Year Round Project

Research Paper on the topic:

American Women in the 20th century and their

evolution
Student: 10JMC9
Teacher: Nederita Liliana
Lyceum Ion Creanga
Mun. Chisinau

Chisinau 2016
Table of Contents.
Chapter I: The Heritage of Womans Place 4
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Chapter II: The Black Women Community .. 5-6

2.1 Political Status . 5
2.2 Social Status ... 5-6
2.3 Access to Education . 6
Chapter III: Faces of the New Woman ... 7-8
3.1 Charlotte Perkins Gilman ..... 7
3.2 Margaret Sanger ... 7
3.3 The New Woman . 8
Chapter IV: Ideals and Practices. The 1920s 9-10
4.1 Political-Legal Status 9
4.2 Economic Status 9
4.3 Family Status 10
Chapter V: Research. Females Past VS Females Present .. 11-20
5.1 Who is more powerful? American Women VS Romanian Women 13
5.2 When you think about women, what is the first thing that comes into your
mind? 14-15
5.3 Are women still developing or the top and apogee of their evolution was in
the 20th century? ... 16-18
Conclusion 19-20
References 21

Introduction.
Motto: "We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and
political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed
to us and our daughters forever."
Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
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Since the first courses in womens studies and

womens history surfaced in the early 1970s, there has
been a profusion of studies of American women. Women
have substantially expanded their political roles and legal
standing, pushed steadily and boldly into the labor force,
broadened their access to education, and greatly altered
their social and family roles.
My project provides a broad, balanced, systematic
analysis of the transformations in womens lives thus far
in the twentieth century. Several features stand out.
Access to education is seen as prerequisite to expanding
womens perspectives and providing women from all
backgrounds with the skills and self-assurance required to undertake expanded
political, economic, and social roles outside the home. Womens educational
attainments are assessed in terms of those of previous generations of women, affording
a measure that is free from distortion by the ups and downs that have characterized the
enrollment patterns of men. In fact, the educational attainment of women has been
marked by steady progress, contradicting the conventional picture of women copping
out or even regressing at times during the past.
In evaluating womens political roles I look beyond the pursuit and utilization of the
souffrage. Far more central are the tensions between those reformers who emphasized
the need for legislative protection of working-class women and the middle-class
reformers concerned with equal rights. I trace the reflections of this debate in
constitutional law and assess the genuine gains of the 1970s and 1980s, when
legislation and policy were reshaped in conformity with the principles of the Equal
Rights Amendment, although the amendment itself failed to be ratified.
Major attention is devoted to womens economic roles. The text shows that
structural changes in the American economy gave women increasing opportunities for
roles outside the home for greater personal autonomy. These structural changes
produced a rapid growth of middle management and a concomitant need for clerical
support, which in turn stimulated the steady rise in womens labor-force participation.
Numerous historians, from Arthur Maier Schlesinger, Sr to Gerda Lerner, have
remonstrated against the pall of silence with which historians have shrouded the
services and achievements of American women. Long denied a share in the
transmission and exercise of power, women have remained largely invisible to most
historians. The effort to reconstruct the female past has been termen womens
history.
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Eleanor Flexners classic, Century of Struggle (1959), reinforced a view that the
central theme of womens history was the decades-long campaign for the suffrage and
for related political and legal rights. Flexner regarded political citizenship as a vital
step toward achieving human dignity and the recognition that women too, were
endowed with the faculty of reason, the power of judgment, the capacity for social
responsibility. Flexner focused attention on womens struggle for expanded access to
education and the movement out of the home and into factories. She sketched the
activities of middle-class womens clubs, as well as those of working-class women in
the trade union movement. Furthermore, she included black women as an element of
womens history. Eleanor Flexners book is the one that inspired me to do this project
and to show the real history of the American Woman.
In my project, I assumed that because American society is pluralistic, women have
not had common shared experience. There never has been, nor is there now, a truly
American woman Among Anglo-American women, the life experiences of workingclass women differed from those of the middle-class whose values set the norms for
American society. Special attention is given to the lives of minority women- black
women. These women, too, were Americans, but their lives were often guided by
values that differed substantially from those of middle class Anglo-American woman.
They often bore a dual burden of balancing their efforts to improve their lot as
members of an ethnic or racial minority with their desire to expand their roles as
women. As a result, feminism developed many faces.
The content of womens history, then, has been broadened by the concerns of the
feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The conceptual framework for the
systematic study of womens history is still evolving. As one element of womens
studies, womens history addresses a wider range of concerns that conventional
political and economic history. Further, it has prompted a reassessment of the past,
yielding new interpretations of old issues. While the evidence is not all in, a trial
balance is in order.

