Positive Changes in Women’s Roles during the Industrial Revolution

Among the many positive changes that the industrial revolution brought about. the most outstandin0 one was the impact it had on the lives of women. Before this period, the responsibilities of women have limited to house chores and non-technical duties such as repairing clothes. Their primary responsibility was to raise children. This notion and stereotype began changing as the revolution unfolded. For instance, many small farmers were forced to relocate from their small lands after the Enclosure Movement and Agrarian Revolution.

Most women were affected by this mass women. Those who moved were forced to migrate to urban centers where they had to look for work in mines and factories to earn a Living. During this time, gender inequality was highly rampant as females were perceived to be inferior. Women were less valued at the workplace and paid wages that were much less than their male counterparts. They were paid almost 50% less than men. Moreover, women were subjected to aggravating working conditions. Most of the works they were engaged in were dangerous and tiring.

With resilience, women began getting into the workforce as they now had access to opportunities that they did not have back when they lived in rural areas. They took advantage of the socialist values that sprung up during the industrial revolution. Workers began advocating for equal rights. better working conditions, and better pay. Ideologies such as utopian socialism and Marxism led to the emergence of the labor movement. At around the same time, various feminist movements started coming up, advocating for gender equality. For women, the first agenda they had was to advocate for equal voting rights even before trying to achieve equality with men. This fete was achieved when the government extended voting rights to women in the early 1900s

(“Role of Women in the lndustrial Revolution”, n.d.). The movement that fought for women voting rights has overtime been known as the suffrage movement and those involved are referred to as suffragettes.

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