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Women’s societal roles take more
dominant place through history |
by Jenna-Leigh Tracy
TRA99010@BYUI.EDU
Scroll Staff |
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From the beginning of time, women have been part of history.
The first appearance of women on the North American continent was theorized to be at least 12,000 years ago, according to www.infoplease.com.
More recently, women were either used as workers or have cultural rites based on them.
“Some women gathered food or planted crops; some made tools and built houses; some participated in trade. In some societies, community life and economics were organized around female kinship. In many cultures, older women were important leaders; they might choose the chief, arrange marriages, or run the treasury,” according to www.infoplease.com.
The American colonist woman suffragette appeared in 1647.
“Margaret Brent is the first woman in Maryland to own property, and one of the first known suffragists in American history,” according to www.infoplease.com.
In 1837, Oberlin College, in Ohio, becomes the first college to admit female students.
When the first female graduated at the top of her class, she wasn’t allowed to deliver her speech.
“When women’s rights activist Lucy Stone graduated at the top of her class in 1847, she had to sit in the audience while a male member of the class delivered her speech,” according to www.kcstar.com.
The first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848, according to www.nps.gov.
Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote.
“On Dec. 10, 1869, Wyoming becomes the first state to grant women the right to vote,” according to www.factmonster.com.
Other states followed its example until eventually the nation gave women the right to vote.
“On Aug. 26, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote in national elections,” according to www.usconstitution.org.
During the second world war, women replaced men as workers in the United States.
“Thousands of women fill the new jobs created by World War II. Rosie the Riveter becomes a symbol of the ... female factory worker,” according to www.factmonster.com. “But when wartime ends, the Rosies are sent home or back to the low-paying agricultural or domestic work they [did] before the war.”
The feminist movement began in the 1960s and prepared way for the views society has today, according to www.infoplease.com.
“The Equal Pay Act, in 1968, makes it illegal for companies to pay different rates to women and men who do the same work,” according to information on www.infoplease.com.
The feminist movement in the 1960s caused women to re-think traditional roles .
“The women’s movement of the sixties caused women to question their invisibility in traditional American history texts. The movement also raised the aspirations as well as the opportunities of women, and produced a growing number of female historians,” according to www.infoplease.com.
This unrest led to economical and political aspirations.
\“Without question, our first inspiration was political. Aroused by feminist charges of economic and political discrimination ... we turned to our history to trace the origins of women’s second-class status,” according to www.infoplease.com quoting Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, an early women’s historian.
This feminist movement paved way for women to assert their rights and for women’s role in society today.
“’History’ had traditionally meant political history, a chronicle of the key political events and of the leaders, primarily men, who influenced them,” according to www.infoplease.com. “But by the 1970s the new social history began replacing the older style.” Previous to 1970s, women studies were unheard of at post-secondary schools; today, most higher education institutions offer degrees in women studies.
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