Difference between revisions of "Week 15 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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(→Amelia Barr, (novelist and married) 1896, Speaks out against female suffrage) |
(→Clara Lanza, 1891, defends the female office clerk in NY) |
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Looking at The Office Clerk by Clara Lanza many things stand out to me. This piece is justifying the use of women as clerks. However, this justification feeds into the women’s assumed gender roles during that time period as much as the men’s justification as to why women should not be clerks. Both arguments use the overarching gender roles of the time. Men argue that women should remain in the home and be good wives and raise their children, they also argue that women fidget, they become anxious, they are temperamental, they giggle, and so on… these characteristics all fit into what women were presumed to be like. The counter this argument, Clara Lanza believes that women are more reliable than men, they come to work when sick, they don’t complain, and they can do all of this while being great wives. Both sides to this argument use what everyone would agree are characteristics of women of that time and the roles people expected them to play, just in different ways. This is similar to the arguments for and against women abolitionists and reformers, it is very interesting how gender roles can be used as justifications for different things. Based off of the readings about women’s roles as activists for women’s rights I can tell that the same use of gender roles as justifications for and against the movement being used here as well. –Erin Sanderson | Looking at The Office Clerk by Clara Lanza many things stand out to me. This piece is justifying the use of women as clerks. However, this justification feeds into the women’s assumed gender roles during that time period as much as the men’s justification as to why women should not be clerks. Both arguments use the overarching gender roles of the time. Men argue that women should remain in the home and be good wives and raise their children, they also argue that women fidget, they become anxious, they are temperamental, they giggle, and so on… these characteristics all fit into what women were presumed to be like. The counter this argument, Clara Lanza believes that women are more reliable than men, they come to work when sick, they don’t complain, and they can do all of this while being great wives. Both sides to this argument use what everyone would agree are characteristics of women of that time and the roles people expected them to play, just in different ways. This is similar to the arguments for and against women abolitionists and reformers, it is very interesting how gender roles can be used as justifications for different things. Based off of the readings about women’s roles as activists for women’s rights I can tell that the same use of gender roles as justifications for and against the movement being used here as well. –Erin Sanderson | ||
| + | I agree a lot with Erin. Ms. Lanza states in the beginning of her response that "Among the woman workers in New York there are none who afford a more interesting study than the vast army of clerks, the work of a clerk being admirably adapted to the sex." While I think expected gender roles play a large part- the exactness of women's work, their reliability, and the ways in which they can be trusted- I also wonder if, at this time, there were beginning to be notions of differences between "sex" and "gender", one of the arguments, I think, of the feminist movement during the 20th Century, with gender being thought of as very much socially constructed. It almost seems like Ms. Lanza would make many of those in the women's movement at the time or the feminist movement today kind of angry- it seems as if in many ways she is very much defending the gender roles and stereotypes about women. -Allison Godart | ||
== Leonara Barry, on what the Knights of Labor are doing for women, 1888 == | == Leonara Barry, on what the Knights of Labor are doing for women, 1888 == | ||