Chapter I: The Heritage of Womans Place.

The ideological base that defined womans proper sphere in 1900 had a lineage that
included the Cult of True Womanhood and the Victorian Lady, but most fundamental
was the Judaic-Christian heritage. The creation story in Genesis invoked divine
sanction for womans subordinate role. God created Adam, then as an afterthought He
fashioned Eve as Adams helpmate.

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In 1900, womans place and her roles were in flux. The traditional value system
operated in an agrarian society. In rural society, however, there was a division of work.
Husbands worked outside-plowing, planting, and harvesting. Wives worked inside
caring for the house and children and engaging in domestic industries. In emergencies
and at harvest time wives worked in the fields as well.
The factory mode of production, the beginnings of urbanization, and the rise of an
urban middle class provoked profound changes. First, it transferred the production
husband and wife. While his workplace moved to the factory, store, or office, she
remained isolated within the home. As he acquired a circle of male acquaintances at
work, she developed a circle of women friends in the neighborhood. As he ceased to
share in training his sons in a craft or as farmers, she shouldered increasing
responsibility for mothering the children.
In this new economic order, because wage rates did not invariably enable working
class husbands to support their families, wives and children had to enter the labor
force. Typically women began producing the goods in factories that they previously
had made at home, perpetuating the older division of labor.
Because of the state of domestic technology, housekeeping, cooking, laundering and
ironing, sewing, and child care were inordinately time-consuming. As middle-class
women gained relief from the more exhausting chores of housekeeping, they
substituted equally time-consuming responsibilities for child care so that there was no
time to pursue a role outside the home. The result so altered the relationships between
husband and wife as to produce a new kind of family. By 1860 the Cult had become
the norm for urban middle-class women.
By 1900, young women from middle-class families could enter the labor market
prior to marriage, although the variety of employments thought suitable was limited,
and none of the jobs- teacher, nurse, retail clerk, secretary, or telephone operator- paid
well enough to permit hew to support herself independently at a middle-clas level of
living.

Chapter II: The Black Women Community.

Black women in 1900 had a heritage that differed substantially from that of AngloAmerican women. Their ancestors had come from Africa not from Europe. They
arrived in America in chains to be sold as slaves. Black values, customs, traditions, and
culture were pushed aside as white owners gave them new American names and
forced them to use English, to dress in the European mode, to eat strange foods, to live
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in assigned shelters, ant to perform whatever tasks their owners requested of them. As
slaves- male or female- they could not own property, make contracts, or sue or be
sued. Nor could they contract a legally binding marriage. As a slave, the black woman
had no rights. The majority of black women in 1900 had been born slaves. Only the
children were likely to have mothers or fathers who had been born free. Nonetheless,
the black community had put down roots. Their numbers exceeded 9,000,000-90
percent of whom lived in the South.

2.1: Political Status.

