Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 5 Questions/Comments"
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This one’s a doozey. What was the cause of prostitution? Apparently, there were a few causes. Poor sanitary conditions in the working world effected the nervous system causing women to be more susceptible to weakened morality, fast paced modern life lead to eroticism, and poor pay meant a working girl couldn’t afford life’s necessities. I’d say there’s a grain of truth to these claims, poor pay in particular being a problem. Also, young women who worked in department stores were regularly exposed to unsavory individuals who wanted to sully their purity. Again there’s a bit truth, but the most realistic argument here is the case of male employers sexually exploiting girls. However, most of the other examples described seem less like prostitution and more like a girl trying to have a good time. Perhaps the vice commission couldn’t handle the idea of a sexual liberated women. Finally, I have to ask, what was the point of this report? Was it a cry for better working conditions and for better wages? Or was it an argument to keep women out of the working world in order to protect their virtue? -- Taylor Brann | This one’s a doozey. What was the cause of prostitution? Apparently, there were a few causes. Poor sanitary conditions in the working world effected the nervous system causing women to be more susceptible to weakened morality, fast paced modern life lead to eroticism, and poor pay meant a working girl couldn’t afford life’s necessities. I’d say there’s a grain of truth to these claims, poor pay in particular being a problem. Also, young women who worked in department stores were regularly exposed to unsavory individuals who wanted to sully their purity. Again there’s a bit truth, but the most realistic argument here is the case of male employers sexually exploiting girls. However, most of the other examples described seem less like prostitution and more like a girl trying to have a good time. Perhaps the vice commission couldn’t handle the idea of a sexual liberated women. Finally, I have to ask, what was the point of this report? Was it a cry for better working conditions and for better wages? Or was it an argument to keep women out of the working world in order to protect their virtue? -- Taylor Brann | ||
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| + | == The Harsh Conditions of Domestic Service == | ||
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| + | "…when I hear so much said about our unreliability, our untrustworthiness, and even our vices" (p. 54). I think it is pretty amazing that strongly held prejudices in the South guaranteed extremely low wages for domestic servants for so long. One would think that these jobs were difficult to obtain, since jobs were very limited for African Americans, so they would work hard to keep them. So for an employer to claim their domestic servant is unreliable or untrustworthy? Or to complain about stereotypes of the race? I don't blame the woman who wrote this article for being offended. I am sure she worked extremely hard, for barely any money and at the expense of never seeing her own children, and she could not believe the insensitivity of whites when it came to domestic servants' jobs. -- CBrau | ||
