Since the colonial period, women have played a significant role that had been unappreciated until a later period of time. Throughout America, the patriarchal system led to women being viewed as insignificant within society and therefore they were dependent on their husbands. However, throughout the 1800s and to the present day, women began fighting for their rights through various forms, such as protests, campaigns and literature.
Margaret Fuller had a great influence on pushing women’s rights forward after she published ‘The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women.’ in 1843, discussing her vision of women’s rights and how to achieve this. Fuller challenged the patriarchal system while working for the New York Tribune, publishing articles on subjects and ideas considered unnatural and inappropriate for a women to write and discuss. Although Fuller was an independent journalist and unaccepted by many within society, she created a pathway for women to be accepted within society. For many women prior to Fuller's influence in journalism, they had to undertake a pseudonym in order to ensure their work was published. This was mainly done not only by white middle class women but also African-Americans and those who were bi-racial (such as the Eaton Sisters).
World War Two
Challenging women’s rights to vote, equality and freedom continued throughout the 19th and 20th Century, and the significant role that women played in World War Two led to a significant change in stereotypical gender roles. Women, who were once viewed as weak and emotional, were now fighting to ‘remove the social stigma to the idea of women working’ male-dominated roles such as agriculture, business and journalism. Propaganda campaigns through radio, posters and billboards encouraged women to not only help with war effort but to ensure that society deemed women equal to a man while doing the same job as them during and after the war. Many women earned $31.21 a week from their jobs within factories whereas men would earn $54.65 in comparison.
Efforts in the late 1940s to maintain and confine women to pre-war lifestyle proved fruitless, women had found the re-birth of women’s independence from men and engaged in enforcing gender equality. Academic studies and published literature by women, argued and analysed the social and political impact of post-war America had on women as seen in Susan Hartmann’s The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s and Twayne’s American Women in the Twentieth Century series. It is clear that women within America were fighting a war within their own country to extend their opportunities instead of maintaining a lifestyle surround the home and her children.
This led to events such as the Second Wave Feminism within the 1960s to the 1980s, women participating and associating themselves in Civil Rights Movements, LGBTQ+ protests to ensure equality was not only for women but for all Americans in society. However, we can see that in America today that although women are now accepted in all fields of work they still face inequality pay and therefore continue to campaign for equal pay.
Sources:
McEuen, Melissa A. "Women, Gender, and World War II." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. 27 Mar. 2017. http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-55.
"National Women's History Museum: Women With A Deadline". 2017. Nwhm.Org. https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/womenwithdeadlines/wwd13.htm.
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