My Antonia Gender Roles

“When you grow up as a girl, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood.” My Antonia is set around the turn of the century, during a time where women's roles in everyday life were beginning to change from the kitchen to the work force. Willa Cather portrays characters that go against stereotypical gender roles in her novel, My Antonia. Not only do the main characters, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerdas, not follow the traditional gender roles, but neither do many of the other characters in the novel. Cather shows Antonia as a young girl who is not afraid to work like a man in the fields and stand up
for herself as a women. Jimmy is portrayed as a bashful boy, who would rather spend time with the girls over boys.
Before the Edwardian era, women's traditional roles were to submit to men, because by nature men were more intelligent and stronger than women, Willa takes these ideas and throws them out of the window.
Women would spend their days cleaning, cooking, and making sure their husbands were happy, working was out of the question. Women were shown as stupid and could not be dependent from their husbands.“ The Edwardian era appeared rife with social movements, but none caused as much furor as the “New Women”.” During the 1880’s s an Agricultural depression hit and young girls for the first time left home to move to the cities to get a job. Though men were often hired over women, some still got jobs and from this came the new women. These working, independent, new woman “ were not content with their existence as “superfluous” women that characterized the mainstream press’s “woman problem”. That problem was the increasing number of women who were not getting married, which was causing the traditional gender roles to began changing. Debates on what whether women's roles should be housewives or if they should have the same rights as
men.
There are many ways that Antonia breaks the barriers for the traditional roles for women, not only does she act like a man but she stands up for herself as a women. After her father dies, Antonia stops her reading lessons so she “ can works like mans now” (Cather 118) by helping her brother in the fields. She takes on such male characteristics to the point where she even brags about “how much ploughing she [has] done that day.” (118). After working for Mrs.Harlings as a hired girl, Antonia starts going to these dances. When an engaged man tries to kiss her Mrs.Harlings tells Antonia she can either stop dancing or find another job. Antonia decides to take her chances and finds a job working for Mr.Cutter. Some might see this act as Antonia being a wild teenager but really she is sticking up for herself like a man would. Antonia did not ask for that man to kiss her and she should not be punished because he tried to. If she was a man and an engaged girl had tried to kiss her Mrs.Harlings probably would not had told her to stop dancing. So Antonia keeps her independence and leaves the harlings. Once she is at the Cutters, Ántonia spends even more time and energy on her new social life. She sews her own outfits and goes around town with Lena and a number of the other hired girls. She ends up having her first baby and is unmarried, “...she survives a variety of threats and denials to fashion for herself a role profoundly expressive of her sexuality, her distinctiveness, as a person, and her virtual…”
Jimmy’s lack of masculinity is another explain of how Cather changes the gender roles and how the book demonstrates the “New Woman” literature that this time. Jimmy is described as a “bashful”(34) young boy when he first arrives in BlackHawk and overall to have a more feminine side. He spends all his time as a young boy with Antonia and Tony playing or giving them reading lessons. A young frontier boy would be more likely to spend more time with boys then with girls but Jim’s sensitive nature and Ántonia’s tomboyish make the two natural companions. There is no mention of Jimmy ever trying to make any friends that are boys either. This suggest he may have felt he had more in common with Antonia and other females in his life then the men he knew. Another way Jimmy shows his more sensitive side is how he describes the garden was “... [his] happiness; [being] dissolved into something complete and great”(44). Most boys his age are not mature enough to think that way, usually that's how girls think. At the end of the book Jimmy walks along the road and he realizes how “ little [a] circle man’s experience is”, comparing Antonia’s life to his own and all the times they had, had together. This shows unlike other men during this time Jimmy thinks of female doing more than just house work. Though he has gone to school and traveled, he still realizes that Antonia has had far more experience than him. “Antonia’s relationship… with Jim work well because her ardor and strength are matched by [his] gentle and reflective natures.” Their relationship makes their opposite roles more noticeable and shows how they are breaking the barriers of gender roles. Cather uses My Antonia as a way to show that women were beginning to fight back against the traditional roles for women. They were ready for more in life than just what society thought they should want in life just like Antonia was.

Works Cited
Jones, Camille Hadley. "The New Woman, 1880-1915." Edwardian Promenade. Edwardian Promenade, 24 Feb. 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2017. http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/ Laird, David. "Willa Cather 's Women: Gender, Place, and Narrativity in O Pioneers! and My Antonia." University of Nebraska. Great Plains Quarterly, 01 Jan. 1992. Web. 03 Feb. 2017. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1646&context=greatplainsquarterly Stouck, David. “Marriage And Friendship In My Antonia. University of Nebraska. Great Plains Quarterly, 03 Feb. 2017.web.Jan.1982
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2636&context=greatplainsquarterly