American women history - Essay Example

How Conflicts over or Changes in Sexuality Gender Roles Impacted Women’s Experience in Colonial North America Introduction Naturally, the domestic roles that are seen to be attributed to men and women are seen to not be determined by factors such as biology, human nature, and the psychology of both women and men. They are in contrast seen to be the byproduct of factors such as various social processes, historical circumstances and ideologies. These domestic roles are seen to vary widely as is determined by religion, time period and race. Far from their being fixed into various static categories, the various gender roles of men and women are found to be dynamic cultural, ideological and social constructs. Colonial North America is seen to have experienced a number of various diverse gender role changes that greatly impacted the role that is played by women in the society during the period the country’s colonial. This paper seeks to attempt to try and analyze how the emergent conflicts in gender roles and sexuality impacted the experiences of women in North America during the Colonial Period. Changes in the Gender Roles of Women in Colonial North America “Women are seen to have always had a rather influential role in determining the general growth and prosperity of the communities in which they happen to live in” (Taylor and Moore, 2008). Colonial North America is seen to have had two major groups of women, these are the women of European decent and the Native Indian women. These two different groups of women are seen to come from extremely different backgrounds and were affected in diverse ways by the change in gender roles. During the 16th century, European women are seen to have had very specific roles. These traditional roles primarily entailed the weaving of clothes, the preparation and serving of food and the education and raising of children. However, when colonial North American settlers first came to the New World, they were greatly appalled to discover that the Native Indian women were the ones who had been assigned all of what was considered to be manual and traditional labor according to their European standards. The native Indian women were responsible for the rearing of their children, conducting all the various works in and around their houses, the creation of pottery and the preparation of food while the Native Indian men were seen to be enjoying themselves by going on fishing and hunting expeditions, and the building of homes for their families. To the women European settlers, all these activities conducted by women were essentially activities that were conducted by the European noble class as leisure activities. However, this image was soon to change because as the various European colonies in North America Started to establish themselves, there was a sever skew in the overall ration between the men and women in the society. The prime interests of the Virginia Company which was the first company to successfully establish settlement in the New World was mining. However, the companies mining activities were soon determined to be a non-profit making investment and company immediately switched its activities to conducting tobacco farming so as to make money. The Virginia Company employed men as its primary workers and the harsh working conditions caused many of them to die. In a letter written to his parents, one of the European immigrant workers wrote that “they came as a group of twenty men but half were already dead and the rest would greatfully loose a limb to be back in England again”(Frethorne, 1623). The reducing manpower forced the European immigrant women to start taking over some of the traditional roles that had been assigned to men (Cott, 2004). Although the tending of the tobacco farmlands was extremely hard work and was a role that was considered to be particularly suited for men and not for women during the pre-colonial times, the changing gender roles impacted the women in that times were quickly changing and tobacco was widely considered to be the main ruler of the land. Women were needed in the new settlements and the only possible way that they could be able to make the journey from Europe to the colonies was by their contracting themselves out to the Virginia Company as indentured servants for periods ranging between 5 to 7 years. Every hand in the colony was put to work so as to ensure that the company was able to cultivate tobacco from the winter months through to the summer months. These harsh condition were generally less than hospitable to the newly transplanted European women a condition that was found to be so even among these women who had come from what were considered to be lesser rungs in English society. This effects of the changing gender roles among women settlers in colonial North America were evidenced by a letter written by a young indentured servant girl who wrote to her father in 1756 complaining about the harsh privations of daily life, that saw her “toiling day and night and quite often in the horse drudgery” (Sprigs, 1756). As a result of the difficult conditions brought about by the changing gender roles, many of the indentured servants in the New World died from disease, however, those that happened to survived this tough indentured period were eventually able to marry and proceed to have good farming lands with their husbands. As England’s overall economy started strengthening in the 1640’s and 50’s, indentured servitude gradually started becoming less attractive to most people. Most of the good lands in the colonies had already been taken and most of the Europeans were now going to settle in the more lucrative colonies such as that in Pennsylvania. The institution of slavery in America quickly emerged as a response by the colonies to cut the costs that they happened to incur in their tobacco farms. The female slave was to soon be introduced into the colonial society which resulted in the European women resuming their more traditional gender roles in and around their homes. The role of the European women is seen to have greatly been affected by the formation of the institution of slavery and women who couldn’t afford to buy slave help were often seen to be put permanently back into the traditional female gender household duties while “those that were fortunate to afford slave help were mainly engaged in the supervision of their slave help around their home”(Pease and Pease, 1999). Conclusion Women’s contribution to the general development of colonial North America underwent a number of drastic gender role and sexuality changes. As seen in the paper, none of these changes was easy for them and although they were able to successfully show that they were equally as able as men to put up with the hardships brought about by the change in gender roles, it can still be seen that the emergent conflicts in gender roles and sexuality impacted the experiences of women in North America during the Colonial Period. References Cott, F. N. (2004). No small courage : a history of women in the United States. Oxford [u.a.] : Oxford Univ. Press. Frethorne R. (1623). “Our Plantation Is Very Weak”: The Experiences of an Indentured Servant in Virginia, 1623. Retrieved on 24th Jan, 2014 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6475 Pease H. J. & Pease H. W. (1999). A family of women : the Carolina Petigrus in peace and war. Chapel Hill, NC [u.a.] Univ. of North Carolina Press. Sprigs, E. (1756). “We Unfortunate English People Suffer Here”: An English Servant Writes Home. Retrieved on 24th Jan, 2014 from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5796 Taylor, Q. and Moore, Shirley. (2008. African American women confront the West, 1600-2000. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press. Read More