At the start of the century, the black community was still struggling to fashion a new
set of values. The blaclwoman faced severe limits on her political, social and
economical roles that put her at a disadvantage vis--vis white women-limits that were
tied to her race as much as to her gender. The political position of blacks, men and
women, was deteriorating. In their bid for political power in the 1890s, the Populists
had made the blacks- long subjected to a variety of informal discriminatory practicesscape goats for the Souths economic troubles. Once in office, the Populists man, dated
racial segregation in public accommodations and services and adopted a variety of
legislative ploys to disfranchise the blacks.

2.2: Social Status.

At the social level, black women and their menfolk and children, were confronted at
every turn by a broad range of informal social practices that excluded them from
participing fully in the social and cultural life of the community. They were required to
use separate drinking fountains and restrooms and were denied access to restaurants,
theaters, or hotels. Most doctors and hospitals refused to serve them. Interracial
marriage, a measure of the process of integration and social assimilation, was barred
by law.
As in the white community, the husband-wife family was the norm for black
community. Formal marriages, as opposed to consensual marriages, were becoming
more common. The proportion of black children born of wedlock was subsiding, but
the rate was far higher than in white society. The fact that black women bore their first
child at a relatively young age and most single mother were under 30, strongly suggest
that most of these single mothers eventually married, following a pattern with long
historical antecedents. Nevertheless, the black woman was more likely than the white
woman to be husbandless. She was three times more likely to be divorced and was half
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again as likely to be a widow. The average was 118 women per 100 men, and seriously
reduced their prospects for marriage and family life.
The black community, like the white, was
differentiated by socio-economic classes.
Living conditions were stark for the great
majority of black women. Their homes reflected
the abject poverty in which they lived. Fully
three out of four women lived in the rural
South, raising a family as best they could in a
one or two-room house. Glass windows were an
exception, so that there was little light and
almost no ventilation. Roofs leaked. Facilities for preparing food were primitive.

2.3: Access to Education.

As compared with white women, black women were disadvantaged in terms of
education. Reconstruction and Bourbon governments, hard-pressed to create a public
school system for white children, begrudgingly supported segregated elementary
schools for blacks. In 1900 approximately one third of the nonwhite females between 5
and 19 were enrolled, a marked improvement over the 10 percent who went to school a
generation earlier. Even this modest gain in acces to school reduced the level of
illiteracy from 79.9 percent to 44.5 percent durind the last three decades of the
nineteenth century. While blacks slowly secured access to elementary schools, the
white South did little to enable blacks to secure a secondary education. As late as 1920
there were 62 public, black high schools in the South, the number of students, less than
20,000. Initially boys worked on the school farm a few hours every day, later on they
worked two days a week. Girls spent four days at classwork and two days at paid labor
in the school kitchen and laundry. They made and mended clothing and took care of
the students quarters.

Chapter III: Faces of the New Woman.

As women entered the twentieth century, serious challenges attaked one or another
of the traditional views of womans place. The result was a vast dissolution of moral
authority. Of special importance were the critiques of Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Sigmund Freud and Margaret Sanger. At the same time, journalists, social critics, and
historians identified a reformulation of values that guided a group they termen the
New Woman.

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3.1: Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860
August 17, 1935) was a prominent American
feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short
stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for
social reform. At a time the organized womans
movement was focusing on the suffrage as the
means to enlarge womens sphere of action,
Gilman defined womens issues in economic terms. The question that most interested
her was how to achieve full equality for women in an industrial society. Following a
childhood scarred by economic and psychological insecurity and a marriage marred by
severe depression and terminated by divorce, she achieved independence as a writer
and lecturer. Attracted to the utopian socialism of Edward Bellamy, she developed a
feminist ideology that argued for female economic
independence.

3.2: Margaret Sanger.

Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 September 6,
1966) was an American birth control and Eugenics activist,
nurse, and sometimes controversial writer. Margaret Higgins
Sanger liberated women physiologically. From her father, a rebel and a free thinker
who espoused womans rights in public while ignoring them at home, she acquired a
sensitivity to the wrongs of the world. With her husband, William Sanger, she entered
an intellectual circle of rebels and bohemians of Greenwich Village.

