depiction of the working class was necessary and with it a positive and powerful image was created. This is how the construction of genders between male and females appeared. (Ingham,