Women and our impressions about them - Essay Example

? Women and Our Impressions of Them Word Count: 1250 (5 pages) I. Introduction Women have had a variety of roles over the years. As they have gained their independence, women have changed and shaped the landscape of what our world looks like. If it were not for women, many daily tasks would not get completed, and many chores would remain undone. However, it is the multi-faceted, multi-tasking talent about the female race that is the element of genius which defines women. Even as they have changed roles—from trickster to housewife, from housewife to homemaker, and from homemaker to full-time worker and secondary childcare provider—women still remain an important force to be reckoned with in today’s world. II. From Trickster to Housewife From the age of Eve, women were often seen as cunning tricksters, also known as the trickster tradition. In the Bible there was the tale of Deborah the judge, of Rahab the prostitute, and various other tales of women in the Bible where women took a role and changed it forever. They changed these roles in some way to reveal an alternative ending to a story that might have turned out differently. In the Miller’s tale, he speaks about an old carpenter who has a wife of 18 years of age, who is quite beautiful but has a ‘flirting eye.’”1 There was a clerk who wanted this young maiden so bad that he was willing to risk death to get her, the maid saying, ‘I know quite well that I could then be dead.’”2 In the Miller’s tale, basically the wife is a cunning woman who outsmarts her husband who is made to look like a blithering fool by the end of the tale. However, more at the beginning of the miller’s tale, we see that the cunning trickster is beginning to be seen not as an evil person, but as a housewife who usually does good things, and not bad—as Alison was in the miller’s tale. From the Miller’s prologue, the miller says says, “For there are quite good wives, many a one/And a thousand good ones for every bad.”3 Alison’s true love is Nicholas, but there is a guy named Absolon who is absolutely riveted by Alison’s beauty. Thus, Alison and Nicholas’s scheme to rid themselves of the carpenter does not really turn out to be successful, try as she might have. Similarly, in “The Disappointment,” Aphra Behn leads us on a solemn journey to a man named Lysander’s downfall, who falls into the arms of a one Cloris: “In this so amorous cruel strife/Where love and fate were too severe/The poor Lysander in despair/Renounced his reason with his life.”4 Cloris also turns out to be a trickster in some sense of the word, in essence turning out to be the opposite of what she was perceived to be—not the lover but the enemy. Of course, women traditionally became perceived as less evil over time—but at one time, of course, women were thought to be no better than animals, and they are still perceived to be as such in some developing countries, even still today. III. From Housewife to Homemaker Later on, from the time of Chaucer’s writing up until about the mid-20th century, women who stayed in the home were considered housewives. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s with the advent of “women’s lib” (or the Women’s Liberation Movement) that women started to get the proper respect that they deserved for the work that they did at home. Thus, the language of homemaker began to replace the word “housewife.” “The profound difference in the meanings of these titles describes both the ambiguity of the housewife's position and the social debate over how the problem might be solved. On the one hand, the shift from the term housewife to homemaker presupposes the separation of work and family.”5 Most definitely, the housewife was the person who was less revered. A homemaker, however, was a nicer, more politically-correct way of saying that the homemaker was the person who stayed home with the children, did the cleaning in the house, and took care of the house in general. The homemaker was a suitable and fitting substitute for the term “housewife,” which seemed a demeaning term to women by the time that the ‘60s rolled around. In essence, women became increasingly more valuable to the point that being a homemaker was not simply enough—but that women would, indeed, have to continue to contribute to the household in other, more tangible ways. Women were able to finally not only run their household, but also provide a way to furnish the household and keep it running concurrently. Indeed, this was a great change within the predetermined pecking order, or hierarchy, about jobs and gender roles. This led to the next change which will be analyzed in this piece. IV. From Homemaker to Full-Time Worker and Secondary Childcare Provider After women had been homemakers throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, it became more common to go to work and hold full-time jobs, in addition to being mothers and homemakers. “[N]ow, as then, women work for a variety of reasons, including the need to contribute to household income as…” a way of supporting the family.6 Even moreso, culture changed to the point where women began being the main breadwinners in the family, outshadowing and outearning their male counterparts in the household. Of course, this change did not come easily, nor was it immediately accepted as something positive. For example, some fathers began to take over the role of primary childcare provider, being left at home with the children while the mother went to work. So, not only did the woman start to leave the role of homemaker, but she also became a full-time laborer in the work force as well as now becoming the secondary childcare provider. This meant that gender roles had somehow shifted. No longer was the man the head of the household, but the woman became the head of the household. In fact, in many African-American families, single women are the lone heads of households. This is due to a cultural shift whereby the Black family has evolved into a chronic pattern where the mother has a child (or children), many times out of wedlock—only to become a head of household running the entire household herself, without any or little help from the man who fathered her children. In fact, the divorce rate in the U.S. is 50%, and family dynamics are changing so rapidly, that the definition of what once was considered a family with two children and two parents at their head is now a thing of the past. Grandmothers now take care of young children, and parents have been stripped of the responsibilities and accountability they used to have as the traditional family structure continues to break down. Most definitely, much of this social change is due to how the role of the woman has changed over the years. V. Conclusion Obviously, the roles of women have changed in several ways over time. At first, women were viewed as tricksters, people not to be trusted; later on, they came to be viewed as housewives, and after that, homemakers; and finally, women came to be looked at not just as homemakers but as full-time workers who provided secondary childcare. Over time, womens’ roles have definitely changed in light of the circumstances, and it is attributed to their great strength and tenacity that they have continued to do excellent work in whatever area they choose to focus upon. Truly, women are solid bulwarks; they are stalwarts in an uncertain world whose effort will not go unnoticed or unrewarded. WORKS CITED Behn, Aphra. The Disappointment. Retrieved 8 Aug 2011. Available: . Pgh. X. Chaucer, Geoffrey, et. al. The Selected Canterbury Tales: A New Verse Translation. US: W.W. Norton & Co., 2011. Pp. 197, 203, 205, 207. Hanson, Susan, et. al. Gender, Work, and Space. US: Psychology Press, 1995. Pp. 29. Romero, Mary. Maid in the USA. US: Psychology Press, 2002. Pp. 52. Read More