3.3: The New Woman.

The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the
late nineteenth century and had a profound influence on
feminism well into the twentieth century. The term "New
Woman" was coined by writer Sarah Grand in her article
"The New Aspect of the Woman Question," published in
the North American Review in March 1894. The term was
further popularized by British-American writer Henry
James, to describe the growth in the number of feminist,
educated, independent career women in Europe and the United States.
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Writer Henry James popularized the term "New Woman," a figure who was
represented in the heroines of his novels, such as Daisy Miller in the novella Daisy
Miller (serialized 1878), and Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady (serialized 188081).
According to historian Ruth Bordin, the term New Woman was intended by him to
characterize American expatriates living in Europe: women of affluence and
sensitivity, who despite or perhaps because of their wealth exhibited an independent
spirit and were accustomed to acting on their own. The term New Woman always
referred to women who exercised control over their own lives be it personal, social, or
economic.
Although the New Woman was becoming a more active participant in life as a
member of society and the workforce, she was most often depicted exerting her
autonomy in the domestic and private spheres in literature, theatre, and other artistic
representations.The nineteenth-century suffragette movement to gain women's
democratic rights was the most important influence on the New Woman. Education
and employment opportunities were increasing for women, as western countries
became more urban and industrialized. The pink collar workforce gave women a
foothold in the business and institutional sphere. In 1870, women in the professions
were only 6.4 percent of the United States non-agricultural workforce; this rose to 10
percent in 1900, then 13.3 percent in 1920.
The New Woman was a result of the growing respectability of post-secondary
education and employment for women who belonged to the privileged upper classes of
society. University education itself was still a badge of affluence for men at the turn of
the twentieth century, and fewer than 10 percent of people in the United States had a
post-secondary education during the era.

Chapter IV: Ideals and Practices. The 1920s.

Motto: This is the woman's century, the first chance for the
mother of the world to rise to her full place . . . and the world waits while
she powders her nose.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Whereas the concept of womans place focuses on social
ideals rooted in the often distant past, that of womans status
is concerned with the reality of their lives at a moment in
time. As women filled a variety of roles, their status not
only varied from role to role but varied according to their
membership in a particular social, ethnic or racial group.
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4.1: Political-Legal Status.

The political-legal status of women was ambiguous that August day in 1920 when
Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby announced the ratification of the Nineteenth
Amendment. Henceforthh no state could exclude a woman from the right to vote.
By 1900 in the great majority of states, a woman could hold property independently
of her husband and had limited righst to make contracts an to sue and be sued in her
own name. The law still discriminated against women in terms of grounds for divorce,
although these grounds has been broadened. As late as 1930, eight states did not
accord a mother the status of joint guardian of her children with the same powers,
rights and duties as the childrens father. Many states still withheld from women,
married or single, the right to serve on juries or to hold public office. But in 1920 most
women and men remained unware of the degree to which the law still restricted the
legal status of married women.

4.2: Economic Status.

The prevailing value systems in 1900 accorded women a limited economic role and a
status inferior to that of men. But the propriety of work for women varied according to
ethnic group, social class, age, and marital status. The economic status of the great
majority of women in 1920, as Charlotte Perkins Gilman put it, depended on that of
those men to whom they are related. Society ranked men by the work they
did,women by their family affiliation. The more prestigious the work of the father or
husband, the higher the status of his wife and daughters. The economic status of
women in the various ethnic groups was affected by the value systems of their
respective groups. When a family operated its own business and as need required, a
woman of any ethnic background or marital status could work subject to the direction
of her father or husband.

4.3: Family Status.

The regard that society bestowed on women was ambiguous. Much of the
nineteenth-century heritage that idealized the qualities of woman and placed her on a
pedestal, while severely restricting her sphere to the home and family, still impinged
on husband-wife relationships in 1920. Crucial to the evaluation of womans status in
the family was the operation of the doctrine of two spheres and its antithesis, the
doctrine of feminism.

