Women's Reproductive Solutions In The 19th Century Essay
Women’s Reproductive Solutions in the 19th Century
For the past few centuries, women had to fight for their equality in just about every aspect of their life. It wasn’t even up until recently that women’s history has become a subject of study in schools. During the nineteenth century, women were taught at a young age to save themselves for their future husband and to learn the skills required to manage their household and rear children. A woman’s place was in the home and men were supposed to be the breadwinners. Women practically had no identity, as it was merged into that of her husband. (Lahey, 2014) Men were superior in all aspects of civil and political affairs and always had the upper hand in the work industry. The only thing expected …show more content…
As more laws against birth control were developed, women continued to fight against domestic dependency, gender discrimination, and their right to do what they want in terms of reproduction. It appears there is a constant tug of war between women deciding what to do with their own bodies and people of political power deciding what is “morally correct”. In a book by R. Solinger, he addresses who has power over matters of pregnancy and its consequences. Most debates about reproductive politics are often not about the individual woman or her rights and personal needs, most conversations focused on who should have control of fertility and how to control certain fertility related issues that the country is facing. The topic of reproduction in politics is all but recent. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everything from racial factors such as nation leaders attempting to populate the continent with a “racially pure breed” to gender factors such as men feeling threatened by reproductive freedom because they felt that they would no longer be able to control women, were reasons why nation leaders and lawmakers tried to control
For the past few centuries, women had to fight for their equality in just about every aspect of their life. It wasn’t even up until recently that women’s history has become a subject of study in schools. During the nineteenth century, women were taught at a young age to save themselves for their future husband and to learn the skills required to manage their household and rear children. A woman’s place was in the home and men were supposed to be the breadwinners. Women practically had no identity, as it was merged into that of her husband. (Lahey, 2014) Men were superior in all aspects of civil and political affairs and always had the upper hand in the work industry. The only thing expected …show more content…
As more laws against birth control were developed, women continued to fight against domestic dependency, gender discrimination, and their right to do what they want in terms of reproduction. It appears there is a constant tug of war between women deciding what to do with their own bodies and people of political power deciding what is “morally correct”. In a book by R. Solinger, he addresses who has power over matters of pregnancy and its consequences. Most debates about reproductive politics are often not about the individual woman or her rights and personal needs, most conversations focused on who should have control of fertility and how to control certain fertility related issues that the country is facing. The topic of reproduction in politics is all but recent. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everything from racial factors such as nation leaders attempting to populate the continent with a “racially pure breed” to gender factors such as men feeling threatened by reproductive freedom because they felt that they would no longer be able to control women, were reasons why nation leaders and lawmakers tried to control