Women's Rights In The 1800s
Comparing women’s rights from the 1800s to the present, equality for women has significantly improved. In the United States women use to be only viewed useful for work at home like child rearing and today women in the US are more accepted into the workforce. Even while this is true, women still do most of the housework and men are left to dominate the workplace. Women have gained huge milestones in politics as well as the workforce. This topic takes heart to me because I am a feminist and I strongly believe in equality for women and men. I hope for huge movements forward for all feminist activists. Despite many improvements, there are some who still believe in the stereotypical “housewife” and that women do not belong at work. Although women’s
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Men are more comfortable with their wives going to work than they are willing to help out at home more. In the 1950s, women were expected to be good housewives. Women were not to go college and if they did it was only to meet their future husbands. Women were expected to stay home and do housework and take care of the children. Ferber says, “Housework and childcare continued to be viewed as the women’s responsibility whether or not she also had a paid job” (2). Mothers today are arguing back and forth over the “Mommy Wars”. The “Mommy Wars” is where working mothers are criticizing stay at home mothers for not working and in turn, non-working mothers criticize working mothers for not spending enough of family time together. Rather than debating the “Mommy Wars” some women are complaining of having to work “the second shift” once they get home from work. The second shift refers to when a mother has worked a full day and then goes home to do just about the same amount of work by cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and taking care of the kids. Ferber says, “Women do fifty-two hours a week in housework and child rearing while the men do eleven hours a week” (2). Men should be contributing to the housework more, regardless if the wife works or stays at home. The resource theory, proposed by Robert Blood and David Wolfe, “Focuses on the importance of accumulated resources of a spouse as the source of power within a marriage, which is likely to be used to make the other partner do more of the housework” (3, Ferber). The more control women have at work the more control they have at
Men are more comfortable with their wives going to work than they are willing to help out at home more. In the 1950s, women were expected to be good housewives. Women were not to go college and if they did it was only to meet their future husbands. Women were expected to stay home and do housework and take care of the children. Ferber says, “Housework and childcare continued to be viewed as the women’s responsibility whether or not she also had a paid job” (2). Mothers today are arguing back and forth over the “Mommy Wars”. The “Mommy Wars” is where working mothers are criticizing stay at home mothers for not working and in turn, non-working mothers criticize working mothers for not spending enough of family time together. Rather than debating the “Mommy Wars” some women are complaining of having to work “the second shift” once they get home from work. The second shift refers to when a mother has worked a full day and then goes home to do just about the same amount of work by cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and taking care of the kids. Ferber says, “Women do fifty-two hours a week in housework and child rearing while the men do eleven hours a week” (2). Men should be contributing to the housework more, regardless if the wife works or stays at home. The resource theory, proposed by Robert Blood and David Wolfe, “Focuses on the importance of accumulated resources of a spouse as the source of power within a marriage, which is likely to be used to make the other partner do more of the housework” (3, Ferber). The more control women have at work the more control they have at