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The two spheres concept, with the inertia of a century of acceptance, confirmed the
view that womans place was in the home. The impact on womans status was mixed.
On the negative side, marriage rather than womanhood had imposed invidious
limitations on the adult woman- loss of separate civil identity, curailment of civil and
contractual rights, and preclusion of career or economic independence.
In my opinion, the separation of spheres, had some positive aspects. If it gave males
a free hand in the external business of the family, it gave wives supremacy within the
home. Most women were as qualified to run their homes as their husbands were to
perform their jobs. In the management of the day-to-day business of the family, the
husband expected his wife to manage the budget, in fact some working-class families,
the husband delivered the unoped pay envelope to his wife, receiving back his
allowance for personal expenses.
She made the appointments with doctors, she talked to the teacher about school
problems, she bought the food and clothes, she chose the paint and wallpaper for
redecorating. In these terms, the doctrine of two spheres, by 1920, afforded married
women a degree of autonomy at home and enough flexibility for many different
activities outside the home.
A young woman coming od age in the early decades of the century might well be
perplexed with the contradictions between the honor accorded her as a woman and the
expectation that her husbands judgments and wishes must always be valued more
highly that her own.

Chapter V: Research. Females past VS Females Present.

My project is about women. About the evolution of the American Women in
the 20th century. I chose the American Women because I wanted to know more
about their evolution. This was a very big and important question for me. For
the society, and for our society also, a big question is the role of the women.
Still, a very questionable role.
Now, I wanted to think in contrast, to make a parallel between the American
Women and women in general. Women from Moldova, from Romania. Just
women. Think about your mother, sister, cousin, grandmother, girlfriend,
daughter, friend. Think about you, if you are a woman. How amazing is that. I
think that its amazing to know that women are so powerful. And they have
proved that. , in America, this beautiful phenomenon was great. We have lots of
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books and information about the evolution of the American Women. And they
become a model for us. An example. Its easier to make a conclusion when you
compare. When you have what to compare with.
Lets remember what all the information that I have in the past 4 chapters of
my research and think, what do women do today? Are they still developing? Are
there any resemblances between the American women and ours?
I have a few questions and during my research, I tried to find out the answers.
I didnt make any online surveys, because at that certain moment, I wanted
something different, less boring. I just asked people that I know or that I just met
on the street. In that way, I tried to get out of my borders and I just try to
communicate with people on this topic.
The role of women in society has been greatly overseen in the last few
decades but now are coming to a more perspective to people. In the early days
women were seen as wives who were intended to cook, clean, and take care of
the kids. They were not allowed to vote while men took care of having jobs and
paying any bills that had to be paid.
Soon enough it caught on that women should have a bigger role than what
other people thought women should have. Women would have strikes and go on
marches to prove that they should have rights just like everyone else. They faced
discrimination like and other race that faced it. Women would voice their
opinion in any way possible so that they could reach their goal and they did.
Women were so courageous. Are they nowadays? Are we? Lets find out.

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A woman today no longer lags behind the man in the most occupations. She
plays the games of football, cricket, and hockey. She draws the attention of the
world as an athlete.The women can no more be kept behind the curtains doing
only domestic duties. Our society is accepting the wider participation of women.
They are working as pilots; and they are even holding the helm of a countrys
administration.
On that optimistic background, my hypothesis is that women become more
and more powerful, but now they have more chances, more possibilities, more
and more of everything. We have that, because we deserve. Because women
work. So do men, but now, lets talk about women. People talked too much
about men. Its womens time.
I think that women are as powerful
and as courageous as the past,
because they can help the society in
various ways. They can engage in
social activities and work for the
betterment of the society. There are
many things that we can do, but
luckily, we dont really have to fight.
We need to work, to prove, to love.
American women dont have to fight. Women from our country dont need to
fight, though we dont have as many possibilities as American women have. In
our country, the female is still considered as a housewife, as a beautiful
accessory. But thats not as frequent. Women have the chance. And they are
using it. Women in India still have to fight, because they are at a certain stage in
their evolution. A level where America was many years ago. But with lot of
power, courage and love for the art of being a woman, all of those amazing and
wonderful women from India will get to that point of their evolution that they
work for.

