History of Women in the USA - Essay Example

History of Women in the U.S What factors contributed to the emergence of the “New woman” inthe late nineteenth century In the late 19th century, the lives of women experienced dramatic transformations. The changes are attributed to a number of factors. Increase in female literacy is the major factor behind the emergency of the “New woman.” As a result of the increase in female literacy, women realized that there was need for gender equality, which is a factor by itself. The gender equality issues aimed at ending male dominance over the feminine gender. The leader of Heterodoxy Club Said Marie Jenny Howe is one of the women who embodied “New woman” movement. The goals and the strategies of the “New Negro” women’s movement at the turn of the twentieth century The goals of the “New Negro” women’s movement at the turn of twentieth century were to achieve freedom, achieve equality, and as well achieve justice. To address the issue under consideration, they employed the strategy of movement formation. As a group, the women realized that they would remain strong and air out their views. The effort made by these movements has brought hope for black Americans in their quest to address freedom, justice, and equality issues. One organization that spearheaded these movements is the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). One person who backed these movements is Marcus Garvey. Consumer culture in the 1920s The 1920s years marks the rise of the consumer culture. The rise of consumer culture was as a result of mass production, effective advisement, and installment payment plans. Installment payment made it possible for people to purchase expensive commodities. Through advertisement, awareness was created to the consumers and hence an increased demand matching the mass production. Radio advisement was the most common form of advisement. As a result of consumer culture in the 1920s, women were able to concentrate more on nurturing their families rather than spending most of their time on house hold laborious activities. Why most women opposed the equal rights amendment in the 1920s an 1930s Most women opposed the equal right amendments drafted in 1923. This is despite the fact that women leaders such as Alice Paul had argued that the Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920 needed further constitutional amendments to guarantee absolute gender equality. Most women opposed it because they thought it would negatively affect labor movements and labors unions. Of great concern to the women were the legislations that protected women representation within the labor force. Women’s organizations opposed the amendments on ground that women labor protective legislations will be negatively affected if the amendments were passed. The goals of the women’s liberation movements Women’s liberation movements had a number of agendas. One of the goals of the women’s liberation movements was to fight for equal education opportunities. Another goal was to fight for equal employment and pay within the workforce. Another goal of the women liberation movement was to address self-determination issues, such as issues on abortion and contraception. Other goals were to fight discrimination issues based on factors such as ethnicity, race, sexuality, and religion. The Impact of Feminism in the 20th Century During the twentieth century, feminism has had a great impact on women representation within the society. In the twentieth century, women fought tireless for equal representation within the economic, political and as well as on other sectors of representation. At the beginning of the 20th century, women had few rights and the only representation was through marital status. This implied that married women could not have separate identity apart from that of their husband. Women had no right to have control of their biological reproduction. For instance, it was termed illegal for women to convey contraception information. Additionally, women were restricted to own properties using their own names and as well as to take certain careers. The situation was such that women were not taken has persons. Within the course of the twentieth century, women started to fight tirelessly for equal representation within the public life aspects. The areas of major concern were on labor-force participation representation, political representation and within the professionalism representation within the learning institutions. Feminism had a great impact on women representation within certain academic fields. For instance, few if any women were allowed to pursue engineering courses. This implied that women would be underrepresented in these courses. The perception was that engineering courses were male areas of study. The role of the feminine gender was widely perceived to be home-related tasks. For instance, things to do with nurturing and home based tasks. However, feminism movements within the twentieth century advocated for equal rights and equal consideration of women. The movements aimed at making it clear that the biological differences that exist between the masculine gender and the feminine gender should not be used to sideline women pursing particular careers. However, as a result of feminism advocacy, more and more women started to pursue engineering courses and even it was notable that they would outdo men (Creager 150). Another impact of feminism in the twentieth century was on labor-force representation. Initially, women were restricted from taking particular careers and even their representation within other fields was low. Men within the major sectors of the economy dominated the labor-force with few if any representation of women. The place for women was widely thought to at home because of their nurturing abilities. Within the engineering and the technology fields women were underrepresented. If by chance, a woman found her way out, pursued engineering courses, and eventually secured a job, she would not be considered in decision-making processes. This limited women progression in leading positions. However, the advocacy for equal representation of women within the education sector resulted to more women graduating as engineers and even taking leading positions within the engineering fields (Creager 149). As of the beginning of the twentieth century, women were restricted from taking part in any political activity. For instance, women were bounding from voting. This denied them their democracy rights. However, as a result of feminism and the advocacy for equal representation in the twentieth century women were allowed to exercise their democratic rights (Patterson 37). Therefore, women were allowed to vote and even to hold elective posts. Work Cited Creager, Angela. Feminism twentieth-century science, technology, and medicine. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2001. Print. Patterson, Martha H. The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894-1930. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Print. Read More