My Antonia Gender Roles
“When you grow up as a girl, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood.” My Antonia is set around the turn of the century, during a time where women's roles in everyday life were beginning to change from the kitchen to the work force. Willa Cather portrays characters that go against stereotypical gender roles in her novel, My Antonia. Not only do the main characters, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerdas, not follow the traditional gender roles, but neither do many of the other characters in the novel. Cather shows Antonia as a young girl who is not afraid to work like a man in the fields and stand up
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Women would spend their days cleaning, cooking, and making sure their husbands were happy, working was out of the question. Women were shown as stupid and could not be dependent from their husbands.“ The Edwardian era appeared rife with social movements, but none caused as much furor as the “New Women”.” During the 1880’s s an Agricultural depression hit and young girls for the first time left home to move to the cities to get a job. Though men were often hired over women, some still got jobs and from this came the new women. These working, independent, new woman “ were not content with their existence as “superfluous” women that characterized the mainstream press’s “woman problem”. That problem was the increasing number of women who were not getting married, which was causing the traditional gender roles to began changing. Debates on what whether women's roles should be housewives or if they should have the same rights as
Women would spend their days cleaning, cooking, and making sure their husbands were happy, working was out of the question. Women were shown as stupid and could not be dependent from their husbands.“ The Edwardian era appeared rife with social movements, but none caused as much furor as the “New Women”.” During the 1880’s s an Agricultural depression hit and young girls for the first time left home to move to the cities to get a job. Though men were often hired over women, some still got jobs and from this came the new women. These working, independent, new woman “ were not content with their existence as “superfluous” women that characterized the mainstream press’s “woman problem”. That problem was the increasing number of women who were not getting married, which was causing the traditional gender roles to began changing. Debates on what whether women's roles should be housewives or if they should have the same rights as