Difference between revisions of "Week 15 Questions/Comments"
From McClurken Wiki
| Line 22: | Line 22: | ||
The excerpt I enjoyed the most was Sadie Frowne's tale, A Sweatshop Girl's Story. Quite a few things stuck out to me. First, I always assumed that women hated working in the factories because all you hear is how back breaking and boring the work is but she seems to take it in stride. She even talks about how nice it was when the union fought and won for them to "only work nine and half hours." She understood that if she worked hard sooner or later she would fulfill her own American Dream (did that concept exist then?). I was wondering when she says, on page 309 that "Harry has seen me home every night for a long time and makes love to me," if she meant pre-marital sex because she says it so non-chalantly. I agree with K. Stinson that I found it very strange how she described getting hurt in the work place as no big deal. Basically the vibe I got from her account was that while she was proud of her independence, her whole life was based around trying to become the accepted middle class girl. She talks about reading and educating herself, saving money, how ignorant people are low, and how a girl needs to have nice clothes in order to get into high society. -- Emily Miller | The excerpt I enjoyed the most was Sadie Frowne's tale, A Sweatshop Girl's Story. Quite a few things stuck out to me. First, I always assumed that women hated working in the factories because all you hear is how back breaking and boring the work is but she seems to take it in stride. She even talks about how nice it was when the union fought and won for them to "only work nine and half hours." She understood that if she worked hard sooner or later she would fulfill her own American Dream (did that concept exist then?). I was wondering when she says, on page 309 that "Harry has seen me home every night for a long time and makes love to me," if she meant pre-marital sex because she says it so non-chalantly. I agree with K. Stinson that I found it very strange how she described getting hurt in the work place as no big deal. Basically the vibe I got from her account was that while she was proud of her independence, her whole life was based around trying to become the accepted middle class girl. She talks about reading and educating herself, saving money, how ignorant people are low, and how a girl needs to have nice clothes in order to get into high society. -- Emily Miller | ||
| + | |||
| + | One trait that I found interesting in “The Office Clerk” was the insistence that office work did not make women unfit for marriage. In fact, the author claims that employment offers these young women the opportunities to meet and wed eligible bachelors, and these working girls often make particularly fine wives. I particularly enjoyed the claim that “men have outgrown their admiration for feminine helplessness and have come to look upon independence as something worth having.” I have to wonder how much of that was actually true and how much was simply the hope of the female author. Unfortunately, we still have women today who fake ignorance or weakness to attract men; how common would it have been in the 19th century? --Ashley H. | ||