5.1: Who is more powerful? American Women VS Romanian Women

( women from Moldova)
Now, I know the evolution of the American Women, and I can compare and
analyze. But I wanted to find out what do other people think. In my opinion,
American Women have proved that they are more powerful and that they can
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fight for their rights, for their life and for their role. Still, that doesnt mean that
we are less powerful. We are just less courageous. We dont always take the
chance to prove who we are. I decided to use the interview method for my
research, because I think that is the one method that is closer to my heart. The
method that gives the best results.

American Women VS Romanian Women

8
7

8
6

7
5

5
4

4
2

3
2
1
0

13-17 years old

18-25 years old

26-40 years old

America Hurray

40+

Column1

I asked 40 people, as a total of 10 people of every category of age, from 13

to 40+. Young people from 13 to 17 years old, think that both American and
Romanian women are as powerful, courageous and lovely. 5 people answered
positively for American Women, and the other 5 were for Romanian Women.
The next wonderful category of age, from 18 to 25, had very categorical
answers. 8 people out of 10 answered America Hurray and the other 2, were
on the other side. Six people from 26 to 40 years old answered that they think
that our women are more powerful, and the other 4 believe that American
women are more powerful. Seven wonderful people that have more than 40
years believe that Romanian women are more powerful than the American one.

5.2: When you think about women, what is the first thing that comes
into your mind?
In this method there is direct face to face contact between the investigator and
the subject. Here the interviewer or the investigator asks questions to the subject
and records the answers usually without the latter knowing it. Thats why all of
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those persons that I interviewed were very sincere and they had concrete
answers.
In my opinion, women play variety of significant roles in our society from
their birth till the end of life. But I wanted to find out, after all of the evolution
and after all of that amazing hard work, what comes first into peoples minds
when they think about women, or about their role? I asked the same 40 persons
that were interviewed for the paragraph 5.1.

The woman is....

wife, mother, housewife

a piece of art

4; 10%

a leader
a power

5; 13%

14; 36%

someone who needs to care

about everything

1; 3%

not a president. Never

2; 5%

a president, a master, a
director

3; 8%
2; 5%

the most responsible human

being

8; 21%

The results didnt impress me. For me, a woman is a piece of art, that its not
was not meant to be beautiful, but to make you feel something. For me, a
woman is that wonderful piece of art that is always different, that knows how to
appear in front of different people and that knows how to show her inner beauty.
A woman is a piece of art that doesnt always need to be discovered, or to be
created by a painter or a writer. A woman will be a woman, forever. A woman
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that is a leader, that doesnt need someone to open her, to discover her, or to
show her the right road, because a woman always knows who she is, what she
wants and where her place is. 36 % of the persons that I interviewed, that is the
majority ( 14 out of 40 people) answered that a woman is a wife, a mother, a
housewife. Somehow, I agree with that. A woman is a mother. But to be a
mother its the most gorgeous, defined and permanent art. A child is a piece of
art, but a woman is just art. In all of her words. Its everything. A mother is the
sun, the sky, the water, the air, the love, the beauty, the life.
A woman is a power. She can be a leader, a president, a role-model. She can
be everything she wants. Thats what I wanted to prove through the medium of
my project. With the example of the American women and their evolution, I
wanted to show that to be a woman its not simple. A woman needs to be a
mother, a birth-giver, a power, a leader, a president, a teacher, a singer, a master,
a director, a writer, a fighter, a soldier, a footballer, someone who needs to care
about everything, the most responsible and humble human being. In one simple
word: art.
Earlier women were limited to home works only and not allowed to go
outside to perform social works like men. But things are getting changed now;
women are being aware of their rights and understanding well the dominating
nature of men over their whole life. I am not a feminist. I feel so in love with the
relationships between people, with how people interact and build a life together.
I love every single person on this Earth, man or woman, child or elder. But at
this moment, I am very interested about evolution. About the evolution of
women and about how can we continue this beautiful and interesting evolution.
Anas Nin said: I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my
strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage
or my toughness, who does not believe me nave or innocent, who has the
courage to treat me like a woman.
We need to treat the woman like a woman. Treat her like art, like a mother,
like a power, like a leader, like the most humble human being.

