Gender and culture have had many effects on our history as humans. What genders were responsible for what in the society? Cultures also determined the society in which who had the power. In the industrial economy of the United States, the early industrial age began around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Women, in the beginning, created garments and were paid by the merchants who bought them. This was done at home where women were expected to take care of the children and house. This primary duty of care interrupted a woman’s work weaving or sewing. While later the production shifted to factories where capitalist paid workers to direct their attention to production. This work created a hardship on women as they found it very difficult to take care of work and domestic duties. The women had a secondary social worth to men. This meant that women did not share the same rights as most men like owning property or voting or hold elected offices.
The textile industry was of the first in America where mostly younger women went to work as a source of extra income for the poorer farmers of the time. Women at work increased to 20 percent by 1900. There was a clear gender and cultural difference in women at work and men at work. Men were with the machinery while the women were in the “light industries” that seemed softer in nature like making soap or hats. In jobs where men and women performed the same, there was a gender gap where men were payed more than women. Later in the middle of the nineteenth century there was ideological justification that spread throughout America. It reassigned the cultural beliefs that men were the bread winners while women were to be with their families at home. This further claimed that women were to be a “haven in a heartless world.” (Kessler-Harris 1982) One interesting thing was the view on men who had their wives working in the capitalistic world. They were viewed as less than a man as they could not support their family without their wife working. Later by the mid-20th century there were certain occupations that were acceptable for women to work in. Some if not most are still seen as predominantly female roles and males that work in them are considered feminine in nature. These roles include occupations such as nursing, sectorial work, social work, and several more.
In a multitude of ways, we as a society have worked to close beliefs of occupation or rights between gender. There is still however a stigma or something else that exists that men play a certain role in society that women cannot or should not fill. We know that this has been a thing in the past and we have evolved with no dire consequence. We have seen in certain cultures were matriarchies have been successful. The Mosuo of China is the example we learned in class where the women were seen above the men in most everything. They have survived just fine as they have but the pressures of the outside world have harmed the culture that has been around for many years.
It is interesting to see the cultural differences in different societies and in different parts of human history as it shows how far we have come collectively but also shows us how far we must go before pressures are not really a consideration for which job you want or who has more power in a family or society as everyone should be equal. Seeing how different cultures separate work, is a big step in understanding how we as Americans can further ourselves and make it equal. Different situations have arose that has shaped our society and continue to shape our society. I can understand how we have separated gender roles because of our cultural but can now see how we could further step into decreasing that gap between gender roles in cultures.
Help Received: Bonvillain, N. 2008. Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender, 4th ed. Pearson, Notes from class, video from class.
This photo taken by Jill Peters shows one sworn virgin performing farming work. In an article wrote by Daphnee Denis titled “Sworn Virgins: Men by Choice in the Balkans” Denis briefly summarizes the history of the burrneshas, or sworn virgins, stating, “According to tradition dating back to the 15th century developed out of the Kanun, a tribal code of law, tribal clans from the Balkans considered families without a male presence as pariahs. When blood feuds decimated all the men in a family, the only way to salvage their honor was for a woman to become the patriarch of the clan and start acting like a man.” Peters talked about how becoming burrneshas allowed the women “all the rights and privileges of the male population.” This however required the women to change their entire lifestyle by cutting their hair, clothes, possibly even name, but most importantly, takin a vow of celibacy. It is interesting to know that Denis explains how that living an honorable life was all that was needed to be respected and treated fairly as a member of the society. With the increase of women’s rights however, the sworn virgins in the current era has considerably dwindled.