Group 2 Presentation Summary 09/26/13:

Lisa Chavis, Mahrukh Khan, Sima Kalam, Lakisha Hassell

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Domestication of Women

Changes from 15th through 18th Centuries:

Women in the North began to have more freedom and more of an education due to a break from Catholicism. This move increased women's participation in the visual arts.  Although women get some level of advancement, they are still relegated to the home. Paintings of women are showing them engrossed in task such as sowing, lace-making, and spinning. A virtuous woman will do her domestic work and this is what makes her happy and content. Women at this time are not being depicted for their beauty but simply as the keepers of the domestic sphere.

The emerging middle class in America after WWII reinforced the domestication of women. Advertisement in the 1950's depicted women as happy housewives and success was equivalent to her having things to make the home perfect. These images were mostly used as American propaganda during the "Cold War" and showed the "horror" in the lives of Russian women.  These images were equivalent to the changes in Northern Europe because of the new "Mercantile class."  Establishing new wealth and prosperity which was once only available to the aristocracy.

The only reason some women would go to college was to find a suitable husband. Is this still relevant? Yes, even though there is access to education women still were told you must get a husband and take care of home. Women in the 16th, 17th, and the 18th centuries were challenged with expressing themselves in a patriarchal system that refused to grant merit to women's views.

Through different cultures there is one consistency the domestication of women.  Women all over the world are expected to be submissive to their fathers and then their husbands. From religious aspects to cultural differences, their is one constant the woman's place was the home. Her place is the private sphere, her duty is to take care of husband, house and children.

By the end of 18th century, women were increasingly able to speak out against injustices.
Equal Rights Movement: Then and Now.

Does society still hold the belief that women are meant to be domesticated or is it possible for women to work as an equal to men?