The Cult of True Womanhood Response

After reading “The Cult of True Womanhood” I realized how grateful I am for living in today’s world and not back in the nineteenth century.  One quote that stood out to me while reading the article was "The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be divided into four cardinal virtues - piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sisters, wife - woman." Women during the 1860s were expected to live out these virtues. If they failed to do so, they were not considered a “true woman.” Times have changed tremendously since the 19th century. A woman’s place in the home was considered to be in the kitchen and making her husband happy. Nowadays a woman has options as to where she wants to be, whether it be at home or at a job. The entire article describes the culture of that time. It goes to show you that culture is never permanent and can change every year. Women lived out their culture just like women today do. Culture is similar to fad and trends. At that time, it was normal and expected for women to live their lives as obedient women. In today’s culture it is normal for women to be independent from men and have their own careers. After reading the entire article, I was outraged. Knowing that my gender lived that lifestyle truly astonishes me. Women had a strict outline of how they were expected to behave. These days women do not have to be submissive nor fulfill domestic duties in the home, however, women will always have to endure the gender stereotype of women being a housewife.

Devor Response

“The dominant gender schema in North American society […] leads us to believe that female and male behaviors are the result of socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive, and will therefore dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes.” (Devor 431)

I find myself in a disagreement with this statement said by Aaron Devor. I do not believe that we were all brought up with this mentality. The above stereotype of men being aggressive and dominant and women being feeble and domestic is not true for many people. Although society pushes these images as being the norm for us, not all people grow up this way. Some men are not raised to be the competitive and dominant male we may see in television shows or movies today. There are some men who may even be a little bit more on the feminine side and some who believe in equality. On the other side of the spectrum, the purpose of females according to society is to reproduce, raise the children, and complete the domestic duties of the house. However, women do not need to follow this path. Nowadays, women have the right and freedom to decide how they want to live out their lives. Women should have the right to determine if they want to have children or not. I, personally, at the moment do not have any intentions of having children in the future. This does not mean that I should be looked down upon for not fulfilling the stereotypical roles of a wife. Women today can also sustain themselves without any assistance from a male. They are fully capable of being independent from a man. This social ideology is completely false and could have maybe described the lifestyle of a couple from the 1950’s. However, today in the year 2009, men and women can live freely as they chose and live in equality.