5.3: Are women still developing or the top and apogee of their
evolution was in the 20th century?

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Its not a secret that in the 20th century, women became more aware of who
they are. It was by that time when women started fighting more and more for
their rights and for equality between sexes. Thats what my project is about.
About evolution of women in the 20th century. I have chosen the best example of
evolution and power: the American woman.
Still, I wanted to find out if the process of evolution of the women is still that
powerful and profound. Or, in a society where we, as women, dont really have
to fight for equality and for the right of being a director, a president, a builder or
a driver, even for the simple right of being who you want to be ( as a woman), as
they still do in India or as our grand-grand mothers used to fight for, we forgot
that we need to evaluate. That we need to demonstrate and to give a proof that
women are still a power, and that their power is getting bigger every single day,
with every single generation.

The fight of the centuries.

40+

26-40 years old

18-25 years old

13-17 years old

As we can see on the chart, people have different opinions, depending on their
age. But, lets see the total results, without looking at the age.
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Result
5%

This generation of women

is not evoluating. They
don't know what a woman
is.
The top was in the 20th
century, but they still
continue that process

48%
48%

Women are still developing

and they show how great
and powerful they are
today

Only 5% told me that the actual generation of women is not evaluating and
developing, because they dont know what a real woman is. It was very
interesting for me to find out why?
Nowadays, girls tend to call themselves women, and thats sad. They grow
up, and they forget about the actual meaning of a woman. They smoke like
horses, they dont care about children, about people in general. They grow up
and they think that the whole world is at their feet. But its not like that. Nobody
fights anymore for that world. The world is not theirs, because you cant have
anything without work and desire. My mother fought for her family, for her
children, for her destiny. I never saw her complaining because of her eyebrows
or about the way she looked. She never complained because my father didnt
buy her flowers, or because she didnt receive new clothes for Christmas. She
was a woman. She knew what she wanted. She never wanted clothes, or
cigarettes, or flowers, or defined eyebrows. She didnt want to impress. She
wanted to raise her children right, to be an example, to read. She followed her
heart. What a beautiful heart she had..
Mo Ilie 67 years old
Mo Ilies opinion made me cry. Its sad that older people have such a bad
opinion about the young generation of women. But in fact, thats not such a
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misshapen opinion.In his own way, Mo Ilie is right. Many girls grow up
without knowing what they really want, in order to be happy. They know what
they want in order to look happy, to impress. They forget about being a woman.
I am still a young girl, but I know that a woman is what I want to be. I want to
evaluate, to show that your gender, color or height doesnt matter. I want to
show that Charlotte Perkins Gilman exists in everyone of us. I want us to never
forget, as the new generation of women, that Margaret Sanger was not only an
activist, nurse, and sometimes controversial writer. She was a woman.
Women play a great role in the growth and development of the society and
making it an advanced and modern society. There is a famous saying by the
Brigham Young that, You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a
woman; you educate a generation. Educating and giving power to the women is
of great importance which needs to be followed in the society to bring women
empowerment and development of society. Because it is true that, if a man is
getting educated and empowered,
only he can be benefitted however if
a woman is getting educated and
empowered, whole family and society
can be benefitted.

