Open to Growth – Women in American Society

In America’s History women have played a key role in society. However, Women’s roles in society have changed. Women’s changing role in society can be shown clearly in three time periods, The Great Depression, 1940s through the 1960s, and Today, 2010-present. Without women, the United States would not be anywhere it is today without women.

The great depression was the United States worst economic point in history. The stock market crash was caused by Bank Failures, Reduction in purchasing of stocks, and American Economic Policy with Europe.

During the 1920s America was living a rich and lavish lifestyle. On black Tuesday in 1929, many people could not afford to live that lifestyle due to their ever-decreasing stock values. The Stock Market lost over 13% of its value, in one day, and around eleven thousand banks failed, leaving many people without savings. Many people were without jobs or had jobs but still could not support themselves due to the terrible economy. “Women primarily worked in service industries, and these jobs tended to continue during the 1930s. Clerical workers, teachers, nurses, telephone operators, and domestics largely found work. In many instances, employers lowered pay scales for women workers, or even, in the case of teachers, failed to pay their workers on time. But women’s wages remained a necessary component in family survival. In many Great Depression families, women were the only ones bringing home the money.” (Women). Women were employed but still underpaid. The United States Government focused on jobs for men and cash assistance for women. “Nine states had marriage [work ban] laws prior to the Depression, and by 1940, 26 states restricted married women’s employment in state government jobs.” (Way).

Both of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath both written by John Steinbeck are set during the Great Depression and were written during or around the time of the Great Depression.

“Remember settin’ in that gutter on Howard Street and watchin’ that blackboard?” (Steinbeck 5). Like men and women who lost their jobs and stood in line and waited for jobs George and Lennie did the same in of Mice and Men. George and Lennie did not have much money during the Great Depression, “He unrolled his bindle and put things on the shelf, his razor and bar of soap, his comb and a bottle of pills, his liniment and leather wristband” (Steinbeck 19). The Two characters did not have much to their name, just a few items were all they had. In the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck is talking about the “Dust Bowl” in the southern United States that killed many farmers crops. “”The people in flight streamed out on Route 66, sometimes a single car, sometimes a little caravan. All day they rolled slowly along the road and at night they stopped near water””. (Steinbeck 152). This quote is talking about how many farmers moved from their farms into the cities to find jobs because the farmers could not afford to keep their farms.

In Both, Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck is talking about or inferring how society changed. Society changed into finding work to support yourself and your families. Before the Great Depression most women did not work. However, when money became tight men and women had to find jobs to make money. This became acceptable in American society during the Great Depression. After the great depression, women did not work as much and stayed at home and took care of the house and usually children while their husband was at work.

Today, women’s right to vote seems like it should have always been a thing. But in the United States before 1910 women did not have the right to vote. Women were originally given the right to vote so United States territories could gain statehood, one of the requirements was the state needed a certain number of voters. After the first states gave women the right to vote it slowly caught on until the federal government gave women through the country the right to vote in 1910. Today in history, women are running for elected office. For example, Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016 or the Chief Executive Officer of a multi-billion dollar company, YouTube, Susan Wojcicki is another example of successful women in America today.

Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy – Wendy B Sharer and Victory, How Women Won it: A Centennial Symposium, are both books written about women and their struggles and achievements in the journey on the right to vote.

The song “Boyfriends Lament” crated by the YWCA in Bethlehem Pennsylvania goes, “Once I was happy but now I’m forlorn O how I wish I had never been born Left alone for to weep and to mourn Betrayed by the girl I love, I plead for her love and I beg her to wed, she joins a new club down at central instead. They call her a leader, I call her mislead Alas and alack-and alas Now some weekends are sacred to cupid, say some but not to this viper in skirts. She goes to a conference stupid and dumb and when I protest, she says “nerts”-O- She floats through the “Y” with the greatest of ease She helps raise the budget because they say “please” She won’t give me dates though I beg her on my knees That “Y” has blighted her love.” To me, this shows how the boyfriends from the girls that go to the YWCA are somewhat mad about how their girlfriends are going and singing this song in the YWCA. The girls are realizing at the YWCA that they are independent and deserve equal respect and that they are not below men. They realized that they are equal. This song was most likely used to get girls “pumped up” to advocate for their rights. Today, things have changed from sings to protests, sings, and social media posts, which in my opinion are more influential than songs. In, Victory, How Women Won it: A Centennial Symposium by Mary Morrison says, “Two pertinent questions arise from the American woman suffrage campaign over which thoughtful citizens may well ponder. The history, traditions and constitution of this country indicated that universal suffrage was inevitable. More, there was nothing in the United States to fear from women, for they were the minority. In no other country did history or tradition point to woman suffrage as inevitable and in most of the women in the majority.” This quote is saying how the women knew they were the minority in the United States at that time. Those women knew they needed to push for equal rights. And in the end those women in 1910 gained the national right to vote in the United States, marking on of the greatest achievements for women’s rights to date.

The suffragists in 1910 were the perfect example of women committed to doing justice. The women who were pushing and protesting for their right were not only doing it for themselves but for all women across the country and their rights as women and American citizens. First, the song “Boyfriend’s Lament” showed women they at the time were considered “subordinates”, and motivated them to changed the ways the United States saw them. Second, the quote from Mary Morrison further shows and talks about how women realized that they needed to lobby for their rights.

