EqualityIn 1890, less then one half of one percent of women were employed gainfullyoutside of the home. Over the next hundred years, women have not only gainedaccess to jobs outside of the home, but also fought for equality in the workplace. These struggles have not been easy by any means. Women have overcomemany obstacles in there journey into the work force, none grater then the viewsof their male piers.
Many males thought and continue to think that there is noplace for women in the work place. Women made there strides into the work forceby not only following examples of their courageous pioneers, but also by bandingtogether to show their strength. During the mid 1800’s a small number of women begin their assault on, whatwere at the time considered, male-only jobs. Fields such as teaching, preaching,medicine, and law were all jobs domenated by men. Women had made some progressin the work force before the 1850’s.
In the mid nineteenth century women werethe majority for grade school teachers, up from the ten percent of elementaryteachers, that were teachers in the colonial period. This can be largelyattributed not to the fact that men were more accepting of the idea that womenbelonged in the work place, but rather men were drown to the higher paying andmore socially appreciated managerial jobs brought on by the industrialrevolution. School boards did not mind these talented leaving because theycould higher a “less qualified women” for as low as one fifth of males salaryfor the same job. Susan B. Anthony was the first women to publicly speak out against thisgross injustice towards women.
After being fired to “replace a male teacherfired for incompetence,she was paid one third of the salary he hadreceived,”(Reifert 74)she went to the state teachers convention of 1853 toregister a protest. After being hushed once and a half hour of debate she wasfinally allowed to speak her peace. Although nothing became of her firstencounter with the women’s movement, she quit teaching and went on to become oneof the great leaders of the women’s movement. Antoinette Brown was anther women that was not happy with the statusquo of women in society. She started, in 1846, by attending Oberlin college,which only nine years before had become the first co-educational college. Oberlin, although being very receptive of women in their women’s department,they did not let women take any courses besides the ones offered in the womendepartment.
This lead to a conflict when Brown made her intentions of obtaininga theology degree known. Brown won the battle to attend the classes she neededfor her degree, but this was by far not the last battle for equality she wouldhave to fight. Oberlan “refused to grant her a students license to preach. ,”and after her course work was completed Oberlan would not ” allow her to takepart in the graduation ceremony, be licensed, ordained, or even have her nameregistered on the class roll.
“(Reifert 76) It took three years, of hard lookingfor Brown to find a Protestant Church that would allow her to be ordained. Finally after all of her struggles Antoinette Brown was ordained the firstprotestant female minister in America. “Women in the early 1800’s were discriminated against both as practitionerand as patient. “(Reifert 77) Women were thought that it was wrong for them toseek help from doctors for any problems that had anything remotely to do withtheir reproductive system. It was also thought that Women were to fragile todeal with the work that goes with being a doctor. Elizabeth Blackwell saw firsthand the effects of the first problem mentioned.
She watched a family frienddie because she was embarrassed to bring her problem to the attention of hermale doctor. Blackwell was not detoured by the Idea that no medical schoolwould take her, because she could not compete with males. After all almosteveryone at the time believed that “the female brain was different then the malebrain. “(Reifert 78) Blackwell finally gained admittance to Geneva College aftera unanimous vote of the student body to let her in. This vote should not betaken as a sign that men were becoming more accepting of women infiltrating whatwas formally known as male only territory.
It should be noted that most of thestudents believed that either the vote was a joke or that Blackwell would notstay around long. Blackwell proved all the skeptics wrong by graduating in thetop of her class, but still no hospital in the United States would allow her tointern. For her internship Blackwell went to Paris. When She got back to theUnited States Blackwell found that no hospital would allow her to use theirfacilities. In 1857 she secured enough money to turn facility into a hospital. Similar to doctors, nurses were largely male until the 1850’s.
Nursing followeda similar path as elementary teachers, as more higher paid jobs opened up, itleft room for women to take over less glamorous jobs. In the early nineteenthcentury lawyers were thought by apprenticeship. This was a very big problem forwomen that had an interest in this field, because no men lawyers would everdream of having a female apprentice. The emergence of law schools made the jobof a lawyer remotely accessible, but by no means easy.
Such is the case of MyraBradwell, who graduated from Chicago School of law, but was refused a license topractice law by the Illinois State Bar. She took her battle to the SupremeCourt, by was ruled against. After her ruling was overturned in 1890 at the ageof 59, she became a licensed lawyer and two years latter practiced law in frontof the same court that had refused her rights 23 years earlier. Before these women had broken into these previously all male jobs women’sjobs four general limitations. They are “(1) that women perform work similar tothat of the home; (2) that no great skill be involved. .
. ; (3) that no greatphysical strength be required. . . ; (4) that the work should not involve contactswith the rougher male sex. .
. “(Riegel 135) Contrary to the Desires of theiremployers to maintain their workers femininity, the women, they provided theiremployees with very adverse working conditions. “The conditions under whichmost women were described by an on looker : girls take off their street suits and put on an old skirts and waists matted with glue dirt, in which the spend ten hours a day scorning, cutting and sniping, wetting great sheets of paper and paste. . .
at a few cents a day”(Cantarow xxvii)Women at time made around half of what their male counterparts made. While maleunions were proving very successful in the advancement in working conditions formen, but most unions had little interest in helping women’s causes. For thisreason,in 1903 the WTUL (Women’s trade Union league) was launched. This helpedWomen unite to achieve better working conditions. The WTUL was very influentialin the organization and support of the major women’s strikes.Women fought many hard battles to gain access to areas that were at on timestrictly off limits to them and fought hard to improve their working conditions.With out the struggles of these women other women might not have the rights theyhave today.Social Issues