Women are the most important

audience for changing the
world.
Women proved their importance during centuries. In the 20th century, the
American woman tried so hard to prove who she is, what she really wants, that
she changed the whole world. They changed the national and international
opinion about women. They created who we are today, as women.

I believe that the top of women development was in the 20th century, but I truly
understand that our future is in our hands and that we can become the next role
models. I want to be an example for my future children. I want to be a powerful
woman and who know, a leader in my community.
Mihaela 15 years old
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Conclusion.
I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you
are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your
claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and
experience.
Charlotte Bront, Jane Eyre
As I said in the beginning, women have substantially expanded their political
roles and legal standing, pushed steadily and boldly into the labor force,
broadened their access to education, and greatly altered their social and family
roles.
My project provided a broad, balanced, systematic analysis of the
transformations in womens lives thus far in the twentieth century. Several
features stand out. Access to education is seen as prerequisite to expanding
womens perspectives and providing women from all backgrounds with the
skills and self-assurance required to undertake expanded political, economic,
and social roles outside the home. Through my paper, I tried to find the answers
to some very actual questions. For us, a woman that is a president, a director or a
footballer its not a big surprise, but for women in India or Africa, that is a
dream.
I answered to some of the most important questions for me at the moment, as
a future woman. But all of those questions are important not only for me, but for
the society also. I want my classmates, my friends and all the people who are
going to read my paper and my research, to understand how difficult it was for
the women to prove who they are. It was a difficult, long and complex process,
but the results are amazing. I wanted to show that being a woman is an art. An
art with a history, with a present and with a wonderful future.
We are the future. I wanted to give an example. The best example of a real
woman. An example of beautiful evolution, hard work and determination. For
me, the best example is the American woman, and I told already why, during the
first part of my research. I admire them. They are powerful, and we need to be as
or even more powerful. They didnt have role models. They became one. We
have many examples and role models and beautiful, keen, humble, forceful and
active women.
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Lets go back to the 1940s when, for the first time, women left the home for
the workplace in unprecedented numbers in response to the labor shortage
created when many men went off to war. In many ways, women have never
looked back. They fought and now, we are proud to say that we are women.
Thats why, we still need to develop and we should never stop showing who we
are, what we want to give to this world. American Women of the 20th century
need to be a model of strength for us!
I have chosen this topic not because I think that women are better (and I
dont, I just believe in equality), but because I wanted to show the real side of
the evolution of women. We are a product of a hard process.
We need to know the history, in order to build a bright future. With history
and amazing personalities, I tried to tie the present with the past, in order to give
us a perspective of the future. I hope that the answers of my research will
provide a good view and outlook for everyone. I want men to love women more,
I want children to thank their mothers
more. I want the society to be more openminded towards people. I want those
women who fought for womens rights
never to be forgotten. I want us to be the
next generation of women who are going
to become a role model, and example and
an inspiration.
How often do you thank them? Women. You can say it sarcastically,
reverently, apathetically. No matter how you say it, however, the word produces
an image. An image of a mother, a sister, a daughter. The woman must choose.
Does she want to be a fast food technician or a lawyer? She must be content
with her choice and be empowered with the knowledge that it was her choice,
and hers alone, whatever factors she took into consideration when deciding it.
Further, society should value that choice as well, understanding that the decision
was not made lightly. Society should express that by offering all citizens a
living wage that is dependent on the task being performed and the ability of the
person to perform the task. If it does not, it is the responsibility of the citizen to
ask for it, even demand it. That is the only way to make it a reality. Women are
important to society. In the workforce and in the home. So we have to make the
right choice. Remember about the American Women in the 20th century.
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References.
Eleanor Flexner, 1959, Century of Struggle
Sheryl Sandberg, 2013, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Elaine Tyler May, 2011, America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and
Liberation
Ruth Milkman, 1987, Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by
Sex During World War II
www. educatingwomen.org
www. women.govt.nz

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