During the 1950s women usually stayed at the home and looked after their children. In the 1960, more women than ever were entering the paid workforce (Walsh). Women. Unfortunately, women in the 1960s did not receive equal pay. One in 5 women with children under 6 and nearly one fourth of women whose children were over 16 held paid jobs in the Sixties. Their pay, however, was 60 percent of the male rate. Though equal pay legislation passed in 1963, that did not solve the problem of low pay in jobs that were classed as female.””(Walsh). This unequal pay lead to the rise of the 60’s feminist. Towards the end of the 1960s the feminist trends started to become more mainstream and started to become easier for women to get jobs and have more equal rights. “Gradually, Americans came to accept some of the basic goals of the Sixties feminists: equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, curtailment of severe limits on women in managerial jobs, end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child rearing.” Said Kenneth T. Walsh in, 1960s: a Decade of Change for Women. “in 1966, the National Organization for Women was formed. In 1968, feminists protested at the Miss America contest in Atlantic City, arguing that the pageant was sexist.” (Walsh). This time in history is when women started to realize how much change hey could bring when they protested. The 1960s was one of the best decades for American Feminists.

Betty Friedman was a feminist writer and activist who wrote about how women and men should be payed equally and women should receive equal rights at home in her book Feminine Mystique. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960’s written by Maurice Isserman is about women and their fight for equal rights in the sixties. Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question– ‘Is this all?” (Friedman 15). In this quote from Betty Friedman’s book she is writing about how women should have more choices in the home rather than be a “stay at home mom”. “Most young women, at least in the middle class, expected to have access to the same careers and to receive the same compensation as men” (Isserman 15). This quote is talking about how during the late 60s the feminist trend started to become more mainstream and it was becoming easier for women to get jobs and slowly getting more equal rights,

In both pieces of literature, Feminine Mystique and America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960’s, talk about women and their rights and how society started to accept the feminist movement of the 1960s. Both books push for American society to be open to growth about the feminist movement and acceptance of equal rights, equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, curtailment of severe limits on women in managerial jobs, end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child rearing.

The role of women in the United States has changed greatly since the Great Depression. “For one, more and more women have taken on new responsibilities outside the home by joining the paid workforce. While women made up only about one-third of the workforce in 1969, women today make up almost half of all workers in the United States. Women are also stepping up to lead the country; a record number of women ran for public office in 2012, and a record-high percentage of women are serving in Congress. In addition to making progress on issues of economics and leadership, women have made progress on health issues, which impact women’s personal well-being, as well as their economic security. Over the past few years, women have been able to end gender discrimination by big insurance companies and gain free contraception coverage because of the Affordable Care Act.” (Chu). Women have pushed hard for their rights and have made a lot of progress. However, women still have some inequalities. Although an increasing number of women are either the sole breadwinner for their family or share the role with their partners, women in the United States are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. The pay gap is even larger for women of color. On average, African American women make 64 cents for every dollar that white men make. While 2012 was a watershed year for women in terms of getting elected to public office, women still comprise only 18.1 percent of Congress, despite making up more than half of the U.S. population. They also face challenges on health issues, as 2012 saw continued conservative efforts to erode women’s ability to make their own decisions about their health and well-being.

Today in the United States, women play a key role in society. Without women our country would have gotten nowhere near where it is today. Women such as, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a supreme court justice, Oprah Winfrey, is the first African American billionaire and TV star, book writer, and radio host, Hillary Clinton, a First Lady of the United States, US Senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, the first woman nominated foe Vice President of the United States in the Republican Party, and famous comedian. (Blanish). These women are just a few of the many women who have changed the United States in more ways than we can count. I personally look forward to the day the United States has a female president, it will be symbolic of how far women have come since the founding of this great country in 1776.

Bibliography

1. Blanish. “Top 25 Influential Women in the World Today.” WordPress, 3 May 2010, blansh.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/influential-women/.
2. “”Boyfriends lament”” Volunteer Training Program, YWCA Y-Dames, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Https://www.questia.com/read/105251123/vote-and-voice-woman-s-orginizations-and-political
3. Chu, Anna, and Charles Posner. “The State of Women in America.” Center for American Progress, 25 Sept. 2013, 8:00 AM, www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2013/09/25/74836/the-state-of-women-in-america/.
4. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
5. Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America Divided: the Civil War of the 1960s. Oxford University Press, 2015.
6. Morrisson, Mary Foulke., et al. Victory & How Women Won It: a Centennial Symposium 1840-1940. H.W. Wilson Co., 1940.
7. Steinbeck, John, and Paola Trimarco. The Grapes of Wrath. Pearson Education, 2008.
8. Stephen, Martin, and John Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men. Longman, 2010.
9. Walsh, Kenneth T. “The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 12 Mar. 2010, 8:10 AM, www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/03/12/the-1960s-a-decade-of-change-for-women.
10. Way, Megan McDonald. Family Economics and Public Policy, 1800s-Present: How Laws, Incentives, and Social Programs Drive Family Decision-Making and the US Economy. Palgrave Macmillan US, 2018.
11. Women, Impact of the Great Depression on.””. “Women, Impact of the Great Depression On.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed, Encyclopedia.com, 2019, www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/women-impact-great-depression.

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