21st Century Women: How Their Roles in Society Have Changed

21st Century Women: How Their Roles in Society Have Changed

Annise Hawkins

Abstract:

It is a known fact that throughout history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Being a wife and mother were regarded as women’s most significant professions. As the years went by, women’s role in society changed from the typical housewife to “independent” career women. My objective is to understand how this transformation came about and examine through phenomenological research why the traditional roles of women and men have changed over the years and have this change affected their families.

Key Words:

Women

Roles

Home

Education

Workforce

Politics

Leadership

There is no surprise that the roles that women have fulfilled over the course of American history have changed significantly. However, one truth that has not changed is that families have always depended on the work of women; it is only the nature of the work that has changed.

In the past 250 years, women’s work has evolved to include many different roles. Back then, America was primarily an agricultural society, and wives were responsible for much of the labor. Nancy Woloch in Women and the American Experience explains the “Household labor shaped women’s lives” (Woloch, pg. 9). She goes on to say that “the wife cooked, washed clothes over open fires. She planted vegetable gardens, milked cows, operated dairies, and produced hard cider, pickled and preserved and smoked and salted meat.” She also took care of the children, stitched shirts, knit stockings, made soap, candles, and medicines” (Woloch, pg. 9). She also helped out in the field if necessary and was a “deputy husband” who took on her mate’s’ responsibilities in his absence (Ulrich, pg. 37). Both parents were responsible for child rearing. Boys worked side by side with their fathers and learned to farm or were apprenticed to a trade....